My Sunshine (Coulter Family, Band 5) - Softcover

Anderson, Catherine

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0451213807 ISBN 13: 9780451213808

Verlag: Berkley, 2005

Inhaltsangabe

New York Times bestselling author Catherine Anderson's Coulter Family series continues in this poignant story of a love that defies all the odds....

Five years ago, Laura Townsend’s life was nearly destroyed when a head injury impaired her ability to use language and forced her to abandon a brilliant career. Despite her difficulties, she never lost her vivacious spirit or sunny disposition. Now she has a great new job at an animal clinic—and a handsome new boss who fills her heart with longing. But veterinarian Isaiah Coulter deserves a woman who can meet all his needs. Battling her feelings, Laura decides that sometimes a woman must love a man enough to walk away.
 
When Isaiah hired Laura, he wasn’t expecting her to be such a breath of fresh air. Impressed by her healing touch—and captivated by her dazzling beauty—Isaiah finds himself falling in love. And he’ll move heaven and earth to convince Laura that she’s the woman he needs….

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Catherine Anderson is the author of more than thirty New York Times bestselling and award-winning historical and contemporary romances including the Harrigan Family series, the Coulter Family series, the Comanche series, and the Mystic Creek series. She lives in the pristine woodlands of Montana.

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My Sunshine • Copyright 2005 by Catherine Anderson • 0-451-21380-7 • SignetPrologue

Lightning flashed in the leaden sky, each brilliant burst quickly followed by a deafening clap of thunder. Rain pelted the vehicle with such force it sounded like pea gravel striking metal. Peering through the windshield, Isaiah Coulter could barely make out the houses along the tree-lined street. He dreaded the thought of making the fifty-foot sprint to the covered front porch of his parents’ suburban residence. Not for the first time since this storm had started, he wished he’d thought to grab a jacket before leaving home that morning.

When he pushed open the door of the Hummer, his shirtsleeve grew instantly wet and icy, compliments of the high mountain chill that always descended on Crystal Falls, Oregon, when the autumn sunlight was obscured by clouds. Isaiah clenched his teeth, sprang from the vehicle, and broke into a run even as he slammed the door behind him.

Water streamed from his face by the time he reached the porch, and dripping shanks of dark brown hair were plastered to his forehead. Swearing under his breath, he raked back the strands with rain-slicked fingers and slapped uselessly at his soaked shirt.

“Mom?” he yelled as he opened the front door. “It’s me, Isaiah!”

As he wiped his feet on the entryway rug, Isaiah scanned the tidy living area, barely registering any details because the furniture and decorations were so familiar. On the longest wall, the faces of his brothers and sister as well as his own stared back at him from countless framed photographs, a pictorial record of their lives from infancy to adulthood. The delicious smells of warm apple pie and freshly brewed coffee greeted him as he moved farther into the room.

“In the kitchen, dear heart!” Mary Coulter called.

Following his nose and the sound of her voice, Isaiah stepped into the archway. Standing at the kitchen counter, his mother flashed him a welcoming smile. Her plump cheeks rosy, her dark hair lying in loose curls around her face, she was, in Isaiah’s eyes, just as beautiful at almost sixty as she had been twenty years ago.

“How’s my best girl?” he asked.

“Hmph,” she responded with a shake of her head. “And isn’t that a fine kettle of fish? The handsomest of all my sons, and you’re still single.”

Isaiah knew very well that he wasn’t the handsomest pup in her litter. In truth, he and his brothers were all carbon copies of their dad and looked pretty much the same. As for his being single, he liked it that way. Veterinary medicine was a demanding field, leaving him little time for personal relationships. Someday, when his life grew less hectic, he might consider settling down, but for now he needed to stay focused on his career.

“Ah, Mom,” he replied in a whiny baritone, his stock response when Mary needled him about getting married.

“Don’t you ‘ah, Mom’ me. Just look at you, Isaiah Joel, drenched to the skin and blue around the lips. You need someone with good sense to look after you.” She tossed him a hand towel. “Mop up as best you can before you make puddles on my floor.” She glanced at his boots. “If you’ve tracked in horse dung, I’ll snatch you bald-headed.”

Catching the towel in one fist, Isaiah blotted his face and dried the back of his neck. “My boots got pressure-washed coming across the lawn, and I wiped them dry on the rug. As for my lips being blue, that’s because it’s colder than a well digger’s ass out there.”

“Your lips are blue because it’s October and you aren’t wearing a coat. A man with your IQ should know better.”

“I know better. I just forgot.”

“You’d forget your head if it weren’t attached. Absentminded, I guess, always thinking deep thoughts and oblivious to everything else.”

“It was sunny when I left the house this morning.”

“Grab your father’s sweatshirt there on the back of the chair and put it on. You’ll catch your death, sitting around in that wet thing you’re wearing.”

Isaiah did feel cold. He quickly divested himself of the wet garment, plucked a plastic shopping sack from the cloth bag holder hanging on a hook by the kitchen door, and stuffed the shirt inside. A moment later, as he drew his dad’s sweatshirt over his head, his mother clucked her tongue, saying, “Your ribs are showing, Isaiah Joel. I swear, a high wind would blow you away.”

Isaiah knew very well he wasn’t that thin. “Ah, Mom.”

Accustomed to Mary’s scolding, Isaiah bent to kiss her cheek before taking a chair at the round oak table in one corner of the kitchen. “Man, that pie sure does smell good.”

“Made it especially for you.” Mary took two pie plates from the cupboard and set herself to the task of cutting the dessert. “It’s not often anymore that I know ahead of time when you’re coming over.”

“If apple pie is my reward, I’ll start calling in advance. It’s my favorite.”

Mary smiled. “Yes, I know. I’m your mother, remember.”

“Thanks for making me a pie, Mom. That was sweet of you.” Isaiah settled back on the chair. “Where’s Pop?”

Mary released a shrill little sigh, conveying with a lift of her shoulders that her trials were many as Harv Coulter’s wife. “He set out early this morning to meet Zeke at Natalie’s supper club. Something’s gone haywire with the refrigeration system, I think. After that, he was heading out to the Lazy J to help Hank and Jake mend fence line. His back has been giving him fits all week, but do you think he’ll take it easy?”

“He enjoys helping at the ranch, Mom. Just because he’s retired doesn’t mean he has to stop living.”

“I know.” Mary released another sigh. “And Jake and Hank really do need the help right now. With Molly expecting again, and Carly trying to care for a baby so soon after eye surgery, both your brothers are spread mighty thin.”

Isaiah had been so busy that he’d nearly forgotten his sister-in-law’s corneal surgery. “How’s Carly doing?”

“Good.” Mary beamed a glad smile as she licked a bit of pie filling from her fingertip. “She can see, at any rate. The major problem right now is retraining her thingamajig.”

“Her visual cortex,” Isaiah offered.

“There you go,” she agreed with a nod. “All those medical terms go in one of my ears and out the other. Hank called last night. He bought some red duct tape and lined the edges of all the steps so Carly can tell where one ends and another starts. She almost fell on the front porch yesterday when she was carrying Hank Junior.”

Isaiah winced. “No wonder Hank’s taping the steps.”

“He says it helped.” Mary opened another cupboard to get some coffee mugs. “With no depth perception, she can’t see the stair treads clearly.”

Enjoying the warmth that still radiated from the oven, Isaiah sighed and flexed his shoulders. It was strange, he thought, how quickly he could always relax in his mother’s kitchen. He guessed it was because the room was a reflection of the woman herself: small, colorful, busy, and full of love.

The fact that Mary Coulter loved her children was in evidence everywhere he looked. All available surfaces were crowded with plaster handprints, school portraits, art projects gone yellow with age, and silly stuff that he or his siblings had given her over the years, including a knickknack shelf filled...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Berkley
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2005
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0451213807
• ISBN 13: 9780451213808
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 432
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar