Rachel Brimble - A Man Like Him

Changing her life…again

After two years in hiding, Angela Taylor knows her independence is worth it. As long as she can escape her past, she has everything under control. Until a flash flood hits the park where she works, and hot Chris Forrester shows up the exact moment she needs a hero.

Chris proves he can save lives—and weaken a girl’s knees. But how can she make him understand that she’s off-limits, that getting close to her will endanger his life? Her happiness or his safety: it shouldn’t even be a choice. Because when you love someone, you protect them, no matter the cost. At least, that’s what Angela keeps telling herself.…

“Nothing can start between us, Chris.”

Angela guessed the frustration in his eyes was reflected in hers. The tension between them burned hot. Out of reach. In a different time, a different life, she would have stridden forward and pressed her lips hard to his, leaned into his fit, muscular body and let him kiss her, touch her, take her, right there and then. The heat between them was so dangerous it drew her to him with a pull she had to fight with every ounce of her self-control. If she didn’t, the result could be disastrous.

“This is a bad time for both of us to get into…whatever it is you think we should be getting into.”

Each fraught second beat with her heart. The movement of his feet across the carpet made her tremble. No. Don’t, Chris, please.

He touched her arm. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Dear Reader,

I am delighted to introduce you to my second novel set in the fictional U.K. seaside town of Templeton Cove. I am a Brit, living near the infamous Georgian city of Bath, England, and love that I get to write about British characters in a U.K. setting! I will be forever grateful that the Harlequin Superromance editors like these stories and want to send them out into the big wide world.

Swimming instructor Chris Forrester comes to Templeton Cove to reconnect with his sister and spend some time licking his wounds. When a freak twenty-four-hour downpour floods the holiday park where he is staying, lives are lost and devastation rips livelihoods and families apart. After saving many women and children without thought or feeling for his own safety, Chris becomes a reluctant hero overnight.

But meeting one particular woman whose life he saves changes him forever.

When a photograph of holiday park owner Angela Taylor and Chris in an intimate embrace is plastered over the U.K. press, Angela knows it’s only a matter of time before her past comes back to haunt her.

A Man Like Him is a deeply personal story in that my husband, my two young daughters and I were rescued by helicopter from a hotel roof during the 2010 French floods. The opening scenes are an almost word-by-word account of what happened to us during those terrifying twenty-four hours.

I will never forget the lives of the people lost that day…nor their grieving loved ones. I thank God for keeping my family safe.

I really hope you enjoy Chris and Angela’s story! I’d love to hear from you when you’re finished. You can write to me anytime at rachelbrimble@googlemail.com.

Love,

Rachel Brimble

www.rachelbrimble.comTwitter: @rachelbrimble

A Man Like Him

Rachel Brimble

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Rachel lives with her husband and two young daughters in a small town near Bath in the U.K. After having several novels published by small U.S. presses, she secured agent representation in 2011. In 2012 she sold two books to the Harlequin Superromance line. Rachel hopes Finding Justice and A Man Like Him represent the beginning of an ongoing series set in Templeton Cove, a town she has 100 percent fallen in love with. She also writes Victorian romance for Kensington—her debut was released in April 2013. Rachel is a member of the Romantic Novelists Association and Romance Writers of America. When she isn’t writing, you’ll find Rachel with her head in a book or walking the beautiful English countryside with her family and beloved black Lab, Max. Her dream place to live is Bourton-on-the-Water in southwest England…although she hopes a dream visit to Canada might just change her mind! She likes nothing more than connecting and chatting with her readers and fellow romance writers. Rachel would love to hear from you!

Contact her via her website, www.rachelbrimble.com/, her blog, http://rachelbrimble.blogspot.co.uk/, on Twitter @RachelBrimble, or Facebook, http://www.facebook.com/rachelbrimbleauthor.

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To the victims and families of the catastrophic 2010 floodings in Draguignan and Frejus, France.

May you rest in peace.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

To my wonderful husband, Terry, and my fantastic children, Jessica and Hannah, who have had to put up with years of thinking my laptop is a physical part of me.

I love you all so much.

You will always be at the center of everything I do.

Also, I want to say a huge thank-you to the never-ending support of my agent, Dawn Dowdle, and encouragement and belief of my editor, Piya Campana.

Thank you!

Contents

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

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

CHAPTER ONE

CHRIS FORRESTER STARED into the amber depths of his whiskey glass and gave a wry smile. The irony was painful. Drowning his sorrows in liquor. What a bloody cliché. He needed to get a grip. So his fiancée had been sleeping with another man for seven months. Get over it. He wouldn’t be the first bloke to have his heart ripped out and slammed onto the public spike of humiliation.

He lifted his glass to his lips and surveyed the circumference of the club room. When he’d arrived at the pretty English holiday destination yesterday, the park had taken him by surprise. His memories of old-fashioned trailers and sad swing sets from his youth were sorely outdated. The mobile homes the holidaymakers rented at the Good Time Holiday Park were brand-new and ultradeluxe.

State-of-the-art stoves, power showers and plush sofas meant when visitors returned after dancing the night away at park-run events or eating in the five-star restaurant onsite, they relaxed in luxury. Chris shook his head. Even the staff weren’t entirely uneasy on the eye. He met the steady gaze of the park’s manager over the rim of his glass.

She arched an eyebrow and pulled her clipboard against her chest. “You still here?”

He lowered his glass onto the bar. “Yep. So are you.”

She smiled. “I work here. What’s your excuse?”

He took a moment to appreciate this beautiful woman. Her eyes were huge. Huge and brown. Not boring brown. They were light...like caramel. Thick and dark, her hair fell down her back in waves highlighted with gold. And her figure? Chris resisted the urge to shake his head a second time. Outstanding. He leaned against the low back of the barstool.