The Pretender
Struggling actress Abigail Lindgren feels it's her duty to notify her roommate's family of Sunny's murder. Problem is, a tangled web including lies, a reclusive grandfather and an inheritance makes things more than complicated.Impersonating Sunny in the mountains of California–just for a while–is part of the plan. Getting tangled up with sexy rancher Sage Rivera is not.Sage stands to lose it all. He doesn't need an attachment to Sunny or her well-kept secrets. He can't shake the feeling she's hiding something big. But she needs a protector, a friend, a lover to give her the passion she's been missing…and he decides he's the only man for the job.
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Whatâs one little white lie?
Struggling actress Abigail Lingren feels itâs her duty to notify her roommateâs family of Sunnyâs murder. Problem is, a tangled web including lies, a reclusive grandfather and an inheritance makes things more than complicated. Impersonating Sunny in the mountains of Californiaâjust for a whileâis part of the plan. Getting tangled up with sexy rancher Sage Rivera is not.
Sage stands to lose it all. He doesnât need an attachment to Sunny or her well-kept secrets. He canât shake the feeling sheâs hiding something big. But she needs a protector, a friend, a lover to give her the passion sheâs been missingâ¦and he decides heâs the only man for the job.
It had been a good day, he thought.
And at least for the most part, heâd managed to keep his hands off Samâs granddaughter.
He hadnât counted on Sunny all of a sudden turning to him and throwing her arms around his neck.
âThank you,â she whispered.
âReally?â he croaked, brilliantly. Which was about when it occurred to him where his own arms were and what they were doing.
âReally,â she murmured. She was touching his face⦠Her hand lay softly along his jaw.
He looked back at her and knew he would kiss her now. And knew it was right and inevitable, and that it didnât matter if heâd only known her a couple of daysâdidnât know her at all, in factâand she was Sam Maloneâs granddaughter and heir. Kissing her seemed like the most natural thing in the world to doâ¦like taking his next breath.
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Dear Reader,
Welcome once again to June Canyon Ranch in the beautiful southern Sierra Nevada Mountains of California, where eccentric and reclusive billionaire âSierraâ Sam Malone continues to try to form the elusive bonds of family that have eluded him for most of his nearly one hundred years. This is the second book in the series The Scandals of Sierra Malone. It should have been Sunnyâs story, but as you will see, it isnât really hers after all.
When I first began writing this book, I thought it was about choices, those that, whether easy or difficult, for better or for worse, shape the pathways of our lives. But as time went by, I began to realize it was about family, and roots, and what it means to a child to grow up surrounded by love and acceptanceâ¦or without it. Of course, families come in all shapes and sizes, and if you are lucky enough to have one, no matter how ungainly or embarrassing or eccentric it may be, I hope you will say a little prayer of thanksgivingâ¦and perhaps also ask for the patience to put up with them, the strength to forgive them, and the wisdom to appreciate all theyâve given you.
Kathleen Creighton
KATHLEEN CREIGHTON
has roots deep in the California soil but has relocated to South Carolina. As a child, she enjoyed listening to old-timersâ tales, and her fascination with the past only deepened as she grew older. Today, she is interested in everythingâart, music, gardening, zoology, anthropology and historyâbut people are at the top of her list. She also has a lifelong passion for writing, and now combines all her loves in romance novels.
For My Family,
(which has turned out to be even more far-flung and eclectic than I could have imagined),
but especially for those members of it who would never dream of living anywhere else but in the Kern River Valley.
Contents
Prologue
From the memoirs of Sierra Sam Malone:
I never thought I would live so long. For the fact that I have done so I must give credit to the Man Upstairs, I suppose, but also to three beautiful women, all of whom loved me a damn sight more than I deserved. Lord knows I never did right by any of them, but maybe there is still time before I die to make up for some of the wrong I did. I sure do mean to try.
Telling the storyâthe whole truthâwell, I reckon thatâs as good a place to start as any.
That day outside of Barstow when the railroad bulls beat me senseless and threw me off the train and left me to die in the desert wasnât the first time Death came for me and went away empty-handed. Not the first time, but I thought sure it was the last, and my last day on earth before Iâd reached the ripe age of eighteen.
For some reasonâinstinct, I reckon, or Divine Guidance, or maybe it was just because, being a mountain boy born and bred from the green hills of West Virginia, I had no wish to die in the desertâand so I didnât try to follow the tracks back to Barstow but instead kept stumbling my dogged way toward the mountains I could see off in the distance. Could just as well have been a mirage, but it wasnât. It was mountains, real ones, and something in me told me there might be water there, somewhere.
Wellâ¦there was water, and I donât know what led me to find it, hidden deep in the gold mine that belonged to a sweet bit of a girl named Elizabeth. (Iâd say it was the Hand of God that guided me, but I canât for the life of me think why the Good Lord would bother to save the miserable life of the likes of me, Sam Malone. That is a mystery Iâve not been able to figure out to this day.) But find it I did, and with it the greatest treasure any man could wish for.
