Muriel Jensen - Always Florence

Not even love can keep her from her dream

Bobbie Molloy’s dream to paint in Florence gave her the strength to battle cancer. Now that she’s recovering, and just weeks away from leaving for Italy, she won’t let anything—or anyone—stop her from making that dream come true. Not even Nate Raleigh.

From the moment he rushes in to save what’s left of her studio—after his young nephews had inadvertently trashed it—next-door neighbor Nate has Bobbie intrigued. Everything about him is complex and endearing: two excellent reasons to keep her distance. She can’t risk getting involved when she’s just passing through. Her dream has kept her alive and it has to come first. No matter what the cost.

He’s gorgeous.

Bobbie could have thoughts like this with the comfortable distance of a woman who didn’t really care. Now that much of the mess was cleaned up and she felt calmer, she could observe Nate with detached interest. Tall, lean, hazel eyes with stubby lashes, nice nose, Saturday-morning stubble around a straight mouth that was a little tight. He didn’t smile much. She was willing to bet he had a dynamite smile when he used it.

She wondered what had happened that his nephews were living with him. He seemed to be good with them, although she sensed an undercurrent of antagonism from the older boy.

She could list Nate’s qualities without a stirring of feminine interest because she had a life plan that didn’t involve a husband and children. She was going to Florence, Italy, to study art. It had been a dream since she was sixteen, and the past year had turned it into an obsession. She was in remission, but she didn’t have forever. She had to go now. The need to make art lived inside her, trying to break out, and she had to follow the masters to study and learn. To find the depths of her talent.

Bobbie watched the three walk across the yard to the big yellow house next door, the man and one of the boys hand in hand, the dog lumbering along beside them. She smiled at the sight.

Nice, but not for her.

Dear Reader,

Hello, again! I’m thrilled to be back at Harlequin. Life took me away for some time, but I’m delighted to return with a book to offer you.

My younger sister, Diane, is a cancer survivor. I thought her very heroic in her battle and when I was asked to come up with an idea for a Harlequin Heartwarming book, her struggle came to mind. Combining her experience with my husband, Ron’s, career as an artist was an easy leap. My hero’s work as a CPA comes from my last seven years as a receptionist in an accounting firm.

So, my heroine wants to travel to Florence to learn about the artist inside her, and my hero has custody of his two little nephews and a business and must stay home. What to do?

Love, of course, will find a solution.

Best wishes to you!

Muriel Jensen

Always Florence

Muriel Jensen

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MURIEL JENSEN

Muriel Jensen and her husband, Ron, live in an old foursquare Victorian looking down on the Columbia River in Astoria, Oregon. They share their home with Cheyenne, a neurotic husky mix, a tabby hoard (there are only two, but they seem like more) and Rosie, a stray cat who’s been coming and going for years and still doesn’t trust them. Muriel says she helps keep alive those complicated inner workings of a mind dealing with a troubled past that is the source of all good plotting!

They have three children, eight grandchildren, four great-grandchildren and a collection of the most interesting and generous friends and neighbors. They feel truly blessed!

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To Mike and Suzanne, and the staff at WWC Business Solutions, who kept me employed (and fed!) and Jim Defeo and Tony Danton and the staff at the Astoria Coffee House who provided a port in the storm while my leg was broken.

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

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

“WHAT’S SHE DOING?” Sheamus Raleigh, seven years old, hid with his brother behind a balding rhododendron and watched the woman at work in the garage next to theirs on the shared double driveway.

Dylan, ten, was a little mystified by the very large pot at her feet and the big stick she used to stir whatever was inside. He’d wondered about her since she’d moved in last month, but Uncle Nate said she seemed to want to keep to herself. Sometimes she smiled at them if they were getting into their cars at the same time, but she never spoke or waited to see if they wanted to. His uncle said they’d skip her house when they went trick-or-treating next week. That she had a right to be private if she wanted to.

So they didn’t know why she always wore baggy black clothes and a woolly hat. Or why she always worked in the garage with the door open and kept the car in the driveway. There were strange noises when she worked, and she chanted. Whatever she was doing was probably just weird and not bad, but the chance to mess with Sheamus was too good to pass up.

“That’s a cauldron,” Dylan said, in the knowledgeable tone he used to let his little brother know he was still in charge. He didn’t really feel that way anymore. Nothing was the way it used to be. Their parents were gone. Their uncle, who used to be so cool, now made their lives miserable. And worst of all, Dylan didn’t seem to know things anymore. Before the accident, he’d started to feel he was beginning to understand how being with people worked. Then his parents had died, and now his life was like a big black hole. Unless he was working on one of his experiments, or making Sheamus cry.

His brother deserved to cry. He was afraid of everything. And it wasn’t a world for sissies.

“What’s a cauldron?” Sheamus whispered. He put an arm around Arnold, their uncle’s apricot mastiff mix, who went everywhere with them. They weren’t supposed to be in the neighbor’s yard, but Dylan didn’t care about that. His uncle was always mad at him. Well, not mad exactly, but he acted as if he didn’t understand him. And that was dumb. Adults were supposed to understand kids.

Dylan made a big circle with his arms. “One of those pots witches use to make potions and things.”

Sheamus’s blue eyes were huge. “You mean like on the card Stella gave us? With the bugs and bat wings going into the witch’s pot?”

“Yeah. Just like that. Only this lady’s probably got kid parts in there, too.”

Sheamus’s eyes got wider. “What kids?”

“I don’t know. Kids she kidnapped and locked in her house.”

Sheamus stood up, getting panicky. Arnold got up with him. Dylan’s plan was starting to work. He felt a twinge of guilt, but it was easy to get past that. Sheamus had blond hair like their mom and his eyes were the same color hers had been. It was easy to hate him.