âIâm not sure whatâs going on here, Small Town, but something is,â Jared whispered.
Mara didnât answer him. She wasnât exactly sure how to answer him.
But she was sure of one thing â something was going on between them. Something that seemed outside them both. Bigger than them both. Stronger.
She just had to remind herself that in spite of what she felt, she was likely not to have more than this night with him.
And while she was reasonably sure that wasnât going to be enough for her in the long run, right now, in his arms, with their bodies moulded together, it was just about as good as it could get.
VICTORIA PADE
is a native of Colorado, where she continues to live and work. Her passion â besides writing â is chocolate, which she indulges in frequently and in every form. She loves romance novels and romantic movies â the more lighthearted, the better â but she likes a good, juicy mystery now and then, too.
Dear Reader,
This is a book about someone who has everything â more than everything â being shocked to discover that he needs to get a life. Jared Perry is superrich, superpowerful, supersexy, and even though he canât quite figure out why heâs suddenly feeling antsy, the last thing it would seem to be is that heâs missing anything. And then he meets Mara Pratt.
Mara Pratt is not only a plain and simple home town girl, but also sheâs from the home town Jared couldnât wait to get out of and never return to. How could she possibly be whatâs lacking in his enviable life? And yet when he returns to Northbridge, Montana, in order to meet his long-lost â and notorious â grandmother, he begins to find that life without Mara is pretty empty.
But in order to have Mara he must also accept the place she loves and has no intention of leaving. And face a grandfather heâs been at odds with for years.
Welcome home to Northbridge!
Victoria Pade
Chapter One
âIs that someone coming up the stairs? Now? At ten oâclock on a Sunday night? I donât believe these people!â
âIâll take care of it. Go on and do what you were going to do,â Mara Pratt advised the elderly woman as Mara stood to give her a hand, pulling her severely overweight body from a recliner.
âAre you sure?â
âPositive. Thatâs one of the reasons Iâm here, remember? To run interference for you,â Mara reminded.
Celeste Perry managed a tight, weary smile. âI donât know what I would have done without you this last week.â
âI donât know what I would have done without you for longer than that,â Mara countered.
Celeste gave Mara a warm hug and then pointed at Maraâs nose. âYou have a little flour smudge from making cookies.â
Mara brushed at the spot the older woman had brought to her attention. âGo. Get ready for bed. Tomorrow will be the roughest day yet and you need some rest. As soon as I send this reporterâor whoever it isâon their way, Iâll pour you a little brandy and you can wind down.â
The rotund woman nodded and disappeared around a corner of the small apartment the Pratt family owned and had rented to Celeste for decades.
Not that they had known they were renting it to the notorious Celeste Perry any more than theyâd known her true identity throughout all the years theyâd employed her at their dry cleaners. Theyâlike the rest of the people of Northbridge, Montanaâhad believed they were renting and giving work to a quiet, unassuming woman named Leslie Vance, a stranger new to town in 1970.
The solid, even thuds of steps coming up the outer stairs stopped about the time Mara heard Celesteâs bedroom door close. Then a knock sounded.
Wanting to make sure she wasnât too unpresentable if she had to open the door, Mara glanced into a mirror on the wall for a quick check as she called, âWho is it?â
âIâm here to see Celeste Perry,â a deep male voice called back.
That was hardly a revelation. As the woman who hadâin 1960, after a bank robbery that had rocked the small communityâleft her two sons and her husband to run off with one of the robbers, Celeste was in high demand.
âThat doesnât tell me who you are,â Mara said, double-checking for any other problems with her appearance.
Earlier in the week sheâd been caught off guard by a reporter and photographer at the door and had ended up with an unflattering picture splashed all over town. Not wanting that repeated, she made sure her shoulder-length, cocoa-colored hair was neatly tucked behind her ears and that blush still highlighted her reasonably high cheekbones. She wished that she at least had gloss on lips she thought needed to be a bit fuller, and she noted that, while her straight, thin nose was now unfloured, there was a tiny shadow of mascara beneath one navy blue eye. She ran a fingertip under her lashes to wipe it away and decided that was as good as it was going to get.
âIâd rather not announce my name from out here,â the deep voice answered tightly.
Suspicious, Mara moved from the mirror and went to the door. She wasnât about to open it, however, without some information. If the man outside wasâlike Mara, her siblings and a large portion of the citizens of Northbridgeâa supporter of Celeste, it might be okay. But if the visitor was someone who condemned Celeste, or one of the many reporters hounding her for interviews, it could be dicier. So, without knowing who was outside now, Mara wasnât opening that door.