Mary Anne Wilson - Alegra's Homecoming

Almost of their own volition, her arms rose and slipped around Joe’s neck. She moved closer to him and felt his strength as his arms closed around her. In the next heartbeat she experienced the strange feeling of coming back to something.

He’d said she had more reasons to be here than the ones she’d given him. She could have sworn he’d been wrong, but now she wasn’t so sure.

It felt like a homecoming, a returning—but that made no sense, not any more than her next thought.

That maybe he was the one she’d come back for.

Dear Reader,

Going home means different things to different people, and “going home” to Shelter Island in Puget Sound, an island that still holds the legacy of Bartholomew Grace, who was an infamous pirate from the past, is totally different for Alegra Reynolds and Joe Lawrence.

Alegra goes back home to prove that a small child who was ridiculed and pitied has become a success beyond anyone’s imagination.

Going home to the island for Joe Lawrence is leaving his position as the editor of a major New York daily, and a life that has lost most of its meaning, to return to his roots and make a life for his son and himself.

When Alegra meets Joe, she thinks he’s a failure, that he’s given up everything she’s worked so hard to get herself, and Joe thinks that she’s so much like the way he used to be that it’s almost painful for him to watch. Neither one knows that their lives will change irrevocably when they start to fall in love and find that lost part of themselves in the other person. They’ll discover that “home” isn’t a physical location but the place where love binds people together forever.

I hope you enjoy the first book of the SHELTER ISLAND STORIES, and watch for the other two stories in the series—Home to the Doctor and Home for a Hero.

Mary Anne Wilson

Alegra’s Homecoming

Mary Anne Wilson

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Mary Anne Wilson is a Canadian transplanted to Southern California, where she lives with her husband, three children and an assortment of animals. She knew she wanted to write romances when she found herself “rewriting” the great stories in literature, such as A Tale of Two Cities, to give them “happy endings.” Over her long career she’s published more than thirty romances, had her books on bestseller lists, been nominated for Reviewer’s Choice Awards and received a career nomination in Romantic Suspense. She’s looking forward to her next thirty books.

HARLEQUIN AMERICAN ROMANCE

1003—PREDICTING RAIN?*

1005—WINNING SARA’S HEART*

1009—WHEN MEGAN SMILES*

1062—DISCOVERING DUNCAN**

1078—JUDGING JOSHUA**

1092—HOLIDAY HOMECOMING**

1105—JACK AND JILLIAN**

For Joanine Hold on to your dreams and don’t let go. You deserve every good thing. Love you lots!

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

Epilogue

November—The Bounty Festival

Shelter Island, Washington

The pirate slipped into the crowd attending the last day of the Bounty Festival and no one noticed. Of course, every third person who attended the week-long celebration that commemorated the pirate Bartholomew Grace’s historic return from his summer of pillaging and plundering in the South Pacific, was dressed like a pirate. So one more didn’t stand out.

Ten-year-old Alegra moved through the throng, paying little attention to the parade that was almost done moving up the main street of the town of Shelter Bay. Other years she’d ignored the festival, but this year, after her father had brought home a pirate costume, complete with a hat, full-sleeved black leggings and plastic boots, she’d decided to walk the mile from her home in the center of the island and see what was going on.

No one gave her more than a passing glance. The hat was too big, riding low on her face, but that was fine by her. She trudged along the wooden boardwalk of the town, passing familiar stores and seeing people she’d known all her life mingling with the strangers who took the ferry from the mainland to attend the festival.

An announcement about music at the square in town where the statue of old Bartholomew stood watch was made over a loudspeaker, but before she could head in that direction, someone stepped right in front of her. As she pushed her hat back and looked up, her heart sank.

The one person she didn’t want to see was blocking her path, his band of cohorts with him. “Oh, it’s little Al Peterson,” Sean Payne drawled.

Sean was two years older than she was and one of the island kids who enjoyed taunting her, never letting her forget who she was. Alegra Peterson, the daughter of a man who was drunk more than he was sober and a woman who’d walked out five years ago and never come back.

In the failing light, she stared up at him. Tall and skinny, he was in costume, too, but a far more elegant version than hers, with a billowing silk shirt, high leather boots with shiny buckles and a long white plume of a feather stuck rakishly in his hat. His narrow face was pale, the freckles that went along with his blond-red hair standing out starkly on skin that was just starting to get the first traces of teenaged acne.

His gaze traveled over her, too, then his dark eyes met hers. “Some costume, Al,” he said. “What’re you supposed to be?”

“A pirate,” she said.

“I don’t think so,” he said mockingly.

“I am a pirate,” she said emphatically, lifting her chin and standing her ground. She wasn’t going to cry and run away. She’d done that once, and it had only made Sean and his friends make fun of that, too.

“No, you’re a garbage picker.” Sean moved closer.

Kids had taunted Alegra for as long as she could remember, but Sean was different. To the others, she was an afterthought. To Sean, she was a target. Now he reached out and grabbed her arm, leaning down until his face was in hers.

“Garbage picker,” he sneered. “That’s a costume my dad threw out because it was a mess. He put it in the trash bin behind his office, right near the Ship’s Rail Bar.”

She hadn’t questioned where her dad had found the costume for her to wear. He’d just said that it fell in his lap. Now she knew. She also knew her face was flaming, and she hated her dad and Sean in equal measure.

“So, you or that drunk dad of yours had to be garbage picking to get it,” Sean continued. “Trash for trash.”

She was aware of everyone watching them and listening, even passersby, and anger raged through her. She narrowed her eyes and hissed back at him loud enough for everyone to hear, “I’d rather wear a stupid old costume than have zits all over my face.”