Glory, Glory & Snowbound with the Bodyguard: A 2-in-1 Collection (Harlequin Bestselling Author) - Softcover

Miller, Linda Lael; Cassidy, Carla

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0373180721 ISBN 13: 9780373180721

Verlag: Harlequin Bestselling Author Collection, 2013

Inhaltsangabe

NO PLACE LIKE HOME 

For Glory Parsons, "home for the holidays" wasn't exactly the stuff of sing-a-longs and sleigh rides. In fact, she dreaded it. Dreaded having to face the things she'd lost—her brother, a casualty of war; and Jesse Bainbridge, a casualty of her own weakness. She'd never been able to tell Jesse the reason she'd left him abruptly ten years ago, after she'd promised to love him forever. And he certainly didn't seem open to talking about it now. 

Jesse had too much on his plate to get involved with Glory Parsons. He was the sheriff of Pearl Lake and responsible for his orphaned niece. So why couldn't he stay away from the woman? She drew him, just as she always had. But there would be no kisses under the mistletoe for them until he knew the truth. If he was strong enough to face it.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

Linda Lael Miller is a #1 New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author of more than one hundred  novels. Long passionate about the Civil War buff, she has studied the era avidly and has made many visits to Gettysburg,  where she has witnessed reenactments of the legendary clash between North and South. Linda explores that turbulent time in The Yankee Widow.

Carla Cassidy is a New York Times bestselling author who has written more than 125 novels for Harlequin Books.  She is listed on the Romance Writer's of America Honor Roll and has won numerous awards. Carla believes the only thing better than curling up with a good book to read is sitting down at the computer with a good story to write.

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Glory Parsons's gloved hands tightened on the steering wheel when the familiar green-and-white sign came into view. Pearl River, Oregon. Population: 6710.

All it would take was one U-turn, and she could be headed back toward Portland. She'd find another job, and she still had her apartment. Maybe she and Alan could work things out

She swallowed hard. She would be in Pearl River three weeks at the outside, then she could join her friend Sally in San Francisco, get a new job and start her life all over again. As for Alan, she hoped his teeth would fall out.

The feed store was festooned in lights and sparkling green garlands for Christmas, like the five-and-dime and the bookstore and the newspaper office. The street was thick with muddy slush, but fat puffs of new snow were falling.

Glory passed the diner and smiled to see the cheap plastic Santa and reindeer perched on the tar-paper roof. She touched her horn once, in a preliminary greeting to her mother, and drove on.

The cemetery was on the other side of town, overlooking the river. Glory parked outside the gates, behind a green police car, and made her way up the curving driveway. She left her purse in the car, carrying a bouquet of holly she'd picked along the roadside earlier in the day.

A crisp breeze riffled the drifting snowflakes and Glory's chin-length silver-gold hair. She pulled up the collar of her long woolen coat, royal blue to match her eyes, and made her way carefully along a slippery walk.

Dylan's grave lay beneath a white blanket of snow, and Glory's throat thickened when she came to stand beside it. "Hi, handsome," she said hoarsely, stooping to put the holly into the metal vase at the base of his headstone. Her eyes filled with tears, and she wedged both hands deep into her coat pockets and sniffled. "You had your nerve, dying at twenty-two. Don't you know a girl needs her big brother?"

She dusted snow from the face of the stone, uncovering Dylan's name and the dates of his birth and death. He'd perished in an explosion soon after joining the air force, and Glory didn't want anyone to forget he'd lived, even for the space of an afternoon snowfall.

She drew a deep breath and dried her eyes with the back of one hand. "I swore I'd never come back here," she went on miserably, "even to see you. But Mama's getting married, so I had to come to her wedding." She took a tissue from her pocket and dabbed at her nose. "I got myself hooked up with a real jerk back in Portland, Dylan. If you'd been around, you probably would have punched him in the mouth. He pretended to love me, and then he stole my promotion right out from under me."

She paused to look up at the cloudy sky. The bare limbs of maple and elm trees seemed to splinter it.

"I quit my job and had my furniture put in storage," Glory confided to her brother, gazing at the marble headstone again. "And after Christmas and Mama's wedding, I'm going to San Francisco to make a life for myself. I don't know when I'll be back to see you again."

A swishing sound in the slush alerted Glory to someone's approach. She looked up, and her blue eyes went wide.

"Jesse."

He was standing on the other side of Dylan's grave, dressed in the standard green-and-brown uniform of the sheriff's department. He wore no hat, and his badge, pinned to his jacket, gleamed in the thin winter light. Like Glory, he was twenty-eight years old.

His caramel eyes moved over her frame then swept back to her face. "What are you doing here?" he asked, as though he'd caught her in a bank vault after-hours.

Glory had known she couldn't come back to Pearl River without encountering Jesseshe just hadn't expected it to happen this soon. Her temper flared, along with an old ache in a corner of her heart she'd long since closed off, and she gestured toward Dylan's headstone. "What do you think I'm doing here?" she retorted. "I came to see my brother."

Jesse hooked his thumbs through the loops on his trousers, and his brazen brown eyes narrowed slightly. "It's been eight years since the funeral. You were really anxious to get back."

Eight years since the funeral, eight years since Glory had laid eyes on Jesse Bainbridge.

Pride forced Glory to retaliate. She took in his uniform and then said, "I see you've been promoted to sheriff. Did your grandfather buy the election?"

His jawline tightened for a moment, but then he grinned in that wicked way that had broken so many hearts in high school. "Why not? He bought you, didn't he?" Like everyone else in Pearl River, Jesse probably believed old Seth Bainbridge had paid her to leave town; Glory was fairly certain he'd never learned about the baby.

Without waiting for a reply, Jesse settled his hat on his head and walked away.

Glory barely resisted the urge to scoop up a handful of snow and hurl it at his back. Only the awareness of where she was kept her from doing just that.

When Jesse was out of earshot, Glory put her hands on her hips and told Dylan, "He really burns me up. I don't know why you liked him so much."

You liked him, too, she heard Dylan's voice say, way down deep in her heart.You had his baby, Glory.

"Don't remind me!" Glory snapped, folding her arms. "I was barely eighteen, and my hormones were out of control!"

She thought she heard Dylan's laughter in the chilly winter breeze, and in spite of the unpleasant encounter with Jesse Bainbridge a few minutes before, she smiled.

"I love you, Dylan," she said, touching the headstone again. Then, with her hands in her pockets, she turned and made her way down the walk to the driveway and the towering wrought-iron gates.

It was time to face Pearl River, something she hadn't done since Dylan's funeral, and she was reluctant for more than one reason.

Glory's sports car, the one great extravagance in her life, started with a comforting roar, and she drove slowly back into town, telling herself to take things one moment at a time. Before she knew it, Christmas and the New Year's wedding would be over, and she could get on with her life.

She parked in front of Delphine's Diner just before an orange snowplow came past, flinging a picturesque fan of slush at the sidewalk. Glancing up at the life-size plastic Santa and reindeer, Glory remembered Dylan sliding around on the roof to put them in place for Christmases past, deliberately clowning because he knew his mother and sister were afraid he'd fall.

The little bell over the door jingled when Glory went inside. Her mother, as slender and active as ever, lit up brighter than the Santa over their heads when she saw her daughter.

"Glory," she whispered with a choked sob of pleasure. And then she was hurrying across the brown-and-white linoleum floor, with its swirls of fresh wax, to embrace her.

The hug brought a lump to Glory's throat and quick tears to her eyes. "Hello, Mama."

"It's about time you got here," boomed a male voice from one of the stools at the counter. Harold Seemer, the good-natured plumbing contractor who had finally persuaded Delphine to marry him after a five-year courtship, beamed at his future stepdaughter. "We were about to send the sheriff's patrol out after you."

Glory tried not to react visibly to the indirect mention of Jesse. She didn't want thoughts of him interfering with her visit. "Hi, Harold," she said, giving the well-fed balding man a hug. He and Delphine had visited her in Portland on several occasions, and she'd become very fond of him.

"You look skinny," Delphine commented, narrowing her green eyes as Glory took off her coat and hung it on one of the chrome hooks beside the door.

Glory laughed. "Thanks, Mama. I've been dieting for two months to make up for all the food you're going to force me to eat."

Harold finished his...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Harlequin Bestselling Author Collection
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2013
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0373180721
• ISBN 13: 9780373180721
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 416
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Product Safety Manager; enquiries@harpercollins.ie; ; HarperCollins, Macken House, 39/40 Mayor Street Upper; Dublin 1; D01 C9W8; Irland