Dana Mentink: Sailing In Style

Danger: Heartbreak ahead!

Piper Brindle has spent her entire adult life trying to live down the stigma of her family’s checkered history. The one bright spot was Cy Franco, the talented California designer with the surfer-boy looks. She ended up only breaking his heart. Now an acting gig on the historic River King reunites her with the guy she pushed away. She knows she doesn’t deserve him, but how can she pretend she’s immune to Cy’s charms? As her past explodes into her present, Piper knows they can never have a future together. But with their irresistible chemistry drawing them even closer than before, how will she be able to walk away a second time?

“You’re asking me to do the impossible.”

Something in Cy’s tone thrilled Piper. She saw a spark in his eyes, a determined lift to his chin.

What would it be like to believe everything would work out right?

She meant to tie the balloons and tiptoe away, ignoring the tug that seemed to suggest she should help. Help the guy who would never forgive her for dumping him?

Her sandal caught on a chair leg and she stumbled, letting go of the balloons. They drifted lazily up to the ceiling.

Cy didn’t hesitate. He put his hands around her waist.

She felt the press of his cheek into her back, the strong arms spanning her middle as he raised her up toward the balloons. His embrace rocketed her back in time, and she was lost in memories of laughter and love and joy when she’d briefly believed in the impossible, too.

Dear Reader,

Have you ever wanted to sail away from your worries? Me, too. I guess that’s why it was so enticing to write about a historic paddle-wheel steamboat. Though the fictional River King doesn’t ply the waters anymore, she’s a reminder of an elegant time when people put aside their cares and paddled along the California waterways. In preparation to write this book, I had the pleasure of touring the Delta King, a beautiful old paddle wheel docked in Sacramento. I met the gracious Coyne family, who saw the loveliness in this regal vessel even when she was nearly wrecked and has painstakingly brought her back to life.

Isn’t that what romance is all about? Seeing the beauty in someone in spite of the scars? Cy and Piper certainly have some damage to overcome, but what better place to attempt it than an old boat docked outside the sleepy little town of Tumbledown!

Thank you for coming along with me on this journey. I hope you enjoyed the trip! I’m always happy to hear from my readers via my website, danamentink.com, or my Facebook and Twitter pages. There’s also a physical address on my website if you’d rather correspond by mail. Thank you again for taking the time to sail along with Cy and Piper.

Fondly,

Sailing in Style

Dana Mentink

www.millsandboon.co.uk

DANA MENTINK lives in California, where the weather is golden and the cheese is divine. Her family includes two teen girls (affectionately nicknamed Yogi and Boo Boo). Papa Bear retired from the fire department, and he met Dana while they were doing a dinner theater production of The Velveteen Rabbit. Ironically, their parts were husband and wife.

Dana is an American Christian Fiction Writers Book of the Year finalist for romantic suspense and a two-time Carol Award winner. Her suspense novel, Betrayal in the Badlands, earned an RT Reviewers’ Choice Best Book Award. She enjoys writing for Harlequin’s Love Inspired line, Harlequin Heartwarming and Harvest House. Besides writing, she busies herself teaching third grade. Mostly, she loves to be home with Papa Bear, Yogi, Boo Boo, a dog with social anxiety problems, a chubby box turtle and a feisty parakeet.

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To the Coyne family,

who brought life back to the Delta King.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

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 TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

THE OLD RIVERBOAT rocked gently under Cy Franco’s feet, and he wished they were bare instead of pinched inside shoes so ridiculously shiny they dazzled the eye.

Weddings. He used to love them, everything from the gorgeous decor down to the vegetable crudités. Funny how flinging an engagement ring into the ocean could take away his enthusiasm for all things matrimonial.

Nevertheless, his sister Rosa’s wedding ceremony was complete, and he hadn’t dropped the rings or said anything too sappy for the toast. A great accomplishment since his duties encompassed being both best man to his new brother-in-law, Pike, and attendant to his sister, Rosa. The word unorthodox didn’t even begin to cover it, but it was done and they were hitched. The blissful couple would soon be off to honeymoon someplace tropical for a month. Mission accomplished, in spite of the last-minute change of venue. His sister deserved her happily-ever-after. Her face, so suffused with love and happiness as she whispered her “I do,” had been perfection, but still Cy couldn’t help but think the one thing that would have made it even better was his mother living to see it.

We don’t all get the happily-ever-after, Cy.

He turned on the stainless steel taps in his stateroom—he would have switched the fixtures out for brass if it was his show—and soaked a cloth to dampen his face, wetting his fingers and trying again in vain to smash down his wild head of blond curls. The mirror reflected the glittering cove through the porthole behind him, waves rippling across the water on their way to lap the rocky shore on the central California coast. His coast. What he wouldn’t give to hoist himself up on the railing, strip off the chafing monkey suit and dive in. His muscles tensed at the imagined pleasure of swimming hard and fast, mile after mile. Maybe he’d keep going until he slogged ashore in Tumbledown and squelched his way to the Pelican Inn, his place of business and current home since Aunt Bitsy sold her beloved hotel to his sister Rosa and her freshly minted husband, Pike.

Nope. There were a bazillion termites meeting their doom at the Pelican at the moment, the whole inn tented and off-limits, which was exactly why they’d needed to move Rosa’s wedding reception to the boat newly docked past the breakwater in Gold Cove. A whole wedding rerouted by a bunch of insects. The irony.