Helen R. - It Started with a House....

“Stop thinking for once. Just for one minute…feel…me.”

His kiss was as tender and coaxing as his words, his lips brushing hers before skimming over to her cheek and chin, then back to her mouth. With slightly more pressure, he parted her lips. Genevieve tried to stop him again by touching her fingers to his mouth, but he only took hold of her hand and kissed each fingertip. All the while his gaze held hers. He could see as well as feel and hear his growing effect on her—the way her eyes dilated and her breath grew shallow, and the way she began to lose herself in what was happening between them.

“Genevieve. I could say your name all night. I want to.” She felt unbelievable fitted against him—but she wasn’t totally willing to be swept away. Although she let her eyelids drift closed, seduced by his caresses, her fingers sought and gripped at his shirt.

“Kiss me back,” he coaxed. “Let go and wrap your arms around me. Hold me like I’m holding you. Need me like I’m needing you.”

Dear Reader,

Welcome to Oak Point, Texas, and Lake Starling, not untypical of small northeast Texas towns where the tourism draw is countless lakes, miles of woods and forests, communities that know they need to grow—but not too much—and there’s enough new blood arriving to keep life interesting.

As far as I could determine, there is no Oak Point, or Lake Starling, but you’ll read about neighboring towns and businesses that do exist. Marshall stays at Oaklea Mansion and Manor House—that’s definitely a landmark in Winnsboro, Texas. You can enjoy photos of this celebrity-favorite bed-and-breakfast online at www.oakleamansion.com to help you picture this serene and inspiring area. Mistra’s is also an actual restaurant in the Hilton at Rockwall, Texas.

Now, Genevieve and Marshall weren’t easy characters to write. Both have lost their spouses. One hasn’t really recovered from that blow. The other is honestly relieved that a painful journey is over, and is ready to move on. What a challenge it is when, having found what he wants, she isn’t ready for him. But life always has a way of intervening.

I hope you’ll enjoy Genevieve and Marshall’s journey of the heart. And please look for future releases at my Web site, www.helenrmyers.com.

As always, thank you for being a reader!

With warmest regards,

Helen R. Myers

www.millsandboon.co.uk

is a collector of two- and four-legged strays, and lives deep in the Piney Woods of East Texas. She cites cello music and bonsai gardening as favorite relaxation pastimes, and still edits in her sleep—an accident, learned while writing her first book. A bestselling author of diverse themes and focus, she is a three-time RITA ®Award nominee, winning for Navarrone in 1993.

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Epilogue

“Marshall, we don’t have to do this today,” Genevieve Gale said the moment the dark-haired, gaunt-faced man exited the hospital and got into her silver Cadillac Escalade. “Under these circumstances, we can postpone for a week, more if necessary. The Carsons are proud to have you and Cynthia buying their house and they’re compassionate and understanding people. They feel terrible that you feel obligated to continue with the closing today.”

“These circumstances” were that Marshall Trent Roark’s thirty-eight-year-old wife, Cynthia, had been admitted to the hospital here in Oak Point, Texas, two days ago, shortly after their drive up from Dallas. It would possibly be her last time at any medical facility, what with her battle with lung cancer almost over. Now her condition was compromised by pneumonia. It was the worst day possible to be holding a closing on a house.

“Cyn insisted.” Adjusting his tan sports jacket that he wore over a white polo shirt and jeans, Marshall busied himself with fastening his seat belt. “And it’s not like I can do anything else. Hell, the doctors can’t do anything except try to keep her as comfortable as possible. At least I can get this done. She thinks if I’m settled in at the new house, she can stop worrying about me. Isn’t that a joke?” As he dropped his head back against the seat’s headrest, he uttered a soul-weary sigh.

To Genevieve, he looked as if he hadn’t slept a solid three hours in months, perhaps years. Chances were that he hadn’t. Fresh from a shower, his black hair glistened as his determined movements made it fall over a high, but increasingly lined forehead that had nothing to do with age and everything to do with stress. His raw-boned face was freshly shaved, but there were dark shadows under his eyes and the corners of his sensual but compressed mouth seemed permanently turned down, a further sign of how tightly under control he was keeping himself. When they’d first met back in the spring, Genevieve had thought him physically striking, but a bit reticent, even aloof; however, she’d soon learned that wasn’t his character at all. She had quickly learned that he was simply a man overwhelmed by life’s turn of events, and was trying to cope as best as he could. It might be a beautiful August day at the northwest edge of Lake Starling, one of East Texas’s prettiest private lakes, but you couldn’t tell it by looking at him. Marshall looked strapped in for his millionth ride through purgatory, instead of what should have been one of the happier and exciting days of his and Cynthia’s lives.

“Was it like this for you?” he asked after a prolonged silence.

Genevieve’s grip on the steering wheel tightened as she dealt with the deeply personal question. She was often reluctant to discuss the loss of her husband with family or friends, first because it was all she had left of Adam and she protected that meager thing with almost rabid selfishness. Second because she hated what she saw on people’s faces the few times she did answer. Sharing such feelings with a client put her in a gray area, and Genevieve tried to steer clear of such terrain and the complications that could result without them meaning to. Yet this was lining up to be one of those exception-to-the-rule moments in a break-all-rules association.

“Adam was a soldier and died overseas,” she said of her late husband. “I didn’t have to endure watching him slowly wither away before my eyes like you are with Cynthia.”

That drew Marshall’s scrutiny. “At least we’ve had the chance—maybe too many chances—to say goodbye. You didn’t.”

“No.” What she wouldn’t share was that Adam hadn’t even let her come to the airport to see him off. He’d said that if she was there, he might not have been able to make himself board the plane this time. “Besides,” he’d added, “I want to remember how you look lying here in our bed, naked and dreamy-eyed from me making love to you. Gen, I hope I’ve made you pregnant. Write me as soon as you know, okay?”

Genevieve shook her head, needing to block that particular memory. It was way too intimate and precious to share even with a friend. And even though it was now almost four years and the raw pain of his loss had healed to a sensitive scar, the reality was that sometimes the simple act of breathing remained a trial for her.

“I’m sorry,” Marshall said when he saw her swallow two, then three times. “I had no right.”