“You complaining, Care-Bear?”
She shrieked as he rubbed his whiskered chin against the soft skin of her throat.
She’d finally agreed to move in with him, though she insisted on keeping her house in town. With all the business she was getting these days, with both her regular work and her private-but-not-secret sittings, she was talking about expanding, maybe even hiring an assistant or two.
“No time for fooling around,” she said, pushing him away with a laugh. “The heritage society expects us to deliver these today. So get digging, buddy.”
It had been a chance comment from Nathan Jackson that had given him the idea to donate the roses for the garden behind the restored Montreau Hotel. Carrie’s great-grandmother’s roses, the same ones that bloomed so profusely at her house, the only things left from the old Lewis homestead, were apparently from old-fashioned stock you couldn’t buy anymore. The society had leaped on the idea.
“It’s kind of amazing, isn’t it?” he said, walking up behind Carrie and putting his arms around her.
“What is?” she asked. “How you keep avoiding the heavy lifting?”
He smiled against her hair. “How something so thorny and ugly can also be so beautiful.”
She turned in his arms and looked up into his face. “Did you just insult me?”
“Love,” he said, kissing her nose, “is such a miracle.”
She pressed her lips against his. “We just had to look in the right place. And open our eyes.”
“You see me, Carrie,” he said. “You always did.”
“And you,” she whispered, “see me.”
With dogs and horses and birds and trees and mountains and sky surrounding them, they celebrated that miracle.
Enjoy an excerpt from
Finding Home
By Roxanne Snopek
Book 1 in This Old House series
Copyright © 2014
Of course it had to be the underwear suitcase that slipped from her hands. The ancient hinges ruptured on impact with the sidewalk and it split open like a bale of fiberglass insulation. Except, instead of bright pink slabs, what burst forth was dull white, black and beige –
“Panties!”
Jade planted her little feet on the cobbled drive leading to the Bramble House bed and breakfast, and glared at her mother accusingly. “Panties are private, Mama.”
Bob the dog cocked her homely one-up one-down ears, always alert to her little charge’s ever-shifting emotions.
Some teenage boys leaving the park across the street paused in their roughhousing. One of them handed his football to the others and began loping over to her.
“Hey lady, need a hand?”
If there was anywhere on the planet where you could still find old-fashioned courtesy, even when you didn’t exactly want it, it was Marietta, Montana.
Samara saw the instant he recognized the items flung about them.
He froze midway, seemingly paralyzed beneath the canopy of fall colors sheltering the street.
“It’s okay, I’ve got it,” she said. “Thanks anyway.”
The boy rejoined his pals and they loped away, but not before she heard hoots of laughter.
Spare her from adolescent testosterone.
“Mama! Panties!” insisted Jade, agitation making her voice quiver.
“I know, honey.” She squatted to shove the formerly neatly rolled items into the case, but it had been packed tightly and without hinges, the laws of physics just laughed at her.
“Stay here with Bob, sweetie,” she said. “Bob, stay.”
She popped the back of the mini-van and pushed and shoved stuff until she located a bungee cord. She could use it to hold the case shut. Naturally, it was underneath the spare tire and one of the s-hooks had become deeply attached, and resentful about being moved.
“You wanna fight?” she muttered. To herself or the stupid clingy s-hook, she wasn’t sure. She yanked hard and, suitably chastised, the cord let go. Of course, being a bungee cord, it snapped back with great gusto and the metal hook, in an illustration of karma or retaliation or, more likely, that darn physics, grazed her chin.
She stumbled against the curb and landed on her butt in front of Jade, who was now clenching and unclenching her fists. Bob shoved her head under the girl’s arm but it didn’t have much effect.
? Also By Roxanne Snopek
· Fake Fiance, Real Revenge
· Her Secret Protector
· The Millionaire Daddy Project
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· The Billionaire's Unexpected Baby
· Cabin Bear Heat Box Set
· The Billionaire's Wife
· Her Best Friend's Dad
· Tease (Club Deep #1)
· Second Chance Stepbrother
· Dragon's Treasure(Blood Prophecy Book 5)
· Holding Onto Kinsley
· Seeress (Runes series Book 4)
? Hot Read
· The Billionaire's Unexpected Baby
· Her Best Friend's Dad
· The Billionaire's Wife
· Cabin Bear Heat Box Set
· Tease (Club Deep #1)
· Second Chance Stepbrother
· Holding Onto Kinsley
· Captured by the Cyborg
· Dragon's Treasure(Blood Prophecy Book 5)
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