A Small-Town Homecoming
He’s wrong for her in every way, right? All architect Tess has ever wanted is to open her own design firm. So she’s thrilled when she wins a coveted waterfront project. She’s less thrilled to be working with rebellious contractor John Jameson Quinn! Tess doesn’t go for brooding bad boys – especially one who isn’t shy about going after what he wants. And he wants Tess. Never mind that he’s got a scandalous past to overcome and a daughter to raise.Quinn follows his own drumbeat. Only now Tess is starting to hear it too… Can they build a love to last?
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“I like a man who’s honest about his bad intentions.”
A corner of Quinn’s mouth tugged to the side in something that wasn’t quite a grin.
Something dangerous, something potent. “If I ever have any of those, I’ll be sure to let you know.”
“It’s a deal.”
Quinn lifted a hand to Tess’s sweater and ran his fingertips from button to button, along the opening.
“All right, then,” he said. And then he grew very still, as only he could do, and looked at Tess in that way that made everything in her aware of everything about him. Of his height, and his breadth, and his strength, and his ridiculous, impossible appeal.
Dear Reader,
One of my writer’s perks is having an excuse to daydream about things that interest me—I can always claim my woolgathering is productive when I weave various elements into the stories I tell. Since one of my interests is building design, I knew that eventually I’d create a character who works as an architect.
Tess Roussel in A Small-Town Homecoming is a woman accustomed to seeing her plans followed and her sketches become reality. I had a great time pairing her with Quinn, a man who is determined to build things his way. I’m sure you’ll enjoy the fun as this quietly intense hero rocks the self-assured heroine’s world to its foundations.
I’d love to hear from my readers! Please come for a visit to my website at www.terrymclaughlin.com, or find me at www.wetnoodleposse.com or www.superauthors.com, or write to me at PO Box 5838, Eureka, CA 95502, USA.
Wishing you happily-ever-after reading,
Terry McLaughlin
About the Author
TERRY McLAUGHLIN spent a dozen years teaching a variety of subjects, including anthropology, music appreciation, English, drafting, drama and history, to a variety of students from kindergarten to college before she discovered romance novels and fell in love with love stories. When she’s not reading or writing, she enjoys traveling and planning house and garden improvement projects. Terry lives with her husband in Northern California on a tiny ranch in the redwoods. Visit her at www.terrymclaughlin.com.
For the baristas at Gold Rush, who help keep me
going with smiles and Cold Snap Mochas.
CHAPTER ONE
TESS ROUSSEL sidled through her Main Street office doorway a quarter of an hour past the posted opening time. She maneuvered a stylish leather briefcase, two rolled elevation plans, an oversize clutch purse, a custard-filled maple bar and her triple-butterscotch latte past the jamb, but coffee slopped through the cup lid and splattered over her gray suede heels.
“Not again.” She inhaled April air smelling of last night’s special at the trattoria across the street and this morning’s catch on the docks two blocks over. And then she blew it out with a disgusted sigh. “Damn parking meters.”
Shoving the door closed with her hip, she flipped a row of light switches with an elbow. It wasn’t that she was too cheap to spend her work breaks feeding coins into one of the meters stationed along Main Street, although the daily expense competed with the cost of her favorite caffeinated beverages. And it wasn’t that she was too forgetful to deal with the meters’ payment schedule, especially after four parking tickets had forced her to devise an alarm system that could penetrate her deepest levels of concentration and summon her from her design work.
It was the principle of the thing. Potential customers shouldn’t have to pay for the privilege of popping into the Victorian-era storefronts crowding Carnelian Cove’s marina district. And the merchants shouldn’t have to pay for the convenience of parking near their own places of business. And she shouldn’t have to make the hike from the stingy public lot three long blocks down the street. And definitely not twice on such a drizzly morning, just because she had too much stuff to tote safely in one load. And not in these heels.
Although the shoes attached to the heels were simply fabulous.
Her stylish heels clicked across the scarred plank floor, echoing in the high-ceilinged space. Usually she enjoyed the ambience of her one-of-a-kind office—the subtle industrial spotlights punctuating the softer illumination of period fanlights, the brick side walls separating her office from the used bookstore on one side and the gardening boutique on the other, the touches of sharp black lines and bright red paint and delicate greenery. But this morning, in the fog-dimmed daylight trickling through the street-front bay windows, everything looked a little worn-out and washed-up.
Kind of like the way she’d be feeling if she let herself dwell too long on her problems. She dumped the briefcase, purse and elevations on her drafting table and scowled at today’s project: a contractor’s rough sketch for a bowling alley renovation she’d agreed to transform into a permit-ready plan. Not exactly the glamorous career she’d envisioned while slaving through her university design classes. And nothing like the exciting projects she’d worked on during her seven years with one of San Francisco’s most prestigious architectural firms.
