Wishes At First Light
Starting over, one wish at a time…Gabriella Chance has devoted her life to helping others overcome traumatic events. Now it’s her turn. Gabby's come home to Heartache, Tennessee, to finally face her past. She finds solace in an unlikely ally, her high school crush, Clayton Travers. But while Clay wants to be Gabby’s refuge, he’s returned to Heartache to face his own demons. With so many painful secrets in their past, can they hope to wish for a happy future…together?
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Starting over, one wish at a time...
Gabriella Chance has devoted her life to helping others overcome traumatic events. Now itâs her turn. Gabbyâs come home to Heartache, Tennessee, to finally face her past. She finds solace in an unlikely ally, her high school crush, Clayton Travers. But while Clay wants to be Gabbyâs refuge, heâs returned to Heartache to confront his own demons. With so many painful secrets in their past, can they hope to wish for a happy future...together?
âIs there anything I can do for you to make this easier?â
Gabby locked on his gaze, taking comfort in knowing he was there for her. With her. Holding his hand made the years theyâd been apart disappear. Made all the unsettling nightmares that she was about to face in that courtroom fade in significance.
It was just her and Clay. The guy whoâd always had a way of making her feel special.
The words leaped out before she had a chance to measure them, a true wish from her heart: âJust keep holding my hand...â
Welcome back! Iâve been eager to share the next story in the Heartache, TN series with you. It seems that once I started pulling at a thread in this townâuncovering the awful things a local villain had done over the yearsâI discovered a lot of people hurting because of it.
Gabriella Chance thinks she has a good handle on her past, and her efforts with a website for victims of cyberbullying have been healing for a lot of people. But when she returns to her hometown for the trial of the man who hurt her, she runs into someone else who has another sort of claim to her past: a man she never forgot.
Clayton Travers would have never returned to Heartache if not for the news of his half sister, but as soon as Mia is settled with a new foster family, heâll gladly put small-town Tennessee in his rearview mirror. Gabriella Chance is an unexpected reason to stick around, but a sizzling attraction might not be enough to overcome their different views about whatâs best for his troubled teen sibling.
Happy reading,
Joanne Rock
Four-time RITA® Award nominee JOANNE ROCK has penned over seventy stories for Harlequin. An optimist by nature and perpetual seeker of silver linings, Joanne finds romance fits her life outlook perfectlyâlove is worth fighting for. A former Golden Heart® Award recipient, she has won numerous awards for her stories. Learn more about Joanneâs imaginative Muse by visiting her website, www.joannerock.com, or following @joannerock6 on Twitter.
For Bernice and Ernie Rock, the most wonderful in-laws I could have ever imagined.
Thank you for treating me like family from the very first time I sat down at your dinner table as Deanâs girlfriend. Little did I know back then how much I would come to look forward to those meals and evenings spent at your house for many years to come.
When I count the reasons Iâve been blessed in life, you are always on my list.
Contents
THERE SHOULD BE a limit on the number of times the same dream could haunt her.
Even knowing she was dreaming didnât rob the memories of their power as they flickered to life behind Gabriella Chanceâs closed eyes again. Each image burning. Hurting. Opening old wounds that had never healed.
The day unfolding in her mind was so familiar by now, every moment etched in her memory. How many times had she dropped into that buttery leather office chair in front of her fatherâs big desktop computer in the house where sheâd grown up? How many more times would she secretly open a chat window to talk to the boy she had a crush on, the thrill of doing something forbidden giving her almost as much pleasure as imagining Clayton Travers on the other end of the chat window?
Been thinking about me?
In the dream, she typed the words one key at a time, mindful of her older brotherâs best friend nearby. Samuel Reyes seemed far older than his seventeen years. He was Mr. Responsible, and determined not to let her have any fun, somehow deciding to be her watchdog anytime her older brother wasnât around. So Gabby typed quietly and quickly when Sam wasnât looking, desperate for company from a boy who would gaze at her with heat in his brown eyes.
Clayton.
The messaging program lit up with a new icon as a response popped up.
Youâre all I think about.
The butterflies in her stomach went crazy. Wings fluttered at hyper-speed, her nerve endings jumping to life at the thought of Clayton sitting in his foster familyâs den, thinking about her. Usually he wasnât on the computer at the same time as she was, so there would be a delay in their chats. But tonight it was like he was sitting there just waiting for her to type something.
