New York Times bestselling author Carla Neggers returns to her contemporary romance roots with a heartwarming tale of riches lost and found.
Beneath the surface lie the greatest treasures.
A wave of hope carries Olivia Frost back to her small New England hometown nestled in the beautiful Swift River Valley. Sheâs transforming a historic home into an idyllic getaway. Picturesque and perfect, if only the absentee owner will fix up the eyesore next door.â¦
Dylan McCaffreyâs ramshackle house is an inheritance he never counted on. It also holds the key to a generations-old lost treasure he canât resistâ¦any more than he can resist his new neighbor. Against this breathtaking landscape, Dylan and Olivia pursue long-buried secrets and discover a mystery wrapped in a love storyâ¦past and present.
Praise for the novels of
âReaders will be turning the pages so fast
their fingers will burn.⦠A winner!â âSusan Elizabeth Phillips on Betrayals
âWorth the wait. Well plotted, with Neggersâs trademark witty dialogue and
crackling sexual tension, this is a keeper.â âRT Book Reviews on The Whisper
âBrimming with Neggersâs usual flair
for creating likeable, believable characters⦠She delivers a colorful, well-spun story.â âPublishers Weekly on The Carriage House
âWell-drawn characters, complex plotting and plenty of wry humor are the hallmarks of Neggersâs books. Jo and Elijah are very well matched, and readers will root for their romance.â
âRT Book Reviews on Cold Pursuit
âA haunting romantic story.â
âBookreporter on The Widow
âShowcases the award-winning Ms. Neggersâs unique blend of quirky humor, sizzling romance and engrossing suspense, which combine to produce irresistibly entertaining novels.â
âRT Book Reviews on Finding You
One
Olivia Frost dribbled water from a measuring cup onto herb seedlings lined up in tiny pots on the windowsill above her kitchen sink. Parsley, dill, rosemary. The window looked out on the alley behind her Boston Back Bay apartment but received enough sunlight to grow a few herbs.
No sunlight today, she thought, setting the cup in the sink.
Just when New Englanders hoped they could put away their hats, gloves and boots, March had decided to turn into a lion again. The weather forecast promised the dreaded âwintry mixâ by early afternoon.
Olivia sighed at the fresh green of the herbs. She didnât hate winter but she was ready for spring. March had less than two weeks to turn into a lamb and usher in April showers and May flowers. She couldnât wait to drive out to the hills and quiet back roads of Knights Bridge, her out-of-the-way hometown west of Boston, and plant her herbs at the early nineteenth-century house sheâd bought last fall. The purchase had felt impulsive, but the owners, desperate to make a quick sale, had offered her a great deal. She had never been one for extravagant spending and kept her expenses as low as possible in Boston. Instead, she had saved her money and was able to snap up her historic house, as picturesque as her hometown itself.
Except for the eyesore just up the road, but that was a problem for another day.
She had enough problems for today.
âChallenges,â she said aloud, turning from the sink. âChallenges, not problems.â
She was already dressed for work, opting for a black skirt and blue merino sweater. Sheâd add what she needed to accommodate the weather, but she had a client lunchâa critical client lunchâand wanted to dress less casually than when she knew sheâd be holed up at her desk all day.
Sheâd been too keyed up to sit at the table for breakfast, instead downing coffee and a bowl of oatmeal with walnuts at the sink. She liked her apartment, even if it was small and overlooked an alley. When sheâd moved to the city five years ago, she had talked her landlord into letting her paint the walls and woodwork, choosing cozy, cheerful colorsâmisty-greens, rosy-pinks, summer- cloud whitesâto offset the dreary light. On her way home from work last night, sheâd picked up a dozen pink tulips and divided them between two glass pitchers and placed one on the kitchen table and the other on the dresser in her bedroom.
Tulips and herbs. Olivia smiled to herself. All would be well.
With a deep breath, she walked through the adjoining living room. The wood floor and her sofa were stacked with books on herbs, artisan soap-making, landscaping, old houses and painting furniture. All winter, she had half dreamed, half plotted how she could convert her historic house into a destination for weddings, showers, lunches and small one-day conferencesâeventually, perhaps, into an overnight getaway.