Shirley Jump - Rescued by Mr Right

“Come here,” Noah said, reaching out to her. “Take my hand. We’ll go back to the car together. I promise I won’t leave you again.”

She hesitated, then placed her palm in his. Heat infused his skin, racing up his arm. Noah knew, as he pulled Victoria toward him, that leaving this city, this woman, wasn’t going to be simple. No, this tie was becoming more and more tangled by the minute.

“Thank you,” she said again after they’d made their way to a quieter section of the street. “I got a little swamped by the crowds.”

A little swamped? He didn’t say it, but to his eyes she looked as if she’d been caught in a storm. He held tight to her hand, keeping her close as they made their way back to where her car was parked.

The woman beside him was a reality that Noah hadn’t counted on. His best-laid plans had just been disrupted—by his own heart.

Dear Reader,

This book was probably one of my most challenging to write, and certainly an experience I will never forget. Because, in the middle of writing about Victoria’s loss, I lost my own mother.

I think, just as Victoria says, that losing someone so close to you changes you forever. I know it has impacted the way I look at the world, how tightly I hug my children, and also how and what I write.

Although there were many days after my mother died that I couldn’t write, ultimately I realized that putting my words on paper and bringing my books to readers was the best testament I could give her. She was always so proud of me, and would brag about her “daughter the author” to everyone from the UPS driver to her hairdresser. She would have wanted me to press on, to finish this book and then write another. And another.

I hope that you, dear reader, will persevere in whatever is important to you. That you, too, will treasure each day and the gifts that come with every sunrise. And always remember to make each moment count and hold dear those around you.

Shirley

www.millsandboon.co.uk

SHIRLEY JUMP

Bookseller’s Best Award-winner Shirley Jump didn’t have the willpower to diet, nor the talent to master under-eye concealer, so she bowed out of a career in television and opted instead for a career where she could be paid to eat at her desk—writing. At first, seeking revenge on her children for their grocery-store tantrums, she sold embarrassing essays about them to anthologies. However, it wasn’t enough to feed her growing addiction to writing. So she turned to the world of romance novels, where messes are (usually) cleaned up before “The End” and no one is calling anyone a doodoo head. In the worlds Shirley gets to create and control, the children listen to their parents, the husbands always remember holidays and the housework is magically done by elves. Though she’s thrilled to see her books in stores around the world, Shirley mostly writes because it gives her an excuse to avoid cleaning the toilets and it helps feed her shoe-shopping habit. To learn more, visit her Web site at www.shirleyjump.com

To my mother, who wasn’t just “Momma,”

she was one of my best friends, too. I will miss

your voice, your hugs and most of all, you.

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

THE next time he ran away from his life, Noah McCarty vowed to make a better plan—or at least give it more forethought than a six-year-old staging a walkout over the lima beans.

Normally he wasn’t a man given to impetuous acts. Anyone who knew him would agree—spontaneity definitely wasn’t his strong suit. It wasn’t even a shirt in his closet.

Through the mud-spotted windshield, steam rose from the radiator in an angry, sputtering cloud. The pickup he’d never had time to bring into the shop had finally quit on him. He cursed several times, feeling his annoyance build with every vapor cloud.

This was the last straw in an already small haystack.

He couldn’t blame the truck. For the better part of the morning, they’d been battling Friday morning stop-and-go traffic on I-93. Finally, in frustration, Noah had gotten off on one of the exits, figuring the scenic route would be better than crawling along at a caterpillar’s pace.

Noah had gotten lost, ending up journeying along Quincy Shore Drive, heading nowhere. With no one waiting for his arrival, no one even knowing where he’d gone, he had the luxury of dawdling. As he drove into Hough’s Neck, the roads narrowed, the area becoming less city-stepchild and more remote further down the peninsula.

Until the truck had shuddered to a halt, refusing to go another inch further.

In front of him, the radiator continued to spit and hiss, disturbing the quiet of the beachside street. Noah got out of the Silverado, stretching his arms over his head, releasing the kinks in his back. It didn’t work. The kinks had become a permanent part of him, like an extra benefit for his job.

Aches, pains and heartbreak—all part of the joys of working in the juvenile justice system. Those were the bonuses he received to offset the awful pay, even worse hours and—

He wasn’t going to think about that. When he got to Maine, he was going to hole up in Mike’s cabin for a few days and have a damned fine pity party.

Because Noah McCarty had failed. In a very big way.

The only thing he could do was retreat, lick his wounds and then come up with a career that involved absolutely no contact with human beings. Mountain climber. Sewer unplugger. Professional hermit. Yeah, his career options were limitless.

Either way, when he returned to Providence, he was done being the patron of lost causes.

From his place inside the cab, Charlie, his mother’s well-indulged pocket pet, stopped shredding the Chevy’s dash and let out a woof. Well, what passed for a woof coming from a voice box the size of a dime. Noah turned, then saw what had attracted the Chihuahua’s canine instincts.

A woman.

Not just a woman, but a beautiful woman. She stood on the porch of a small white Dutch Colonial, the breeze toying with her dark brown hair and tangling it around a heart-shaped face with eyes so blue they seemed to be part of the ocean behind the property. The scenery around the woman could have been an ad in a travel magazine. Parts of the oceanfront land were still untamed, with sea grass growing in wild spurts among the sand and driftwood. It was a warm September day, picturesque and perfect.

She was watching him, a sign in her hands, a question on her lips. The sign was turned to the side, but he could still read the hand-lettered words.

Room for Rent.

The ocean breeze skipped across the beach and up the walk, whispering its salty breath beneath Noah’s nose. He inhaled, and when he did, he brought into his chest the scent of the open water. Of freedom.

Of exactly what he’d been looking for.

“Room for Rent,” he read again. Perhaps he didn’t need to travel all the way to Maine for his personal misery party.

But just as quickly as he had the thought, he dismissed it. Mike’s cabin was isolated, uninhabited. The perfect escape for a man who had every intention of becoming a grumpy recluse for a while.

“Can I help you?” she asked, taking a step forward, shading her eyes with a palm.