Under An Adirondack Sky

Can he juggle everything...including her?

After raising his siblings and running the family pub for more than a decade, Aiden Walsh has set his own dreams aside. Until the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen stumbles into his bar, and his arms. Too bad Rebecca Day is the school psychologist in charge of his brother’s future. Who’s he kidding? He doesn’t have room in his full life for romance anyway. But forced to join Rebecca and her group of troubled teens on an Adirondack retreat, he realizes keeping his family afloat isn’t enough for him...not by a long shot.

“I don’t want to like you.”

Rebecca peeked up at Aiden. The air seemed to crackle between them, as if charged by an electric current.

“Me neither,” he said.

“Nothing can come of this,” she told him.

“Probably not.”

“I can’t be last on your priority list.”

“And I don’t have room to add you.” He raked a hand through his hair and released a shaky breath. “Back to reality. The one where we’re wrong for each other. Where none of this—where we don’t work.”

He turned on his heel and trudged away.

If they were so wrong for each other, why did it feel so right?

Dear Reader,

Before I became a full-time writer, I was fortunate to work as an educator. One of my favorite parts of the job was interacting with at-risk youth. These students tend to be the most resistant, the most likely to act out and disrupt and the least likely to pay attention or participate. I chose to focus on their potential rather than their behavioral problems. I wanted to relate to and connect with them. Many didn’t have the best home lives, weren’t successful in school, didn’t feel in control of their world or themselves. I hoped that if I believed in them and provided a safe place where they felt accepted, they would see that they could change old habits and become the best versions of themselves.

I love hearing from former at-risk students that they’ve graduated high school, are attending college, finishing a trade program or employed. Without the dedication of my colleagues, these children might not have had the bright future they deserved. Programs such as wilderness retreats take kids from their harmful routines and behaviors and help them reconsider themselves and their world. I’ve seen this powerful transformation time and again, and it inspired me to use such a program as the backdrop in Under an Adirondack Sky. I hope you find this story as uplifting to read as it was to write! I’d love to hear from you anytime at [email protected].

Karen

www.millsandboon.co.uk

KAREN ROCK is an award-winning young adult and adult contemporary author. She holds a master’s degree in English and worked as an ELA instructor before becoming a full-time author. Most recently, her Mills & Boon Heartwarming novels have won the 2015 National Excellence in Romance Fiction Award and the 2015 Booksellers’ Best Award. When she’s not writing, Karen loves scouring estate sales, cooking and hiking. She lives in the Adirondack Mountain region with her husband, daughter and Cavalier King Charles spaniels. Visit her at karenrock.com.

To all of the education professionals and parents of at-risk youth—thank you for your dedication, your compassion, your faith, your support and the strength and conviction you have that every person can make a difference in a child’s life, especially you.

Contents

COVER

BACK COVER TEXT

INTRODUCTION

Dear Reader

TITLE PAGE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

DEDICATION

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

EXTRACT

COPYRIGHT

CHAPTER ONE

REBECCA DAY SHRUGGED on her raincoat and eyed the rain tapping against The Koffee Kat’s storefront window. It turned SoHo’s block-paved streets into an impressionistic blur, the sidewalks uncharacteristically empty of tourists, the iron-trimmed buildings seeming to slide down like melting wax. A cab lurched along the road, sending up fans of dark spray.

Should she splurge and grab one instead of taking the subway? Given her crazy end-of-spring cold, it’d be justified. Given her overdrawn bank account, however, she knew better. A heavy rush of air escaped her.

“Toots, we need to talk.”

At her boss’s voice, Rebecca’s fingers stilled on her top button. So close to a clean getaway. After her twelve-hour shift, she needed a bowl—no, an IV bag—of chicken soup. Stat. Tomorrow she’d return to her primary job as a school psychologist after the district’s spring break vacation. Ten days off and she could use ten more, though she didn’t dare ask for sick time, not with her overdue tenure still an undecided question by the stalling school board.

Were they planning to let her go?

She swallowed painfully and forced her mind off of possibly losing the dream job she’d sacrificed so much to finally land.

“Sure. What’s up?” She eyed her employer’s hangdog expression and tried to ignore the flutter of nervousness in her stomach. Given the steadily dwindling business this past month, accompanied by her boss’s grumps and his wife’s sighs, she’d been preparing herself for what could be bad news.