C.C. Coburn - Sweet Home Colorado

Repairing More Than Just A House

Grace Saunders returns to Spruce Lake, Colorado, to oversee the renovation of a house she’s inherited—and to get away from a bad divorce. She’s not planning to run into her high school sweetheart, Jack O’Malley. She has a secret she’ll give anything to keep, even when it turns out that Jack’s her new contractor.

Now Jack and Grace have to work together—and work at keeping their hands off each other. Grace is the same girl Jack used to know, the one he never got over. Jack’s grown into a man Grace could fall in love with all over again. And the entire O’Malley clan is rooting for a romantic reunion.

But should Grace keep her twelve-year-old secret? And if she tells, will Jack ever forgive her?

“If I’m going to work on this house, you’re going to help me…”

“What’s up?” Jack asked. “Your face is flushed again.”

To prevent him from asking any further questions, Grace stuck out her hand and said, “If I agree to your outrageous terms, do we have a deal?”

What was she saying? She couldn’t get out of town fast enough to prevent Jack from somehow discovering the truth she’d hidden from him for twelve long years. Yet here she was agreeing to stay and help. Still, she really needed to have the house restored before it completely fell to pieces.

And besides, how hard could it be watching Jack working under the hot sun? Seeing him again, she couldn’t get rid of the notion they had unfinished business.

She’d kept her secret safe this long, she could keep it to herself a bit longer….

Dear Reader,

One of my favorite romance themes is the reunion story. I wonder what it’s like to be reunited with your high school or college sweetheart?

In Sweet Home Colorado, Jack O’Malley, the last of the O’Malley men to find love, is knocked off his feet when his high school sweetheart, Grace Saunders, returns to Spruce Lake. At first he’s reluctant to have anything to do with Grace, but he soon finds himself under her spell and agreeing to renovate the house she’s inherited from her great-aunt.

Jack is the one person Grace hopes she won’t run into in Spruce Lake, but—doing a bit of matchmaking—her lawyer employs Jack as the contractor responsible for renovating the old Victorian that now belongs to her.

Grace has a secret she’s kept from Jack for more than a dozen years, and now her greatest fear is that he’ll discover what it is!

Did I tell you my other favorite theme was secret babies?

Find out how Grace and Jack’s relationship develops into love and how they resolve their differences once Jack discovers Grace’s secret.

This is the fifth and final installment of The O’Malley Men series. I hope you’ve enjoyed seeing the O’Malley brothers fall in love as much as I have.

I enjoy hearing from readers. You can write to me at cc@cccoburn.com.

Happy reading and healthy lives!

C.C. Coburn

Sweet Home Colorado

C.C. Coburn

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

C.C. Coburn was born in the heart of Australia’s outback, then moved to its Pacific Coast. She’s traveled the world, lived in England, Austria and the USA and still counts traveling as one of her passions.

She learned to ski in Austria, then discovered Colorado’s majestic Rocky Mountains and bought a home there. She now divides her time between Australia, Colorado and England, where one of her three children lives. Her other children still call Australia home.

C.C. shares her life with a beautiful Labrador and a man who, after thirty-two years of marriage, still looks pretty darned good in his kilt.

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Many thanks to

My faithful reader Jan Durkin.

Talented author and nurse Fiona Lowe.

Handyman Garth Stroble.

My wonderful editor, Paula Eykelhof.

And as always, Keith.

Contents

Prologue

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

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Epilogue

Preview

Prologue

“Jack? Are you still there?”

Jack O’Malley took a seat on the front steps of the house he’d just finished restoring in Spruce Lake, Colorado. He cradled his cell phone against his shoulder and wiped his brow. It was hot. Damned hot for June. Especially June in the Rockies. “I’m still here, Mike, and the answer’s still no.”

“C’mon, it’s only an estimate. You’ve got time for that, haven’t you?”

Jack groaned. It was flattering to be in demand for his services as a contractor who specialized in high-quality home-building and renovation, but one day he’d like to be able to take a holiday. With the way work kept piling up, that wasn’t going to happen any time in the next decade. And now his friend and lawyer, Mike Cochrane, wanted to heap on more work. He’d already turned down the same job late last week, when Mike first contacted him about it. Now Mike was sounding desperate.

“Like I told you, Jack, my client’s a doctor. And you know how much I need new clients—wealthy ones.”

Jack gave a snort of disgust. “And like I told you, Mike, the answer’s still no.”

“Aw, c’mon, Jack. Buddy,” he said, drawing out the last word. “You’re the only person capable of restoring that Victorian on Lincoln.”

Just as it had last week, Jack’s heart rate kicked up a notch at the mention of the old house. Gracie Saunders, the girl he’d dated in high school, had lived there. Missy Saunders, her great-aunt, had owned the house, but she’d moved to the Twilight Years retirement home a decade ago. The place had been rented out over the years, until it fell into such a state of disrepair no one wanted to live there. Missy had passed away a couple of years back and Jack assumed the house had been sold to the doctor—who’d probably, like too many of Spruce Lake’s second-home owners, use it two weeks a year and leave it vacant for the other fifty.

He took a long swig of orange juice. “Since when did you start pimping for clients wanting their houses restored?”

“Since a friend of a friend told this doctor I had contacts here in Spruce Lake. Contacts who were reliable.”

Jack didn’t miss the inflection in Mike’s voice. If he said no to the estimate, he’d be letting Mike down. Mike had done a lot for the O’Malleys, especially helping Jack’s brother Will foil the development company that had wanted to tear down half the old buildings on Main Street and put up a bunch of condos and a shopping mall. Their plan would’ve destroyed the Victorian-era character of the town. Instead, Will and his supporters had saved the buildings from destruction and Jack had spent the past few years restoring many of them.

But his next project was building a new home for Adam, his wife, Carly, and their kids. Adam had got land at a bargain-basement price from Will, who’d recently subdivided the ranch he’d bought a dozen years earlier into ranchettes of around ten acres each. The ranchettes had funded the purchase of buildings on Main Street to save them from destruction.