Christina Skye - Butterfly Cove

Girl’s gone bad…for the town’s new golden boy

Maybe opposites don’t always attract. If they did, architect Olivia Sullivan would have run away with bad boy Rafe Russo when they were teenagers. Instead, Olivia has spent ten years dreaming up designs for a life that hasn’t gone the way she planned. Still reeling from her career’s implosion and her father’s death, Olivia thanks her lucky stars for the support of her three lifelong friends. But this good girl is through sitting on the sidelines. When Rafe returns to the beautiful Oregon coast where they grew up, her former flame ignites a new desire. Now Olivia must take a walk on the wild side to show the new deputy that in matters of love…being bad can feel very good.

Freshly back from Afghanistan, rugged ex-Marine and new deputy Rafe is done breaking laws and hearts. He’s always regretted leaving Olivia behind, but now she’s after adventure and he’d better proceed with caution. Because wanting her again might be easy, but fighting for a future together will be his biggest risk yet.

Praise for Christina Skye’s

Summer Island series

“Skye perfectly captures the feel and appeal of small-town life...[a] sweetly satisfying romance.”

—Booklist on The Accidental Bride (starred review)

“The Accidental Bride has something for every reader—warmth, humor...and chocolate. I love this book.”

—#1 New York Times bestselling author Debbie Macomber on The Accidental Bride

“Skye manages to keep her complicated plots clicking along like busy knitting needles.”

—Publishers Weekly on A Home by the Sea

“A delightful love story with just enough intrigue and complexity to make it exciting and different.”

—New York Journal of Books on A Home by the Sea

Butterfly Cove

Christina Skye

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Contents

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

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

CHAPTER THIRTY

EPILOGUE

AUTHOR’S NOTE

PROLOGUE

THE DAY HAD started well enough, with a large iced cinnamon dolce latte with cinnamon sprinkles and a raspberry-walnut scone on the side.

Olivia Sullivan had zipped through morning traffic and was at her drafting desk an hour early. As she finished her scone, she savored the peace and quiet around her. She liked starting her day early. Most of all she liked the quiet time before the hive started to buzz and race with frantic activity.

Twelve minutes after Olivia had finished her newest project, an upscale shopping area and condominium project in a busy Seattle suburb, a man she didn’t recognize walked up to her desk and put a small envelope down in front of her. “Olivia Sullivan?”

“That’s right.”

“This is for you.” The man turned around and walked away before she could ask who he was or why he had left an envelope on her desk.

Olivia looked down and rubbed her forehead, feeling a headache begin. But those were nothing new. For months she had been working ten-hour days and she still had no idea whether she’d be kept on after her one-year assessment was done.

She picked up the envelope and turned it over. She saw a woman across the hall glance across at her uncertainly and then look away.

Olivia suddenly knew what was waiting inside that envelope. She frowned and tore open the cheap paper. She saw a check inside, her salary for the last pay period. The amount was prorated to end exactly at noon that day. Beneath the pay stub with her total accrued hours, Olivia saw a letter typed on company letterhead.

Dear Olivia Sullivan,

Notice of termination is hereby given. Enclosed check will serve as final wages due.

Thank you for your services.

Olivia stared at the impersonal, stamped signature of the company’s president. Thank you for your services?

After eight months of drudgery, this was all she got? Thank you for your services and a pay stub?

She folded and unfolded the sheet, feeling the blood drain from her face. Couldn’t someone have had the decency to sign her letter himself? Was an actual signature too much to ask? Or even a phone call from someone in Personnel?

With shaking fingers she gathered her reference books and papers and drafting pens. Quickly she slid her framed picture of Summer Island into the knitting bag she kept hidden in the bottom drawer. Professional women did not knit in public, at least not while at the office. Knitting needles made people uncomfortable, an employment officer had told her quietly. It had to do with the sharp points and the quick movements.

Olivia grabbed the bag and swung it over her shoulder like a flag of angry protest. Maybe some people ought to be made uncomfortable.

A security guard showed up two minutes later. When you gave someone the boot, the security guard was there to collect their keys and badges and escort them out of the building. Olivia knew the drill.

She had just never expected to be on the receiving end.

Silently she gathered her other belongings and marched outside with her head held high. She met no one’s eyes. She didn’t speak on the way down in the elevator or on her angry walk to her car, where she dumped her box and knitting and then sank into the driver’s seat.

The guard left. But Olivia sat white-faced and shaking, trying to figure out how her life could possibly get any worse, and what she was going to do to dig herself out of the looming disaster that her father had left behind after his death.

And now she had lost her job. Something burned at her eyelids. She gripped the steering wheel hard and told herself to stay strong.

But it wasn’t working. She didn’t feel strong. A wave of panic struck and Olivia closed her eyes, knowing what would come next when her anxiety grew into a sickening wave.

She had to get home.

She had to find the only place where she had ever felt safe and the friends who had been her anchor through uncertainty and pain. Her hands tightened. Summer Island was waiting for her in the mist, golden in the morning sun.

Olivia had driven the road south many times before, but this was different. This time she was going home.

For good.

Oregon Coast

Late afternoon

THIRTY MILES SOUTH of the Oregon border, the fog appeared. Olivia opened her window and drank in the smells of salt and sea, feeling the wind comb through her hair. The sun was gone and shadows touched the coast. Waves boiled up over black rocks where seals and otters fished in clusters.

A small sign pointed out the turn to the coast road. Her heart kicked up as she saw the misty outline of hills and trees ahead.