Heartstealer (Women of Character3
Read Heartstealer (Women of Character3 Online
Authors: Grace Brannigan
Heartstealer
Women of Character Contemporary
Series
Women of Strength Time Travel
Series
Romantic Short Stories
Deception
(a touch of suspense)
All Characters, places and events
are fictitious and are not associated or inspired by any person living or dead.
Heartstealer
Cover Art By: Stephanie White of
Steph’s Cover Design: paranormal, fantasy, horror & more
By Grace Brannigan
Copyright 2012 Elaine
Warfield
ISBN: 978-0-9801108-3-8
License Notes
All rights reserved. This book is protected under the
copyright laws of the United States of America. No part of this book may be
reproduced by any means whatsoever, mechanical, photographic, electronic or in
the form of an audio recording or stored in a retrieval system, transmitted or
otherwise be copied for public or private use―other than for brief
quotations in articles and reviews without prior written consent from the
publisher Questor Books.
Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Happy reading!
About
Heartstealer
Jacie Turner, a professional stuntwoman, is afraid she's
lost her edge. Following an aerial stunt gone wrong and then her fiancé
running out on her, she's determined to restore her pride and her life.
Needing time away from well-meaning family, she accepts a
skydiving job at Timber Falls in the Catskill Mountains. When Jacie meets one
of the resort owners Sloan Wright, sparks fly. He is a man who will tempt her,
love her and possibly change her forever.
Sloan recognizes fun loving Jacie as the type of woman who
could disrupt his well ordered life, if he allowed it. As they get to know each
other, he delves into Jacie's past while she begins to peel away the layers
that keep him locked behind a wall of reserve. If they can trust who they
really are, then the future holds unlimited possibilities.
When accidents begin to plague the resort, they have to work
quickly to solve the deepening mystery before the consequences become fatal.
Table of Contents
Excerpt Wishing on a Rodeo Moon
Two Babies, a Cowboy and Sara:
Chapter One
§
Jacie’s stomach churned as
she stared at the ground two thousand feet below. What insanity made her put
herself through this punishment―just to prove she wasn’t washed up
as a stunt woman?
"Just do it," she
muttered. "You've done it thousands of times before. Get your foot out the
door and jump."
Automatically, she ran her fingers
over her knee support and then the pull ring on her parachute harness. Lastly,
she braced the toes of her boots against the door lip.
She had to jump. Skydiving was her
life. It had always defined who she was; a member of her family’s
business, Aerial Antics. Her brother Con would pull her off this job if he
thought she wasn’t ready. She couldn’t go home with her tail
between her legs. Her family would try to put her back in cotton wool. Again.
How long did she have to pay for
one dumb mistake―two―if she counted the one she’d made
thinking Brad loved her.
With a low growl of impatience, she
stepped out and an updraft pulled her up and away from the plane. As she
plunged downward, a flashback to her parachuting accident thirteen months ago
at Angel Falls came dangerously close. She could see again that mountainous
ledge of rock, nothing but water and uninhabited jungle below her, the glorious
release as she began her freefall, and then her parachute failure. . ..
Her chute opened. Years of training
took over and the tightness eased inside her chest. Of course she could do
this, she’d been jumping far too long to stop now.
As the ground drew closer she
pulled the shroud lines of her chute, spilling air to control her landing.
Clustered dots took on the shapes
of people. A lone figure with a cowboy hat stood apart from the rest. An imp of
mischief surfaced in Jacie. She’d alter her landing slightly and land
near the guy with the cowboy hat.
As her feet touched solid earth a
gust of wind lifted and pulled her forward, past the camera crews, past the
gathered crowd. She caught a glimpse of surprised faces and then she came to a
dead stop as her body lightly impacted with another. She had a fleeting
impression of a hat flying through the air and they both fell to the ground in
a tangle of arms, legs and billowing parachute.
Arms closed around her and held
tight. She squeezed her eyes shut and pressed her forehead into a hard chest.
Spicy cologne tantalized her nostrils.
When the rest of her senses kicked
in she was amazed to find she lay straddled atop a very male body. Hard chest
and long, long legs. The cowboy.
"I guess I came a tad too
close to my mark," she managed, barely suppressing her laughter. His arms
were like hard bands around her back. She stayed unmoving against a soft shirt,
her nose pressed into a dusting of nose-tickling hair. Scents mingled. Horse
and leather, that subtle touch of man.
The flapping of her parachute
forced her to stop thinking about the body beneath her. She opened her eyes.
Her blue and purple chute swept upward, then gently settled to cover them in a
cocoon.
"Can I help you, ma'am?"
drawled a deep, amused voice in her ear. The hard body beneath her had a
sexy-as-all-get out voice to go with it.
Her body did a head to toe shiver.
"I think you’ve already helped me land." She levered her body
upward. "It seems a shame to move," she added, but peeled herself
from that broad chest partially covered by blue cotton. The impact must have
torn his buttons loose, because the shirt gaped open. She stared at his flat
stomach and then down to his hair dusted navel. They weren't buttons on his
shirt, they were snaps.
Jacie studied the wide shoulders,
square chin and slightly curved mouth. Lazily she moved on to lean, tanned
features. His expression showed tolerance, amusement, interest . . . then a
guarded look dropped as hard blue eyes stared at her. Well, it had been
interesting until he got that guarded look on his face.
His arms were now straight out on
the ground. A soft sound escaped her lips, but no words. Oh dear. She tried
again. "S-sorry . . . " she managed faintly, trying not to laugh
again. "What an embarrassing first impression this is turning out to
be!" He didn’t look amused now, but kind of stiff and probably too
much of a gentleman to tell her to get off him. "I hope I didn’t
hurt you when I caught you," she said apologetically. "Actually, I
guess you caught me." Literally. She suddenly realized her knee was in a
rather delicate area.
"It's not every day I can lay
claim to stopping a runaway female," the man professed, blue eyes framed
by the blackest of lashes.
"Not exactly a runaway,"
she admitted, tilting her head and grinning widely. "Though it looks like
I've made a slight miscalculation in my landing."
He swept his arm up to catch the
folds of the parachute and began to pull it off them.
Jacie let her glance linger on his
mouth and a barely noticeable dimple. A jolt of sexual awareness hit her. She
immediately stifled it, gulping back a groan. The man shifted his legs and
sensation rocked her. He was all hard muscles and long limbs. After Brad,
she’d vowed no men. . .no way. But for a moment as her glance lingered on
a rock hard jaw and wide shoulders, that vow felt about as substantial as fairy
dust. The hell with Brad.
She rolled sideways and off him as
he fully released them from the parachute's silky folds.
"Aren’t you supposed to
take wind shifts into consideration when doing a jump?" he asked. He sat
up and dusted off his pants. His legs were encased in snug-fitting denims as
faded as his shirt and he had well worn cowboy boots on his feet. He stood over
her as he pulled off his gloves and stuffed them in a back pocket. Jacie
measured his height against hers. Six three, maybe four to her five feet seven
inches.
"Of course I take the wind
into consideration." She told herself to focus, but it became impossible
when his gaping shirt offered tantalizing glimpses of a man in superb physical
shape. She tried to ignore the attraction nipping at her but for the moment
gave it up as a losing battle.
His look turned questioning as he
proceeded to snap his shirt. "Then you changed your target?" he asked
with a hint of impatience.
"Guilty." She lifted her
shoulders, thinking he looked like a man who had no time for nonsense.
"Seemed like a good idea at the time." She didn’t tell him
he’d presented a challenge, standing off by himself like that, as if he wasn’t
impressed with her skydiving into the resort.
He did look pretty unimpressed. In
fact, she guessed that right about now he was wondering who the fool was that
had hired her to skydive into Timber Falls. Natural curiosity prompted her to
ask, "Are you a guest at the ranch?"
"No." He looked past her
toward the small crowd who had gathered for the jump. "Here come the
others." With concern he quickly glanced up and down her scarlet jumpsuit.
"You landed pretty hard, are you okay?"
Jacie saw him zero in on the knee
support and then felt his sharp glance move up to her neck.
"You’ve hurt
yourself," he added, reaching out a hand toward her.
She didn’t wait to see if he
would actually touch her neck but jerked her head back. "I'm fine,"
she said briskly. "The mark on my neck is old." She reached over to
pick up a black cowboy hat on the ground. The shaped brim felt smooth under her
fingertips. "Yours?"
"Yeah." He took it and
held out his other hand to her. She let him pull her up and they stared at each
other, each taking the other’s measure. Jacie admitted she liked what she
saw.
She stepped back. He put his hat
on, tipping the brim forward the slightest bit, virtually hiding his eyes from
her.
"Sloan." He shook her
hand. "Welcome to the Catskills and Timber Falls."
"Thanks. Jacie Turner."
She felt a measure of disgust when her voice came out breathless. She pulled at
her sleeves and adjusted them. Men didn’t usually make her nervous.
"Yeah, I know," he said.
That made her pause in buttoning
her sleeve. "And do I know you?"
"Nope. My brother hired
you." He began to roll her chute, his movements swift and efficient.
"Come on, we might as well see if that jump will satisfy the
experts."
Jacie’s leg muscles tensed.
Back to business. She chewed her lip thoughtfully, knowing the jump
hadn’t been one of her better ones. "Your brother is James Wright?
He was my contact for this job. Who are the experts?" she asked curiously.
"Sounds like you’re not lumping yourself in that category."
"James is my brother. He and
his advertising agency are the experts." He threw her a serious look from
under dark brows. "I didn’t order a skydiving act. I think word of
mouth is enough to put this place on the map."
She opened her eyes wide.
"Whoa, okay, I get the picture that this wasn’t your idea." She
unclipped her harness and released the snap on her tight-fitting cap. "But
since your brother owns Timber Falls, he’s the one I answer to."
Sloan’s blue eyes were
intense as they settled on her, yet a slight hint of amusement lurked there.
"Sorry to disappoint you, but we both own Timber Falls."
"Oh." A course of goose
bumps raced along her arms under the jumpsuit. She gave him a full smile. That
meant he’d be here her entire stay. There was something about him that
rattled her just a bit. "Then you’re my employer too. You know I'm
staying here the month of August?"