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Synopsis
The high-powered high life loses all its allure in the face of family tragedy.
A return to the Gulf Coast life and a chance to reconnect and reclaim what really matters leads to unexpected passion and a final chance at true love in this tumultuous summer romance from best-selling author Gerri Hill!
Table of Contents
Cover
Synopsis
Title Page
Copyright Page
Other Books by Gerri Hill
About the Author
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
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Bella Books
Copyright © 2015 by Gerri Hill
Bella Books, Inc.
P.O. Box 10543
Tallahassee, FL 32302
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without permission in writing from the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
First Bella Books Edition 2015
eBook released 2015
Editor: Medora MacDougall
Cover Designer: Judith Fellows
ISBN: 978-1-59493-450-6
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
Other Bella Books by Gerri Hill
Angel Fire
Artist’s Dream
At Seventeen
Behind the Pine Curtain
The Cottage
Coyote Sky
Dawn of Change
Devil’s Rock
Gulf Breeze
Hell’s Highway
Hunter’s Way
In the Name of the Father
Keepers of the Cave
The Killing Room
Love Waits
The Midnight Moon
No Strings
One Summer Night
Partners
The Rainbow Cedar
The Scorpion
Sierra City
Snow Falls
Storms
The Target
Weeping Walls
About the Author
Gerri Hill has twenty-seven published works, including the 2013 GCLS winner Snow Falls, 2011 and 2012 GCLS winners Devil’s Rock and Hell’s Highway, and the 2009 GCLS winner Partners, the last book in the popular Hunter Series, as well as the 2012 Lambda finalist Storms. Hill’s love of nature and of being outdoors usually makes its way into her stories as her characters often find themselves in beautiful natural settings. When she isn’t writing, Gerri and her longtime partner, Diane, keep busy at their log cabin in East Texas tending to their two vegetable gardens, orchard and five acres of piney woods. They share their lives with two Australian shepherds and an assortment of furry felines.
Chapter One
Jordan Sims drove slowly, her gaze drawn again and again to the bay, its bluish green water shimmering in the bright morning sunlight. She should have come out here earlier in the week, but she wanted to at least wait until the funeral…wait until her brother was laid to rest before invading his beach house.
Oh, sure, it was still her parents’ old weekend place, and her grandparents’ house before that. But Matt had made the small house on the bay his own once her parents had stopped spending time there. Of course, she hadn’t been around then. She’d already left home, escaping to college and then to Chicago.
And she hadn’t been back. Not really. In the last fifteen years, she could count on one hand the number of times she’d been back to Rockport. A few days at Christmas, mostly. And once, her mother had talked her into a week over Thanksgiving. God, that had been endless.
Yet here she was, taking a leave of absence from her job, intending to stay on the Texas coast “as long as you need me,” as she’d told her parents. The restaurant, they could handle. Matt didn’t have a hand in it. But the store? No, that was Matt’s baby. He’d turned their little souvenir shop into a thriving business. All because of Fat Larry.
She shook her head but smiled nonetheless. The pudgy pelican had become a fixture in Rockport. Everyone knew Fat Larry. In fact, if you asked directions along Austin Street, Fat Larry was the landmark the locals used.
“Go two blocks past Fat Larry. Can’t miss it.”
“If you get to Fat Larry, you’ve gone too far.”
Fat Larry was a ten-foot-tall plastic pelican—purple, no less—with a bright green T-shirt advertising the store—Sims’ Treasures. Of course, all the locals referred to the store as Fat Larry’s. Her brother, with not a single hour of college credit to his name, had a knack for marketing. And it all started with Fat Larry. The shop was the go-to place for Rockport and Texas Gulf Coast souvenirs. Matt liked to have fun and he was a natural in the store with customers. On any given day, he’d start tossing Fat Larry T-shirts out. They cost next to nothing to produce and offered legions of free advertising.