Summer's Song: Pine Point, Book 1 (21 page)

About the Author

Allie Boniface is a romance novelist and high school English teacher living with her husband in the northern New York City suburbs. She’s had a soft spot for love stories and happy endings since the time she could read, and she’s been caught scribbling story ideas on scrap paper (when she should have been paying attention to something else) too many times to count. When she’s not writing, shoveling snow, or grading papers, she’s traveling the United States and Europe in search of sunshine, back roads, and the perfect little pub.

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www.allieboniface.com
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Look for these titles by Allie Boniface

Now Available

One Night

One Night in Boston

One Night in Memphis

One Night in Napa

Coming Soon

Pine Point

Winter’s Wonder

Don’t miss the other titles in Allie Boniface Pine Point series!

When a bad boy falls for an angel, the sparks could set the coldest season on fire.

Pine Point
, Book 2

Pine Point hasn’t changed much in the eight years Zane Andrews has been away. But Zane sure has. These days, this reformed bad boy has no problem resisting the bored housewives who flirt shamelessly with their gated community’s security guard.

The only thorn in his side is the stray dog that keeps overturning the neighborhood’s garbage cans, and the cute, crusading do-gooder who barks at him for trying to chase it off.

Becca Ericksen knows Zane is just doing his job, but his tactics are making her job—to rescue strays and bring them to Pine Point Paws—much harder. Clearly, they have nothing in common, yet when the legendary playboy asks her out, she finds herself saying yes.

With a sizzling kiss, something warm and unexpected begins to grow between them. Opposites can attract, but is attraction enough?

Warning: Contains a bad boy gone good, and a woman who’s one good deed away from disaster. Cold noses and warm kisses—and that’s just from the canines.

Enjoy the following excerpt from
Winter’s Wonder:

At five o’clock, darkness had already descended, and the streetlights didn’t permeate the tightly packed pines.
Probably lives back in there.
Then he saw movement, a quick flash of brown beneath the green. His hand tightened on his pistol.

A moment later, a long, dirty snout emerged, followed by a painfully thin body and bright yellow eyes.

“Well, there you are, you scavenger.”

“Hey!”

The dog vanished into the trees. Zane whipped around.

A figure dressed in a red ski coat and jeans marched toward him. “What do you think you’re doing?” Her arms pumped, and her breath came out in long white ribbons. As she neared him, he could see a long blonde ponytail under a red wool cap and mismatched mittens on her hands—one blue and one black.

“I’m taking care of my property,” he retorted, royally pissed. He’d almost squeezed off a shot, she’d startled him so. “Who the hell are you?”

She walked straight to him, and only when she looked up and met his gaze did the iron in her stance falter. “Zane?”

He stared. She looked a little familiar, and under other circumstances she might be cute, but— “Sorry. Do I know you?”

“Becca Ericksen. As of last night, I’m the manager of Pine Point Paws.”

“The animal shelter?”

“Yes.” She glanced at the trees. “Someone called me about a homeless dog out here.”

He waved in the general direction he’d seen it disappear. “You didn’t need to come out. I can take care of it.”

She looked at his face, then the trees, then the gun in his hand. “
Take care
of it? You know shooting a domestic animal is—”

“Whoa.” He held up his palm. “Stop right there, sweetheart.”

Her face turned two shades of pink.

“I wasn’t going to shoot it.”

“You’re holding a gun.”

“It’s a pistol I carry for the security job. It’s registered to me and fully legal.”

“You know the law says you can’t discharge a firearm within five hundred yards of a residence.” She turned and pointed, as if he was a child. “Looks to me like that’s a residence.” She pointed in the opposite direction. “And that. And that over there too.”

“I don’t need you to tell me what the gun laws are.”

She dropped her arm. “Fine.” She walked closer to the trees. “Could you tell if it was hurt?” she asked over her shoulder.

Just what he needed. A bleeding-heart animal lover. He huffed out a breath and walked over to join her. “No. It didn’t look hurt. Just skinny.”

She nodded and rubbed her arms as if to warm herself. “I’ll bring one of the guys from the shelter out here tomorrow, see if we can catch it.”

Her nose had turned pink, but bright blue eyes blinked up at him. He had no idea what her figure looked like under all those clothes, but the parts he could make out looked pretty damn cute. “Will you need any help?” he asked before he could stop himself.
Walk away. Last thing you need is a hard-on for the local crazy do-gooder
.

“No,” she answered, taking care of his wishy-washy thoughts. “In fact, it might be better if you weren’t here at all.” And with that, Becca Ericksen turned on her heel and left, taking her perky butt and attitude with her.

Don’t miss these other titles by Allie Boniface

Can anything really change in 24 hours? Can everything?

A
One Night
Story

Journalist Grant Walker has one chance to salvage his job and his relationship with his domineering father. Terrorists have kidnapped a fading film star’s son, and Grant has scored the first interview with the grieving mother. Even better, a new twist has just arrived on the scene—an illegitimate granddaughter who hasn’t been heard from in seven long years.

It’s the story of a lifetime, and all Grant has to do is deliver.

After discovering a terrible secret about her birth, Kira March left home vowing never to return. With her father kidnapped and her grandmother cracking under media pressure, it’s up to her to find and destroy all evidence of that secret. Trouble is, a reporter has weaseled his way into the house looking for answers—and he isn’t leaving until he gets them.

Yet as the hours pass, Kira finds herself falling for the very man who could destroy her. And when Grant comforts her in the wake of a midnight tragedy, he remembers why it’s a bad idea to get emotionally involved with an interview subject. Especially when the family name is on the line.

Warning: This title contains a hunky hero who thinks he knows it all, an unconventional heroine who’s out to prove him wrong, a ticking clock, family secrets, and enough sexual tension to heat every corner of an enormous mansion…especially when the power goes out.

Can anything really change in twenty-four hours? Can everything?

A
One Night
Story

What if a woman, tired of bad choices and broken hearts, traveled a thousand miles to the heart of Memphis, Tennessee, and spent a night forgetting her past in the blues clubs of Beale Street? What if a man who lost his wife to cancer ventured to Beale Street’s social scene for the first time in over a year? And what if they met and realized love was still possible for them both?

Both Dakota James and Ethan Meriweather have given up on finding happiness in a relationship. When they meet in downtown Memphis, neither has romance on the brain. But as the evening unfolds, and small talk turns to the stuff of hopes, dreams, and shared loss, a kinship grows that neither expects.

Before the night is over, though, Dakota’s past will catch up with her in the form of a violent ex-boyfriend. As dawn approaches and tragedy threatens to tear Dakota and Ethan apart, both will have to make a snap decision that could change their lives—forever.

Warning: This title contains mild profanity.

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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

Samhain Publishing, Ltd.

11821 Mason Montgomery Road Suite 4B

Cincinnati OH 45249

Summer’s Song

Copyright © 2009 by Allie Boniface

ISBN: 978-1-60504-693-8

Edited by Deborah Nemeth

Cover by Amanda Kelsey

All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

First
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
electronic publication: November 2009

www.samhainpublishing.com