A Charmed Place (51 page)

"Scram," she said, laughing.

Maddie spent the next five minutes backing into the house and then through the kitchen, fielding guests like ping-pong balls. Suddenly everyone had something to say to her; but she didn't care. The single most important thing that she wanted to hear was that Daniel Hawke loved her, and the best way to hear that was in his arms.

But first, the alibi. She went into the upstairs bathroom, turned on the light and the fan, and stepped back out into the hall, closing the bathroom door behind her.

The door to their bedroom was already closed; she sneaked down the hall and tiptoed into the room like a burglar. She assumed that Dan would be naked and on the bed—he was reckless enough—and was surprised to see him, still dressed, standing at the gabled window and looking out. He had drawn the lace curtain aside and held it pinned to the window frame as he stared out at the distance.

"Hi there," she said, suddenly shy.

He glanced over his shoulder and gestured her over with a smile, then wrapped his free arm around her shoulder. "Look out there," he told her. "What do you see?"

"
I see roses, lots of them
... roofs
... and beyond them, the sea," said Maddie. "I see a strip of beach. I see—ah!—I see all that we hold dear."

Dan chuckled and said, "Look at her run
... well, you wouldn't really call it a run
... more like a bowlegged waddle
... but the sand is slowing her down. She'll be fleet as the wind someday."

"Couldn't you just squeeze her?" Maddie said, biting her lip through a grin. "How were we so incredibly lucky?"

"I don't know
... I don't know. Look at her chase after Tracey
.
God, she adores her. What's she going to do when Tracey goes off to college?" He turned to Maddie and said with a sudden, hapless look, "What're
we
going to do?"

Maddie said lightly, "The way I look at it, it's a wash. We gain some privacy; we lose a sitter."

He gave her a sideways, good-humored look. "Baloney, a wash. You're going to fall apart completely when she packs up for Cornell this fall."

Sighing, Maddie said, "I will—but not in front of her. I'm just too happy for her. Between the two girls, I don't know who's the greater miracle. Dan
... we're so incredibly lucky."

"I know
... I know. Isn'
t that Kevin throwing the Fris
bee?"

"Mm-hmm. He's signed up for the Coast Guard, did you know?"

"It's where he should be," Dan agreed.

"Mmm."

Arm in arm, they watched the scene on the beach in loving silence. Eventually Dan smiled and said softly, "Hey, dollin', it looks like our five minutes are up. We'd better get back to our guests."

He kissed her on the top of her head, but Maddie had other ideas. She lifted her face to his, fluttering her lashes closed, and said, "I love you, Dan Hawke. For everything, I love you." Her mouth parted for his kiss.

The lace curtain dropped back into place, casting crystals of sunlight on the cool white sheets of their bed.

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A Month at the Shore

"
An addictive, captivating story of love, family and trust.
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Romance Reviews Today

Laura Shore has fled her humble past on Cape Cod and made a name for herself on the opposite coast.  But when she returns and joins forces with her two siblings to try to save Shore Gardens, the failing family nursery, she finds that she hasn't left the past behind at all.  Kendall Barclay, the town's rich son and her childhood knight in shining armor, lives there still, and his hold over Laura is as strong as ever.  Like a true knight, he's attentive, courteous, and ready to help -- until a discovery is made that threatens the family, the nursery, and Laura's deepening relationship with him.

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Keepsake

"Deeply emotional … unforgettable"

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KEEPSAKE ... a postcard-perfect town in
Connecticut
. When stonemason Quinn Leary returns after seventeen years, he has one desire: to prove his father's innocence of a terrible crime committed when Quinn and Olivia Bennett, town princess, were high-school rivals. Class doesn't matter now but family loyalties do, and they're fierce enough to threaten the newfound passion between two equals.

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Safe Harbor

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Complex … fast-moving …humorous … tender"

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SAFE
HARBOR
. That's what
Martha's Vineyard
has always been for Holly Anderson, folk artist, dreamer and eternal optimist. If she could just afford to buy the house and barn she's renting, fall in love, marry the guy and then have children as sweet as her nieces, life would be pretty much perfect.

Poor Holly. She has so much to learn.

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Beloved

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Richly rewarding
… a novel to be savored
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A
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cottage by the sea: the inheritance is a dream come true for Jane Drew. Too bad it comes with a ghost —and a soulfully seductive neighbor who'd just as soon boot Jane off the island.

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Time After Time

USA Today bestselling novelist Antoinette Stockenberg grew up wanting be a cowgirl and have her own horse (her great-grandfather bred horses for the carriage trade back in the old country), but the geography just didn't work out: there weren't many ranches in
Chicago
. Her other, more doable dream was to write books, and after stints as secretary, programmer, teacher, grad student, boatyard hand, office manager and magazine writer (in that order), she achieved that goal, writing over a dozen novels, several of them with paranormal elements. One of them is the RITA award-winning EMILY'S GHOST.

Stockenberg's books have been published in a dozen languages and are often set in quaint
New England
harbor towns, always with a dose of humor. She writes about complex family relationships and the fallout that old, unearthed secrets can have on them. Sometimes there's an old murder. Sometimes there's an old ghost. Sometimes once-lovers find one another after half a lifetime apart.

Her work has been compared to writers as diverse as Barbara Freethy, Nora Roberts, LaVyrle Spencer and Mary Stewart by critics and authors alike, and her novels have appeared on bestseller lists in USA Today as well as the national bookstore chains. Her website features sample chapters, numerous reviews, many photos, and an
enchanting Christmas section.

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Antoinette Stockenberg

"
An addictive, captivating story of love, family and trust.
"

--
Romance Reviews Today

Laura Shore has fled her humble past on Cape Cod and made a name for herself on the opposite coast.  But when she returns and joins forces with her two siblings to try to save Shore Gardens, the failing family nursery, she finds that she hasn't left the past behind at all.  Kendall Barclay, the town's rich son and her childhood knight in shining armor, lives there still, and his hold over Laura is as strong as ever.  Like a true knight, he's attentive, courteous, and ready to help -- until a discovery is made that threatens the family, the nursery, and Laura's deepening relationship with him.

Prologue

The day after eighth-grade graduation was the best and worst of
Kendall
's life.

He was minding his own business, which happened to be tracking down a snowy owl that had been sighted in a woods just outside of town, when he heard boys' voices farther up the trail.

He was sorry to hear them. He didn't want to be caught with a pair of expensive binoculars around his neck and looking for birds, so he got back on his bike with every intention of leaving the way he had come: quietly. As he pedaled off, the voices got more shrill—whoops and yelps, the sounds of small-town kids on the warpath. He would be fair game for them, he knew from experience, so he picked up his pace.

And then he heard the scream. It was a girl's cry, frightened and angry at the same time, and it sent chills up his back and arms. He slammed on the brakes so violently that his bike skidded on the soft path and went out from under him, falling on top of him and scraping across his pale, thin legs.

He righted the bike, but his hands and legs were shaking as he mounted it again and set off in the direction of the scream. Part of him was hoping and praying that it was all just fooling around; but part of him knew better.

He found them in a clearing next to the trail where he knew kids liked to hang out drinking and smoking—and, he had always assumed, having sex. Four boys had a girl cornered.

She was standing in front of the campfire rocks. Ken couldn't see her very well because she was shielded by the four boys. They were practically shoulder to shoulder, but one pair of shoulders stood higher and broader than the rest: they belonged to Will Burton, the doctor's son, a bully who had squeezed more than one allowance out of Ken on a Friday afternoon. Will's younger, red-haired brother Dagger was there, too, and two other kids
that
Ken didn't recognize.