Zara Stoneley - Summer of Surrender

Zara Stoneley

A division of HarperCollins Publishers

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Copyright HarperImpulse an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 77–85 Fulham Palace Road Hammersmith, London W6 8JB www.harpercollins.co.uk First published in Great Britain by HarperImpulse 2013 Copyright © Zara Stoneley Cover Images © Shutterstock.com Zara Stoneley asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. Ebook Edition © November 2013 ISBN: 9780007556571 Version 2014-09-26 Digital eFirst: Automatically produced by Atomik ePublisher from Easypress.

Dedication To my family, who have always encouraged me to follow my dreams, and my very own sexy hero who has provided the inspiration and support to turn them into reality.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Zara Stoneley

About HarperImpulse

About the Publisher

HarperImpulse an imprint of

HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

77–85 Fulham Palace Road

Hammersmith, London W6 8JB

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperImpulse 2013

Copyright © Zara Stoneley

Cover Images © Shutterstock.com

Zara Stoneley asserts the moral right

to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is

available from the British Library

This novel is entirely a work of fiction.

The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are

the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to

actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is

entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International

and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

By payment of the required fees, you have been granted

the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access

and read the text of this e-book on screen.

No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted,

downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or

stored in or introduced into any information storage and

retrieval system, in any form or by any means,

whether electronic or mechanical, now known or

hereinafter invented, without the express

written permission of HarperCollins.

Ebook Edition © November 2013

ISBN: 9780007556571

Version 2014-09-26

Digital eFirst: Automatically produced by Atomik ePublisher from Easypress.

To my family, who have always encouraged me to follow my dreams, and my very own sexy hero who has provided the inspiration and support to turn them into reality.

‘Shit.’ Whoever said climbing gates in a maxi dress was possible had got it wrong. Seriously wrong. Or maybe no one had been stupid enough to say it.

Kezia Martin clung on to the top of the wobbling timber and considered her options. Rolling off was a definite possibility, except that the driveway looked like it had a high ‘ouch’ factor. Although she was a million miles from sophisticated, even she knew that a gravelled face was not a good look. But there didn’t seem to be an option B. Apart from the ‘split your dress at the seams’ one, and she did actually like this dress quite a lot. And as it made up fifty per cent of her going-out wardrobe, she wasn’t ready to sacrifice it, and neither did she want expose her thighs – or worse – to the world.

Not that there was much of the world here to see anyway. The monosyllabic taxi driver had dropped her off by a five-bar gate in the middle of nowhere, and scarpered before she had the chance to say she’d changed her mind. Not that she really wanted to face another trip in his car.

She’d actually been feeling pretty positive, if knackered, when she’d staggered out of the train station. And even the one battered taxi that was parked in the otherwise deserted rank didn’t deflate her too much. The driver had taken her bag without a great deal of enthusiasm, shoved his newspaper onto the passenger seat and raised an eyebrow when she’d read out the address, which seemed a bit rude. He’d muttered something that she could have sworn sounded like ‘you don’t look like one of them,’ but she could have got that bit wrong. Then he’d stoically ignored her and driven further and further into the countryside before unceremoniously dumping her, grabbing his fare and driving off in his belching car. Which was doubly rude.

She would have been more worried, but the back of beyond was probably a good place to be right now. A good place to start again. And anyway, she was too darned tired to really think about anything, apart from the comfy bed that just had to be waiting for her. It had to be.

Or maybe not. There wasn’t an intercom, not even a bell, just the gate, firmly fastened with a chain that wouldn’t have looked out of place attached to an anchor. She’d tried hollering and she’d tried waiting, though not for that long since patience wasn’t her greatest virtue. Then she’d decided that there obviously wasn’t a guard dog, and she was too tired to sit in the road any longer. At least on the other side she might find somewhere to sit down and wait. It had to be better than staying on the outside. So she’d thrown her rucksack and guitar over the gate and planned on following them. Which involved hitching up the dress to just over her knees and taking advantage of the generous slit down one side. The problem was there was no slit on the other side, so once she was astride the gate, things got tricky. Whichever way she tried to move there was the tell-tale sound of the snapping of stitches. Bugger.

She would ring for help, but her mobile was in her rucksack. On the ground, right where she was heading. Which left two options: praying to God for help, or making an even bigger fool of herself. She shut her eyes, which always helped with thinking. And praying.

‘What-’ there was a God, with a wicked sense of humour seeing as she just about fell off the precarious perch, ‘-are you doing?’ Well, maybe not a God. She turned as far as she could, cricking her neck in the process, and could just about make out a tall, lean figure. The low sun behind him made everything but his outline pretty much indiscernible, so she screwed up her eyes to try and focus on him. Which didn’t help.

‘Are you going to give me a hand, or just stand there?’

‘No to the first, yes to the second.’ He didn’t just stand there, though. He took a couple of steps nearer, so that she could make out quite clearly that this wasn’t some mysterious God, just a mysterious mortal. With a soft voice, which had an undertone that was making her skin prickle.