Muriel Jensen - New Year's Wedding

Fairy tales do come true.

She seemed to have it all: a fabulous career as a supermodel, a dad who dotes on her and a home in Paris. And now Cassie’s rediscovered the Manning half brother and sister she barely remembered since she was split up from them as a toddler. But none of that excuses her bad behavior on a photo shoot that hit all the tabloids and sent her running from the media. With the help of family friend Grady Nelson, she’s able to lie low in his secluded cabin so she can be part of the New Year’s wedding of her long-lost sister. Cassie’s just beginning to believe she might really have it all—including the heart of this independent bachelor—when she accidentally sets fire to Grady’s house... Then all bets are off.

“Hold the elevator!”

“Grady...” Cassie stumbled.

“Come on!” he encouraged her, running. “If we get there first, I can tell the waiter Ben’s paying. He has a tab here.”

The man held the door from closing as Grady ran in, drawing Cassie in with him. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders as she struggled to catch her breath. The man let the door go and the elevator began to rise.

Grady was completely unprepared for what happened next. Cassie’s hands caught his in a biting grip, her fingernails drawing blood as she let out a high-pitched, ear-splitting scream. She began to shake him and point to the door.

“Cassie—”

“No!”

The other man’s eyes widened as they reached the third floor and the doors parted.

Cassie gasped and ran out into a hallway that spilled into the restaurant, only feet from the hostess’s podium. She stopped and drew in air, her arms wrapped around herself, her cheeks red.

She looked mortified and somehow isolated. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, then added grimly, “Remember that issue from my childhood I mentioned that I still deal with?”

“Yeah?”

“It’s claustrophobia.”

“Yeah,” he said. An inch of skin was scraped off his left hand. “I guessed that.”

Dear Reader,

I was a pudgy little kid, and all these years later, nothing much has changed. I’ve tried every diet out there with various levels of temporary success. Having a sedentary job doesn’t help, nor does the propensity to sit and read a book when everyone else is playing tennis.

The real boon of that sedentary job, though, is that I can create and spend time with a heroine who has a perfect body. I know a great body doesn’t make a better person, but I’ve always wanted one anyway. I make no apologies.

When Cassidy Chapman formed in my mind, the third child in my Manning Family Reunion series, she was beautiful and looked perfect, but I didn’t know what she did for a living. Then I thought about the perfect job for a woman with a perfect body and I let out all the stops. She’s a supermodel with a great life, but she has a past she knows little about since she and her siblings were separated as children.

As New Year’s Wedding opens, the paparazzi are on her trail after an embarrassing episode on a photo shoot, and she’s running to escape them with Grady Nelson—Ben’s police department partner from To Love and Protect.

In Beggar’s Bay she finds family, answers to questions that have plagued her for a long time and love. But Grady has his own issues, so finding solutions that will allow them to build a life together isn’t easy. But is it ever?

While it’s true that her model’s body didn’t simplify her life, she looked wonderful while she struggled. I loved that.

Thank you for buying my book!

New Year’s Wedding

Muriel Jensen

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MURIEL JENSEN lives with her husband, Ron, in a simple old Victorian looking down on the Columbia River in Astoria, Oregon. They share the space with a wild West Highland white terrier mix and two eccentric tabbies. They have three children, nine grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. Their neighborhood is charmed, populated with the kindest people who are also the best cooks. Life is so good.

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To the Seattle Mariners and the Seattle Seahawks to whom my husband is devoted. Their games gave me uninterrupted time to write. They’re also quite a gorgeous group, so my “heroes” folder is full of their photos.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

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

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Extract

Copyright

PROLOGUE

THE COLD, CRISP night had begun so well. Despite the last-minute schedule change just days before Christmas, the crew had rallied for the flight from Paris to Ireland. They would make this photo shoot work. The only hitch had been Maggie, the makeup artist, who had already left on her Christmas holiday. But a replacement had been found and everyone approached the Heart and Soul perfume shoot with the enthusiasm required for success.

The palatial country home where they were being allowed to set up lights and cameras had a pillared portico outlined with Christmas lights and a tall, decorated oak by the front steps.

Cassie Chapman was cold. Her filmy red, off-the-shoulder gown was intended to contribute to the glamour of the scene, but someone stood just yards away with a warm coat to wrap around her during breaks.

She was excited and edgy. Work always revved her body and her brain, but that wasn’t all. That morning, she’d learned that the brother and sister she hadn’t seen since she was two years old had found her and invited her to join them in Texas for the holidays. Though feeling like a lit firecracker inside, she tried to focus on the work at hand, knowing the entire crew was as anxious to finish the night’s work as she was.

The shoot began to go bad when the woman who had replaced Maggie kept running in between shots to reset the combs that held Cassie’s thick hair back. Her movements were quick and understandably nervous. She was very young and it was the first time she’d worked with this crew. She jabbed blush on Cassie’s cheekbones with a finger that felt like an auger, and fussed with eyelashes she’d applied earlier and that now drooped slightly on the outside edge.

Cassie had stood quietly while the woman tried to fix it, apparently not achieving the look she wanted. The stars and the lights began to spin a little, her breath coming as though having to fight its way out. Oh, no. Those symptoms usually preceded an event. She told herself firmly, “Not. Now.”

But rough, anxious hands were all over her face, pushing and smoothing, reattaching a comb and scraping her scalp.