Grace Green - The Wedding Promise

Logan sighed, his heart crushed by the weight of his promise Logan sighed, his heart crushed by the weight of his promise The promise he hadn’t fulfilled. He couldn’t keep putting it off.... Throwing back his head, he closed his eyes and wrote his mental checklist of attributes essential in a suitable bride. LOOKS: plain, but not distractingly so HEIGHT: average BUILD: neatly assembled, but unobtrusively so MANNER: modest ATTITUDE: nonargumentative He drew a line under “nonargumentative.” Sara Wynter—now there was an argumentative female. In fact, the woman he was looking for was the very opposite of Ms. Sara Wynter.... About the Author Grace Green was born in Scotland and is a former teacher. In 1967 she and her marine-engineer husband, John, emigrated to Canada where they raised their four children. Empty-nesters now, they are happily settled in West Vancouver in a house overlooking the ocean. Grace enjoys walking the sea wall, gardening, getting together with other writers...and watching her characters come to life, because she knows that, once they do, they will take over and write her stories for her. Grace Green has written for the Presents series, but now concentrates on Harlequin Romance ® ...bringing you deeply emotional stories with vibrant characters. Title Page The Wedding Promise Grace Green www.millsandboon.co.uk Dedication For Moyra Tarling, Kay Gregory and Kathy Garner because they’ve been there from the beginning And for Barbara Schenck because of Taggart! 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 EPILOGUE Copyright

Logan sighed, his heart crushed by the weight of his promise

The promise he hadn’t fulfilled. He couldn’t keep putting it off.... Throwing back his head, he closed his eyes and wrote his mental checklist of attributes essential in a suitable bride.

LOOKS: plain, but not distractingly so

HEIGHT: average

BUILD: neatly assembled, but unobtrusively so

MANNER: modest

ATTITUDE: nonargumentative

He drew a line under “nonargumentative.”

Sara Wynter—now there was an argumentative female. In fact, the woman he was looking for was the very opposite of Ms. Sara Wynter....

Grace Green was born in Scotland and is a former teacher. In 1967 she and her marine-engineer husband, John, emigrated to Canada where they raised their four children. Empty-nesters now, they are happily settled in West Vancouver in a house overlooking the ocean. Grace enjoys walking the sea wall, gardening, getting together with other writers...and watching her characters come to life, because she knows that, once they do, they will take over and write her stories for her.

Grace Green has written for the Presents series, but now concentrates on Harlequin Romance ®...bringing you deeply emotional stories with vibrant characters.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For Moyra Tarling, Kay Gregory and Kathy Garner

because they’ve been there from the beginning

And for Barbara Schenck

because of Taggart!

CHAPTER ONE

THE woman at the wheel of the cabin cruiser was a blonde.

A drop-dead-gorgeous blonde, Logan noted as he glowered at her through the brass telescope set up in the bay window of his sitting room. She had the face of an angel and an eye-popping figure set off by a flirty yellow dress—but though he could appreciate beauty as well as the next man all he felt now was irritation.

Intense irritation!

He’d come to his island summer place for a purpose and the last thing he wanted was uninvited company. But this craft so gaily riding the choppy waves of the Juan de Fuca Straits was headed directly for his waterfront property.

He swung the scope to the boat’s name: Zach’s Fancy.

Muttering under his breath, he swung the powerful instrument up again...

In time to see someone join the woman at the wheel.

A man, dressed in black, with the dark, rakish looks of a pirate and a physique to match. He smiled and draped an arm around the shoulders of his female fancy...who was, Logan recognised with distaste, young enough to be his—

A bell rang somewhere in Logan’s head and he frowned.

Refocusing the scope, he brought the man’s face in so close that the silver strands in his black hair were visible.

Good God. Logan blinked. Zach Grant!

Movie idol, modem-day Valentino, swinging bachelor. A tabloid wouldn’t have been a tabloid without a lurid spread on Hollywood’s most notorious womaniser and his current sex object.

What was the name of that rag Andrea was forever poring over? SuperGossip? GossipIsUs? Whatever Grant’s mug had adorned it only last week. Andy had pointed it out.

‘Look, Dad, he’s with Felicia Mosscov, that new red-haired model! She’s hot...and isn’t he something?’

‘He’s something, all right,’ he’d muttered, before telling his daughter to put the magazine in the trash where it belonged. She hadn’t, of course.

It was at times like those that he realised just how much Andy needed a mother.

Soon, he mused grimly, she would have one.

He jerked his attention back to the boat, and saw that the small craft had now almost reached his dock.

Tension snapped at him like a yappy dog. He shoved the scope aside and stormed across the living room, and the foyer, and then out of the open front door.

Damned intruders! He leaped down the flight of narrow steps, charged down the sloping lawn and thundered across the narrow strip of sandy beach to the jetty.

The sign at the end of the dock was executed in electric blue lettering and its message was clear:

‘PRIVATE: KEEP OUT.’

These idiots should have been able to see it by now. They should have been changing direction, and heading back out into the Strait. They were not. They were pulling in alongside the jetty. Logan saw red.

‘Ahoy there!’ He pounded along the wooden boards.

The couple turned to look up at him.

The breeze caught the woman’s glistening blonde hair, blowing it across her face. When she swept back the pale strands, he saw that her eyes were an unusual turquoise colour, and as they met his her expression of vulnerability took him by surprise...and touched something deep inside him that hadn’t been touched in five years.

Memories of Bethany, memories he’d managed to hold at bay ever since he’d returned to the island just hours ago, suddenly flooded his heart till he could hardly bear the pain. As a result, when he spoke again, his voice had a cold harshness that was quite unwarranted.

‘You can’t tie up here.’ He fisted his hands on his hips and glowered at the intruders. “This is a private jetty.’

Sara’s first glimpse of the man looming down from above threatened to buckle her knees. For a second, she’d thought it was Travis. Like her ex-husband, the stranger was tall and superbly built, dark-haired and attractive. But even as dismay curdled through her she realised the resemblance was superficial. Travis’s hair was brown; this man’s was black. Travis’s face was pale; this man’s was tanned. Travis’s eyes were tawny; the stranger’s were green.

Green and cold and hostile. And when they skimmed from Zach to her she detected a flicker of contempt.

Her hackles rose, and she felt Zach’s arm tighten around her shoulders, deliberately, warningly.

‘This is Madronna Island?’ he asked.

‘That’s right.’

‘And this is the Logan Hunter estate?’ Zach raised his brows.

‘Right again.’ The stranger rammed his hands into the pockets of his grey cotton shorts. Despite his casual attire every line of his body, from the arrogant set of his head to the confident set of his wide shoulders, indicated authority. ‘I’m Hunter, and this is my private property.’