Kiss the Moon
Lost in the frozen woods of New Hampshire, Penelope Chestnut discovers the wreckage of a small plane. An aviator herself, she sees clues to a conspiracy in the rusted-out remains.Rumors of her discovery bring Wyatt Sinclair to Cold Spring, determined to put to rest a family scandal and learn what really happened to his legendary uncle, who had disappeared with his adventuress lover years earlier.As Wyatt and Penelope investigate, old motives are uncovered and new ones created, including a growing attraction between the pair. But when an unknown enemy emerges with a violence rooted in desperation, uncovering the truth will be far less problematic than surviving it.
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Praise for the novels of Carla Neggers
“No one does romantic suspense better!”
—Janet Evanovich
“Worth the wait. Well plotted, with Neggers’ trademark witty dialogue and crackling sexual tension, this is a keeper.”
—RT Book Reviews on The Whisper
“Suspense, romance and the rocky Maine coast… The Harbor has it all. Carla Neggers writes a story so vivid you can smell the salt air and feel the mist on your skin.”
—Tess Gerritsen
“A believable, gripping story that will keep armchair sleuths guessing… Here is intelligent writing that remains highly entertaining.”
—Publishers Weekly on Betrayals
“Neggers’ trademark use of atmospheric mood and setting, including the mist of the title itself, comes front and center. What she’s done is add aspects of the high-action thriller to traditional romantic suspense, combining the best of both in creating a genre all her own. Flat-out great.”
—Providence Journal on The Mist
“Well-drawn characters, complex plotting and plenty of wry humor are the hallmarks of Neggers’ books.”
—RT Book Reviews
“When it comes to romance, adventure and suspense, nobody delivers like Carla Neggers.”
—Jayne Ann Krentz
Dear Reader,
Whenever I think about Kiss the Moon, I can feel early spring in northern New England, with its lengthening days, maple-sugaring and end of “cabin fever.” It’s the perfect time of year to set a story about an adventurous woman who discovers the wreckage of a long-missing private plane and a mystery that’s anything but forgotten.
Many of you have asked when Kiss the Moon will be available again—it’s great to see it back in print! I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. If you’re ever in New Hampshire, be sure to visit the lakes region! We go there often, first having visited as a child when my family joined friends on a small island in beautiful, crystal-clear Lake Winnipesaukee.
Next up for me is the paperback edition of The Whisper, due out in paperback this July. It’s the fourth book in my loosely connected series about Boston detectives, FBI agents, spies and experts in Irish archaeology and folklore. The Widow, The Angel and The Mist are all available now in paperback. In The Whisper, Cyrus “Scoop” Wisdom takes center stage when a Celtic archaeologist looks him up, convinced that the bomb that almost killed him is connected to the night she was left for dead in a remote Irish cave.
In the meantime, I’m hard at work on a new book. For all the details, please visit my website and sign up for my newsletter.
Thanks, and happy reading!
Carla
P.O. Box 826
Quechee VT 05059
www.CarlaNeggers.com
To Kate and Zachary
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Prologue
Frannie Beaudine had the intelligence of a Katharine Hepburn and the sexiness of a Marilyn Monroe, and he couldn’t believe she was his. That such a woman had fallen for him, Colt Sinclair, a skinny twenty-one-year-old, filled him with a pride and contentment he’d never known.
She paced in front of the tall windows of his family’s sprawling apartment on Central Park, Manhattan glittering at her feet. Her long, dark hair was swept into an elegant twist, and she wore diamond studs at her ears—fake diamonds, for she couldn’t afford real ones. She’d even borrowed her gown, a swirl of black velvet that barely contained her breasts. Her lips and nails were painted a deep red, sexy, vibrant.
Colt said nothing about the thrill he felt just watching her. Complimenting her appearance would only irritate her, add to her already heightened state of impatience. Frannie despised being beautiful. She believed it distracted people from noticing her other attributes—her skills as a pilot and art historian, her independence, her spirit of adventure. She wanted everything, she’d told Colt last summer in New Hampshire, when she still regarded him as a gawky Dartmouth graduate, a pampered rich boy. She was already something of a legend in her hometown, a poor girl from the hills who’d become an accomplished and daring pilot while simultaneously studying art history, not at a college, not with a tutor, but on her own, at the public library.
Colt, who’d been born with the “everything” Frannie wanted, knew she would get her wish. But he also knew her beauty wouldn’t be a hindrance, it would be an asset. And it was.
She’d asked him to fly tonight. Just six weeks ago she’d seemed so remote and unattainable. He fell short as a Sinclair. His father had told him as much less than an hour ago.
But now he was with Frannie, and all things were possible.
Her eyes, a deep, almost navy blue, were vivid, shining as they focused on him, and she stopped pacing just for an instant. He could feel her urgency. “You’re sure there won’t be a problem with the plane?”
