Rising Heat (57 page)

Nothing he said would sway public opinion. “Let them think what they will,” he told me. He didn’t care. His properties spoke for themselves. With summer under way, he held grand openings for the Rocking J and the Camp Robber. Both were a swimming success, with more on the horizon.

I was excited for him. His company stocks had risen. His divorce to Celine finalized. He was happy, and that counted most of all.

For me, I planned on going back to Texas one of these days. Blake had helped me break my lease on the room I’d rented in San Francisco. I didn’t even go back to
Sweet Success
to gather my few things. Not that I was avoiding Angela, I didn’t care what she said anyway. Maybe I
was
better cut out for a local paper. Maybe I would try to syndicate my own column one of these days. Maybe I’d try my hand writing a novel. But for now, all that could wait.

I was having too much fun with Blake. Tomorrow we were going river rafting and I couldn’t wait. Every moment I spent with him was an adventure, one that definitely left an impression.

At the moment, we laid side by side on a wooden framed bed just outside of Deadwood, South Dakota, inspecting yet another property. Darkness had fallen long ago. We had just made love, my body still tingling from the sensations thrumming through it. Just as I felt like I was about to doze off, Blake grasped my hand. He leaned over onto his side, his head resting on an uplifted arm.

“Misty?”

“Hmmm?” I replied sleepily.

“You having fun?”

I smiled, even though I knew he couldn’t see it in the darkness. But he didn’t have to. He leaned down and kissed first one dimple, then the other. He could tell I was smiling. He claimed that every time he saw my dimples, he got a hard on.

“Are you?” he asked again.

I opened my eyes and gazed up at him, barely able to make out his features in the moonlight shining through the window. So handsome. So strong. So earnest. “Yes, Blake, I am.”

“Care to take it to the next level?”

I was jolted wide awake then, staring up at him with curiosity. “The next level?”

He shifted in the bed, and I felt something cold and hard pressed against the tip of my ring finger, slowly sliding toward my knuckle. My heart stopped, then resumed beating at a rapid pace as my cheeks grew warm with a flush that had nothing to do with the lovemaking session we’d just indulged in. Tears warmed my eyes. Was that what I thought—?

“Misty, I love you…” His fingers paused, the thumb gently caressing the back of my hand. “I hope you feel the same way about me. What do you say? Ready to go all the way?”

I made a sound that came out as a half cry, half laugh, the sound choking on the emotion rising in my throat. I swallowed and he wiped away the tears sliding down my face.

“Yes, Blake, I’m ready. Whenever you are.”

I thrilled at the sensation of the ring passing over my knuckle until it nestled against the base of my finger. Oh God, I couldn’t believe this was happening. I reveled in it, thrilled beyond expectations.

His lips lowered to mine, and I accepted his mouth as quickly as I accepted his proposal.

Blake was right.

When he did something, he definitely left an impact. And he had left a hard impact on my heart; one that would endure forever.

The End

FREE BONUS NOVEL

M
Y
H
EART'S
D
ESIRE
- T
HE
C
OMPLETE
S
ERIES

H
ELEN
G
REY

“My Heart’s Desire” is a five-part Bad Boy Romantic Suspense Series by Helen Grey.

This is the complete series box set containing all 5 parts with an HEA and no cliffhangers.

Freelance website designer Tracy Whitcomb is ecstatic to relocate from the hectic pace of Boston to the peaceful Vermont countryside after inheriting a cottage from her grandmother. She loves it there, until her idyllic solitude transforms into uneasy isolation.

Someone is watching. But who?

In desperation, she turns to the police, but their hands are tied and she’s shoved into the direction of a private investigator. With nowhere else to turn, she goes to him… Hawk, a glorious looking Native American who swears to protect her.

But who’s going to protect her from him?

What are you waiting for? The complete “My Heart’s Desire” series with no cliffhangers is now only one click away!

This book is intended for a mature audience, 18+ only.

MY HEART’S DESIRE

H
ELEN
G
REY

PART 1

BOOK DESCRIPTION

This is Part 1 of “My Heart’s Desire” – a five part Bad Boy Romantic Suspense Series by Helen Grey.

Freelance website designer Tracy Whitcomb is ecstatic to relocate from the hectic pace of Boston to the peaceful Vermont countryside after inheriting a cottage from her grandmother. She loves it there, until her idyllic solitude transforms into uneasy isolation.

Someone is watching. But who?

In desperation, she turns to the police, but their hands are tied and she’s shoved into the direction of a private investigator. With nowhere else to turn, she goes to him… Hawk, a glorious looking Native American who swears to protect her.

But who’s going to protect her from him?

This book is intended for a mature audience, 18+ only.

I
couldn’t wait to get home and get back to work. I would arrange my new supplies in the bedroom that I had recently converted into my home office when I had time. Thanks to an inheritance from my grandmother, I, Tracy Whitcomb, was now the proud owner of a cottage nestled just outside of Seneca, Vermont.

To my intense surprise and undying gratitude, my dear grandmother had bequeathed the cottage to me upon her death three months ago. I used to live in Boston, had since I graduated from university there, but I had long since felt the urge to move north, away from the city, the crime, and the… how should I put it? The un-neighborliness of my neighbors. I lived in the same apartment building for the past four years and I had yet to learn the name of the neighbor across from me, nor the two on either side.

It wasn’t as if I didn’t have any contact with my neighbors. Oh, no. Not lucky me.

The family that had lived next door to me had been quite vociferous when it came to their arguments, and apparently my living room wall abutted one of the bedrooms of the apartment on my other side. That bedroom was apparently occupied by either one or a million rambunctious children who seem to get a kick out of apparently jumping on the bed and flinging himself — or themselves — into the wall. While I found the noise extremely aggravating at times, I nevertheless had to smile at their antics. Oh, the joys of being young and carefree!

An older gentleman lived in the apartment directly across from mine, but I rarely saw him. I did manage to get a peek inside his apartment once as we were both leaving our humble abodes at the same time, me on the way to the grocery store, he who knew where. Looking past his shoulder, I’d tried my best to school my expression when I saw the stacks of newspapers behind him. Some piled to the ceiling. A hoarder? Great. A perfect place for a fire, or even worse, rodents. I pictured the worst; cockroaches, mice, and rats the size of cats.
Did
he have cats? Was he one of those people that not only hoarded newspapers and magazines, but cats? Were they pooping all over the place, filling the apartment with toxic bacteria?

It was hard not to allow my imagination to run away with me after that.

Not a month later, my older sister Jenny called to let me know that Grandma had died. My mother lived with Jenny in Montana and moved Grandma in with them after she fell and broke her hip. That happened last year. I’d seen them only once since then, last Christmas. Grandma didn’t live in Seneca, but she and Grandpa owned a small cottage that had often served as a wonderful summer getaway before my family imploded. More on that later.

I’d always held the memories of the summer cottage close to my heart. We didn’t actually go there many times, maybe four or five, but for some reason, the little cottage nestled up against the trees near the back of a meadow about one hundred yards from the road had always held a special place in my heart. To say it was quaint and old-fashioned was an understatement. I’m not sure when the cottage was built, maybe in the early 1920s. The wooden stairs creaked, the floorboards in the kitchen were slightly warped, but the cottage had character.

It called to me.

I know that’s a strange thing to say, but it’s true. That old cottage gave me a sense of comfort and serenity that my apartment in the city never had.

Yes, I was quite a ways from my neighbors out here. I think my closest neighbor was a half-mile away through a stand of trees, but that didn’t worry me. While I didn’t personally know any of them, I now knew the sounds of their trucks or their cars. Sometimes, when the wind blew just right, I could hear the laughter of the kids over at the Sanderson place off to the west.

The town of Seneca was maybe a ten-minute drive to the south, which doesn’t seem like much unless you happened to live in the rolling hills and valleys of Vermont. Even so, I liked the convenience of living near a decent-sized town, but I also greatly appreciated the solitude of the cottage, which allowed me uninterrupted hours of work every day. No more listening to the bangs of apartment doors, arguing neighbors, or children bouncing off the walls. Or imagined smells coming from under the old man’s door.

Here, once I got focused on my work and my mojo got going, I found my creativity blooming. My business had picked up to the point where just last week, I turned down an offer for work because I was already too busy.

Things were looking up for me. A new home, a growing business. I was happy, and I found myself smiling as I drove along the gravel driveway from the highway to my new home. As I got closer, I once again appreciated my grandmother’s bequest. I was surprised that neither my mother nor my older sister wanted the place. Sure, it was old and a long way from Montana, but it was mine with very little expense. It really was a godsend.

I should explain why I lived so far away from my mother and sister. When I was eight years old, my parents divorced. What followed were years of moving around. My mother tried her best, really she did, but without a college education or any major skills to brag about, she ended up working two, sometimes three jobs at a time until my older sister and I were old enough to get jobs and help with the expenses.

By the time I graduated from high school, I knew that I wanted to have a career that would allow me to be self-sufficient. I’d always loved computers and graphic design and decided to mix the two. After obtaining a scholarship to attend Boston University, I shared an apartment with three other girls working their way through college. A couple of years ago, I graduated with a degree in computer programming that I morphed into a web designing career.

My mother, my older sister, Jenny, and my older sister’s fiancé, Jake (aka Jerk) made the move west to Montana the year I started college. The Wild West was not for me, but Vermont? Nirvana! Heaven! I was ecstatic to learn that Grandma had left me the ability to live in that beautiful part of the country.

All I had to do was pay taxes on the property every year, and homeowner’s insurance, but I could swing that along with monthly utilities. My business was blossoming and in the past six months, I had begun to take on corporate clients. To date, I had created web designs for hospitals, libraries, a school or two, and now I was venturing into international corporate design.

Of course I was pleased with my progress and my ability to charge more for my services, but I couldn’t rest on my laurels, at least not now. It had been difficult enough to take two weeks off to move from Boston to Seneca.

I owned a small Ford Ranger and had made several trips back and forth lugging my belongings between the two locations. Of course, I had called a couple of places to see how much they would charge to move my stuff, but found their costs outrageous. Highway robbery! Besides, looking at the lowly belongings in my apartment in Boston, I realized that most of it could be donated back to the Salvation Army or other thrift and second-hand stores, which is where I’d gotten most of the stuff anyway.

I wanted to start over, with everything. A new desk, a new bedroom set, the works. After all, I was a
homeowner
now, not an apartment dweller.

I couldn’t buy all new furniture right away. In fact, at the moment I was sleeping on my fold-out futon. I brought my computers, printers and fax machine, as well as cables and other paraphernalia up with me, but eft most of the old furniture behind. I had yet to own a real bed, and I dreamed of an old fashioned wood four-poster. I did buy a desk, finally, and had the delivery people from the office supply store lug the heavy oblong box down the hall to to my office, but I put it together myself. My first real desk.

I splurged on some living room furniture; a puffy couch, an end table, and another end table upon which I situated my flat screen television. Two bookcases; one for the living room, the other for my office.. The rest would come piece by piece as I could earn it. Someday, I would have a nice little home here, but for now it worked for me.

Me
being the operative word because it wasn’t as if I have a lot of friends over. In fact, I didn’t have many friends at all. Acquaintances yes, but not people I hung around with after work. It was one of the downsides of being self-employed and working from home. You don’t get out much doing that. Most of my contacts were over the Internet. The only times I really went out was to do grocery shopping, to go to the movie once in a while, hit the library or the local bookstore, and that was about it.