Back to Eden
A Little Secret
April 2006
Harlequin Superromance #1340
ISBN 0-373-71340-1
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Excerpt |
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Courage is easy. Love takes time. Where her heart is
concerned, Rachel isn’t about to take any risks.
Pilot Rachel Quinlan is fearless fighting forest fires, but
on the home front it’s a different story. She’s still not completely over her
crush on Cole Hudson, love of her sister Missy’s life – and he left Eden eleven
years ago. Not that it matters, because now she has Missy’s kids to raise and
her family’s failing business to run. But that’s before the past collides with
the present – and an accident brings Cole to the rescue.
Rachel wants to know if what she feels for Cole is
adolescent fantasy or adult attraction. But how can she spend time with him
when she has so much to hide?
A Little Secret (a big surprise)
Excerpt
Note from Melinda: The 4th story in the Hot
Shot series revisits my Silver Bend Hot Shots, but moves Back to Eden
where Cole Hudson (nicknamed Chainsaw by the team for his tree-felling
abilities) needs to wrap up a few loose ends. Here's a taste of the prologue...
Cole Hudson was never going to love her.
Rachel Quinlan stared at Cole's parked truck - the engine not even pinging or
popping because it had long since cooled - and the sick sensation caused by
unyielding truth settled in her gut.
Oh, Cole liked her well enough and had even taken her out to dinner and to the
movies a time or two. If pressed, he might even say he loved her. But it would
be clear that he didn't love her-love her, not in the happily-ever-after kind of
way.
With tear-filled eyes, Rachel stared up at the blue sky blossoming above Eden -
a sky that cruelly promised a beautiful October day fit for a wedding - someone
else's wedding.
It wasn't just that Cole was four years older than Rachel and treated her as if
she still hadn't reached puberty. Heck, she'd filled out a bra three years ago,
and Cole hadn't seemed to notice. And it wasn't for lack of bodily contact. He
gave Rachel a hug every time he saw her, sweeping her up and twirling her
around, his deep laughter rumbling through to her soul.
Rachel sighed. Nope. The problem was Cole Hudson didn't lover like a man loved a
woman. He could never love her that way. Because he'd lost his heart to Rachel's
older sister, Missy. It seemed disloyal to have such strong feelings for someone
Missy had once so dearly loved, but Missy had let Cole go, and had accepted a
proposal of marriage from another man. Still, there was Cole's truck and Missy
was conspicuously absent from the Quinlan house.
In less than four hours, Missy was supposed to be marrying Lyle Whitehall in
front of God and everyone at the Chapel in the Valley on Main Street. If
Missy...when Missy married Lyle later today, their worries were supposed to be
over. Rachel had no clue as to what would happen to them if Missy didn't marry
Lyle at eleven o'clock, but she'd bet it wouldn't be very good.
The impossibility of having Cole love her threatened to overwhelm Rachel as she
stared at his truck parked in front of room twenty-two of the Shady Lady motel
on the outskirts of Eden.
The question was: Who was in the motel room with Cole?
Suddenly filled with an anger demanding an outlet, Rachel ran up to the door to
number twenty-two and pounded on it. Before her knuckles hit the warped wood a
second time, Cole opened the motel room door and stalked past Rachel without so
much as a glance. Missy huddled in the mussed bed, a sheet pulled up to her
shoulders and tears streaming down her pale face.
Missy, who had always been Rachel's rock, as well as sister, mother, friend and
confidante, and who always looked model perfect, looked as if she was
thirty-nine, not nineteen.
Rachel forgot all about her own shattered dreams as she ran across the worn,
stained carpet to comfort her sister.
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