âYou have a son.â
Releasing Christopher, Ronnie slowly rose to her feet. âYes, I have a son.â
Cole frowned. âWhereâs his father?â
âHis father and I arenât together anymore,â she told him stoically.
âRan out on another one, did you?â
âI didnât run out on you,â she cried.
âNo? Then what would you have called it? Walking really fast?â he suggested sarcastically.
Putting her hands on Christopherâs shoulders protectively, she told Cole, âMaking the right decision for me.â
Cole took a breath, trying very hard not to let his imagination go. Trying not to think of her in someone elseâs arms. Making love with someone else.
Breaking loose, Christopher ran up to him just as he was about to get into his truck.
The little boy asked, âAre you a sheriff?â
âYes, Iâm a sheriff.â
Tension telegraphed itself throughout Ronnieâs body. Watching Cole interact with Christopher this way was causing all sorts of bittersweet feelings to go rampaging through her.
He doesnât realize heâs talking to his son⦠.
Dear Reader,
Itâs no secret that I love cowboys. A cowboy taught me how to speak English when I came to this country at the age of four. Okay, he wasnât a real cowboy, but John Wayne played cowboys with such flare. And, technically, he wasnât teaching me. He was acting and I was glued to the TV set.
I confess that I am not the rough-and-tumble type and I probably wouldnât have fared well in the Old West, but writing modern-day romances set in rural places allows me to indulge in all those wonderful childhood fantasies. I was a very progressive child. I never went through that âboys are ickyâ stage. Romances had a definite place in all the stories I would spin. Even back then, I knew that life without romance was only half a life at best. Both the hero and heroine of this book, Cole and Veronica, come to discover this despite their determination to do without that all-important ingredient. A lot they know.
As always, I thank you for reading my book and from the bottom of my heart, I wish you someone to love who loves you back.
Fondly,
Marie Ferrarella
Cole James blinked. As he did, he expected the image to fade away.
This wouldnât be the first time that his eyesâaided and abetted by his heartâhad played tricks on him.
In the beginning, when Veronica McCloud had initially left Redemptionâand himâa little more than six years ago, he kept seeing her all the time. Heâd see her walking down Main Street, or standing in line at the movie theater they used to go to regularly, or passing by the sheriffâs office which had, these last four years, all but become his second home.
He couldnât begin to count the number of times heâd thought he saw her peering in the window, a funny little half smile on her lips, the one that always used to make his heart stop. But when heâd bolt from his chair to chase after her, or run across the street in pursuit, ready to call out her name, heâd discover that it was someone else who just happened to look like Ronnie.
The worst times were when there turned out to be no one there at all, just his memory, torturing him.
Eventually, his âsightingsâ of Ronnie became less frequent. Whole days and then even whole weeks would go by without him even thinking that he saw Veronica McCloud, the woman who had, for all intents and purposes, tap-danced on his heart and then deliberately disappeared from his life six summers ago.
Sheriff Cole James frowned as he watched the woman across the street walking toward the wooden building in the middle of the block: Ed Haneyâs Livestock Feed Emporium.
She wasnât disappearing.
Instead, she looked as if she had every intention of walking into the store. Just like Ronnie used to when her dad sent her into town.
The funny thing about this particular mirage was that all the other times, when he thought he saw Ronnie, she looked pretty much the way she had that last night by the lake.
The night that would forever be imprinted on his soul.
Her golden-blond hair would be flowing loose about her shoulders, that soft, cream-colored cotton peasant blouse dipping down low, making him all but swallow his tongue.
Each and every time he thought he saw Ronnie, she would be that green-eyed hellion, part eternal female, part feisty tomboy. The woman who could instantly make him weak in the knees with just one look.
But this time, the mirageâRonnieâlooked different.
This time, she looked a lot like the picture sheâd once showed him of her late mother, Margaret, when sheâd been a young woman. The photograph was taken just after sheâd married Ronnieâs dad, Amos.