Jeanne Allan - A Groom For Gwen

“All right, Mr. Stoner. I’ll hire you on a trial basis. One month.” “All right, Mr. Stoner. I’ll hire you on a trial basis. One month.” “I’ll be here as long as you need me.” The words were innocuous enough, but somehow he invested them with deeper meaning. “What does that mean?” Gwen asked. “I’m a man who has to drift. I’m just passing through.” “I’m not interested in hiring a transient,” she said sharply. The man met her eyes, his gaze clear and steady. “I’ll stay as long as you need me. I always do.” Gwen wanted to believe Jake Stoner. She had no choice but to believe him. “All right,” she said slowly. “When can you start?” Please, she thought, let it be now. He held out his hand. “Soon as we shake on it, ma’am.” She didn’t want to shake hands with him. She didn’t want to touch him. The realization disconcerted her. Jake Stoner was more than the hunk her lawyer Prudence had labeled him. He was overwhelmingly male. If she knew one thing, it was that Jake Stoner spelled trouble. And he worked for her. Letter to Reader Dear Reader, Remember the magic of the film It’s a Wonderful Life? The warmth and tender emotion of Truly, Madly, Deeply? The feel-good humor of Heaven Can Wait? Well, we can’t promise you Alan Rickman or Warren Beatty, but we know you’ll be delighted with the latest miniseries in Harlequin Romance ® : GUARDIAN ANGELS. It brings together all of your favorite ingredients for a perfect novel: great heroes, feisty heroines, breathtaking romance, all with a celestial spin. Written by four of our star authors, this witty and wonderful series features four real-life angels—all of whom are perfect advertisements for heaven! Already available are The Boss, the Baby and the Bride by Day Leclaire and Heavenly Husband by Carolyn Greene. This month it’s Jeanne Allan’s turn with A Groom for Gwen—a story of such emotional intensity you’ll cry tears of laughter and sadness at its tender humor and heart-wrenching poignancy. Not to be missed in December is Margaret Way’s Gabriel’s Mission. Have a heavenly read! Failing in love sometimes needs a little help from above! Title Page A Groom For Gwen Jeanne Allan www.millsandboon.co.uk Dedication For my father, who knew how to tell a story CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER FIVE CHAPTER SIX CHAPTER SEVEN CHAPTER EIGHT CHAPTER NINE CHAPTER TEN CHAPTER ELEVEN Copyright

“All right, Mr. Stoner. I’ll hire you on a trial basis. One month.”

“I’ll be here as long as you need me.”

The words were innocuous enough, but somehow he invested them with deeper meaning.

“What does that mean?” Gwen asked.

“I’m a man who has to drift. I’m just passing through.”

“I’m not interested in hiring a transient,” she said sharply.

The man met her eyes, his gaze clear and steady. “I’ll stay as long as you need me. I always do.”

Gwen wanted to believe Jake Stoner. She had no choice but to believe him. “All right,” she said slowly. “When can you start?” Please, she thought, let it be now.

He held out his hand. “Soon as we shake on it, ma’am.”

She didn’t want to shake hands with him. She didn’t want to touch him. The realization disconcerted her. Jake Stoner was more than the hunk her lawyer Prudence had labeled him. He was overwhelmingly male. If she knew one thing, it was that Jake Stoner spelled trouble. And he worked for her.

Dear Reader,

Remember the magic of the film It’s a Wonderful Life? The warmth and tender emotion of Truly, Madly, Deeply? The feel-good humor of Heaven Can Wait?

Well, we can’t promise you Alan Rickman or Warren Beatty, but we know you’ll be delighted with the latest miniseries in Harlequin Romance ®: GUARDIAN ANGELS. It brings together all of your favorite ingredients for a perfect novel: great heroes, feisty heroines, breathtaking romance, all with a celestial spin. Written by four of our star authors, this witty and wonderful series features four real-life angels—all of whom are perfect advertisements for heaven!

Already available are The Boss, the Baby and the Bride by Day Leclaire and Heavenly Husband by Carolyn Greene. This month it’s Jeanne Allan’s turn with A Groom for Gwen—a story of such emotional intensity you’ll cry tears of laughter and sadness at its tender humor and heart-wrenching poignancy. Not to be missed in December is Margaret Way’s Gabriel’s Mission.

Have a heavenly read!

Failing in love sometimes needs a little help from above!

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For my father,

who knew how to tell a story

CHAPTER ONE

SLOUCHED against the building, Jake watched the woman come down the street. With her yellow hair, she was pretty as a bald-faced heifer. Somehow Jake knew when he cut the right trail, although Michaels never told him.

Michaels. No first name, just Michaels. The man looked like a greenhorn in his boiled shirt and derby. Jake thought of him as a kind of trail boss for the Almighty, but Michaels was unlike any bible-puncher Jake had known. Those preachers could plumb tucker a man out with their palaver about brimstone and damnation. Michaels, on the other hand, didn’t say much, but his piercing blue eyes told Jake that Michaels had experienced more than most men would know in a dozen lifetimes. Those same eyes saw right though a man’s hide and counted all his sins.

Jake had plenty of sins to count, he thought, idly admiring the long, graceful legs striding toward him. No sashaying for this woman. Women rigged out in pants no longer startled him, and he studied her from head to toe with masculine appreciation. She was on the slender side, but she had enough womanly curves to please. Jake had never been partial to the big-bosomed women his brother Luther had liked hanging on him. He wished he could see the eyes hidden behind them dark cheaters—sunglasses, they called them now—that everyone wore. From the look on her face, the woman was making a powerful sight of thinking about something more than the tyke in her arms.

Michaels said this was the tenth time. The tenth and last. Then Jake could present himself at the Pearly Gates. Jake was tired of evil and war and killing and stupidity and greed. Over a century had passed since Jake’s time, and mankind had learned nothing. Sometimes Jake thought he didn’t even care if he went upstairs or down below. He just wanted out of it. No more anger, sorrow, frustration, worry or caring. He wanted, once and for all time, to simply cease to be.

He’d tried to tell Michaels how he felt, but the other man had already gone. Jake hated that. Michaels came and went like a ghost. Maybe Jake did the same. If this was ten, that meant he’d done nine jobs already, but those jobs, those people, had faded from his memory.

His memories came from his real life.

If people like him had memories.

Funny, what he knew and what he didn’t know. Jake knew he’d been gunned down in 1886 while relieving a bank of the responsibility of storing so many banknotes. He didn’t know why he hadn’t been tossed in the hellfire down below. Michaels never answered questions. He simply sent Jake back to earth to help people.

People like the woman drawing near. Jake straightened and tipped his hat.

The August wind blowing off the high Colorado plains made a mockery of her once neatly combed hair. Gwen blinked the grit from her eyes as a crumpled piece of paper blew across the Trinidad street and bounced off her grimy canvas shoe. Dust coated her face. So much for bucolic fantasies. Someone should have warned her country living meant wind and dirt and grasshoppers. And smells. Not once had she seen a painting of cows which included cow patties. It was dishonest, is what it was. Not that she was so stupid she couldn’t figure out what went in had to come out.