Reckless Fortune (The Fortunes of Lost Lake Series, Band 2) - Softcover

Crane, M. M.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0593335406 ISBN 13: 9780593335406

Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group, 2022

Inhaltsangabe

The heat between them is enough to ward off the chilly Alaska weather conditions in the next Fortunes of Lost Lake novel from USA Today bestselling author M. M. Crane.

Bowie Fortune has always liked a risky proposition. A bush pilot out in the Last Frontier, flying in and out of places that give most pilots nightmares is what he lives for. That and his off-the-grid home out by Lost Lake, where his family has been living up close with the elements for generations. When his sister dares him to participate in the local version of a mail-order bride contest, he’s not interested—but Bowie doesn’t back down from a challenge. Even when the challenge turns out to be a woman who makes him want every last thing he knows he shouldn’t.
 
Entering a summer-long publicity stunt in far-off Alaska might seem extreme, but Autumn McCall has always had an indomitable spirit. She took care of her sisters and father after her mother died, and this is more of the same—since she intends to win the contest. Immersing herself in the pioneer lifestyle is one thing, but what she isn’t expecting is brooding, sharp-eyed Bowie with his wicked smile. As the sparks fly between them, will they burn each other alive—or learn how to simmer their way to a much bigger prize...together?

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

USA Today bestselling, multi-award-nominated, and critically acclaimed author Megan Crane has written more than 125 books—and counting. She’s won fans with her romance, women’s fiction, chick lit, and work-for-hire young adult novels as well as with the Harlequin Presents, Harlequin Dare, Harlequin Historical, and contemporary cowboy books she writes as Caitlin Crews. She has a master's and a PhD in English Literature, has taught creative writing classes in places like UCLA Extension’s prestigious Writers’ Program, and is always available to give workshops (or her opinion). She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her comic book artist husband, though at any given time she is likely to be either huddled in a coffee shop somewhere or off traveling the world. Preferably both.

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One

Bowie Fortune never backed down from a dare.

Especially not if the dare came from his mouthy kid sister, who might not be a kid any longer, sure, but the principle remained intact.

Bowie liked to think of his refusal to back down—­no matter how ridiculous the dare in question—­as evidence not only of the high standards he maintained, but of a life well lived. The only kind of life worth living, to his mind.

And he’d tried several lives on for size already, so he could tell the difference.

As he landed his favorite longer-­range Cessna on what passed for a runway in the middle of spectacular Montana ranchland, he figured his life was looking just fine. No thanks to Piper and the challenge she’d issued him. But the Rocky Mountains down here in the Lower 48 were giving him a gorgeous early-­June welcome, as if summer really was on its way. The sky was big and bright. The land was pretty.

You could do worse, the Bitterroot Valley had seemed to tell him as he came in.

He set the plane down sedately and bumped along the countrified runway that was an upgrade from the gravel he was used to in Alaska. And laughed while he did it, because he laughed a lot more than some people considered appropriate—­he laughed more the less appropriate they found it—­and because sedate was not really his thing.

Mail-­order brides weren’t really his thing, either, but here he was.

Bowie normally flew charter flights around the Alaskan bush for folks with a taste for the more thrilling things in life. It was a guaranteed adventure—­and also something he would have done as soon as he got his pilot’s license, without anyone paying him. That he got to call it his job never failed to make him feel like he was getting away with something.

He never forgot for a minute that some poor slobs had to sit in airless offices and go to tedious meetings all day, a fate worse than death as far as he was concerned. But then, Bowie was from Lost Lake, out in Interior Alaska, where it was an adventure to survive on any given Tuesday. Not to mention all ten and a half months of winter. He figured growing up off the grid the way he had was what had given him an appetite for taking risks the way folks in big cities took their buses and subways.

Compared to some of the things he’d done—­most recently, flying like a lunatic through spring storms with a pack of equally fearless outdoor photographers, for example—­this mail-­order bride deal sounded pretty tame. What was pretending to be married, pioneer-­style, for one measly little Alaskan summer with a virtual stranger next to the thrill of landing on a glacier at 7,200 feet or playing hide-­and-­seek in fog and rain with some of the tallest mountains in the world?

Piper had dared him to take part in this publicity-­stunt-­slash-­contest being put on by a questionable collection of regional locals, mostly because, she’d maintained, he was too unruly and uncivilized to find himself a date, much less a wife. Even if the wife in question was fake and temporary, for the dubious purpose of a little prize money. Assuming they won.

I date plenty, Bowie had told her with a grin, sitting at the comfortable family dinner table in his parents’ house at the far end of the lake one blustery spring night. How and when and who is a little too much information for your tender ears.

There’d been a lot of snorting at that from the rest of the disreputable humans he claimed as his own, but Piper had only smiled at him in that particularly sisterly way she had. As if she pitied him.

It was meant to get his back up and it did.

You’ve gone full mountain man and you don’t even know it, she’d said sadly, with a shake of her head. You’ve become the character you play on your charter trips.

I beg your pardon. I do not play any characters. I provide local color and commentary, as requested.

But he’d been grinning lazily while he said that because maybe he did play a role or two. If he felt like it. He wasn’t an actor, though. He could still remember the various attempts at community theater at the Mine. The Mine was the center of the lake community. It was a whole village except, unlike most villages, it was all under one roof at the head of Lost Lake rather than spread out around the lake or along a road. There were no roads. The Mine was the bar, the restaurant, all the shops, and a place to shelter from the inevitable weather, too.

Watching folks he knew parade around in costume, orating in a great big room he couldn’t escape even if he was actively trying to pretend it wasn’t happening, was the stuff of nightmares.

Piper had rolled her eyes at him. You’re going to die alone, eaten by wild animals, Bowie. Even if you tried to entice some poor woman to take a chance on you at this point, how would you get her to stay?

Little sister. I don’t know how to tell you this. Bowie had held Piper’s gaze and let his grin expand some. I’m very persuasive in the right circumstances.

What would happen if you had to actually get to know someone? his sister had asked, as if that was an idle question and she wasn’t directly challenging him. Because maybe Piper was a little bit of an actor herself. No song and dance on a flight past Denali. No flying off at dawn. What if you had to let someone get to know you?

Bring it on, Bowie had replied immediately.

The way Piper had likely known he would, because she’d smiled with a little too much satisfaction. I’m so glad you’re game, Bowie, she’d murmured. Smugly. Because there happens to be the perfect opportunity for you to prove it.

And then she’d told him about the so-­called mail-­order bride contest taking place this summer. The rules were simple, according to Piper. The ladies who entered chose their men, after a stringent vetting process that would include home visits. Together, the so-­called couple would spend the summer exemplifying the Alaskan frontier spirit by performing and documenting as many survival tasks and adventures, as well as good, old-­fashioned frontier living, as they could. They were to post a picture every day and at least one video per week to a dedicated social media account, the better to advertise the charms of the area here, that, while remote and unspoiled as the locals liked it, could benefit from some more tourism in the summer months. The contestants were expected to promote the area and the contest, and any disreputable behavior would lead to disqualification, as would anything illegal or even distasteful in the eyes of the judges. The judges were a selection of local officials from villages in this part of the vast Interior who would get together and name one “best old-­school frontier couple” at the end of the summer.

The mail-­order bride part was a gimmick and meant as a throwback to how a lot of folks’ great-­grandparents had met out here, as no weddings would actually be occurring— ­at least not as part of the contest. What contestants did afterward was up to them.

When Bowie had suggested that might be the dumbest idea he’d ever heard, he discovered that said dumb idea had come about thanks in no small part to his own brother, the unofficial mayor of the unincorporated Lost Lake community. Quinn had been more than happy to discuss the whole thing in detail, even though Bowie thought it was about as foolish as that time Mia Saskin, known as Grand Mia to one and all around here, had decided they should have an Adopt a Bear contest. All fun and games until the bears in question took...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2022
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0593335406
• ISBN 13: 9780593335406
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 288
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: preigu; mail@preigu.de; ; Lengericher Landstr. 19; Osnabrück; 49078; Deutschland