Brenda Harlen – The Engagement Project / Her Surprise Hero: The Engagement Project / Her Surprise Hero (страница 2)
Martyn had left her little money. They had lived with his parents at their huge High Grove estate. They had wanted for nothing, all expenses paid, but Martyn’s father—knowing his son’s proclivities—had kept his son on a fairly tight leash. His widow, so all members of the Prescott family had come to believe, was undeserving.
“Grandpa runs to a timetable of his own,” Christopher was saying, shaking his golden-blond head. She too was blonde, with green eyes. Martyn had been fair as well, with greyish-blue eyes. Christopher’s eyes were as brilliant as blue-fire diamonds. “You look lovely in that dress, Mummy,” he added, full of love and pride in his beautiful mother. “Please don’t be sad today. I just wish I was seventeen instead of seven,” he lamented. “I’m just a kid. But I’ll grow up and become a great big success. You’ll have
“My knight in shining armour!” She bent to give him a big hug, then took his outstretched hand, shaking it back and forth as if beginning a march. “Onward, Christian soldiers!”
“What’s that?” He looked up at her with interest.
“It’s an English hymn,” she explained. Her father wouldn’t have included hymns in the curriculum. Her father wasn’t big on hymns. Not since the Tragedy. “It means we have to go forth and do our best.
“Of course!” Christopher scoffed. “He was the great English World War II Prime Minister. The country gave him a
Charlotte laughed. Very well read himself, her father had taken it upon himself to “educate” Christopher. Christopher had attended the best school in the Valley for a few years now, but her father took his grandson’s education much further, taking pride and delight it setting streams of general, historical and geographical questions for which Christopher had to find the answers. Christopher was already computer literate but her father wasn’t—something that infuriated him—and insisted he find the answers in the books in the well-stocked library. Christopher never cheated. He always came up trumps. Christopher was a very clever little boy.
Like his father.
The garden party was well underway by the time they finished their stroll along the curving driveway. Riverbend had never looked more beautiful, Charlotte thought, pierced by the same sense of loss she knew her father was experiencing—though one would never have known it from his confident Lord of the Manor bearing. Her father was a handsome man, but alas not a lot of people in the Valley liked him. The mansion, since they had moved, had undergone very necessary repairs. These days it was superbly maintained, and staffed by a housekeeper, her husband—a sort of major-domo—and several ground staff to bring the once-famous gardens back to their best. A good-looking young woman came out from Sydney from time to time, to check on what was being done. Charlotte had met her once, purely by accident.
© Margaret Way, PTY., LTD 2011
THE ENGAGEMENT
PROJECT
BRENDA HARLEN
AND
HER SURPRISE
HERO
ABBY GAINES
THE ENGAGEMENT
PROJECT
BRENDA HARLEN
About the Author
BRENDA HARLEN grew up in a small town surrounded by books and imaginary friends. Although she always dreamed of being a writer, she chose to follow a more traditional career path first. After two years of practicing as a lawyer (including an appearance in front of the Supreme Court of Canada), she gave up her “real” job to be a mom and to try her hand at writing books. Three years, five manuscripts and another baby later, she sold her first book—an RWA Golden Heart winner.
Brenda lives in southern Ontario with her real-life husband/hero, two heroes-in-training and two neurotic dogs. She is still surrounded by books (“too many books,” according to her children) and imaginary friends, but she also enjoys communicating with “real” people. Readers can contact Brenda by e-mail at brendaharlen@yahoo.com.
Dear Reader,
I’ve always enjoyed reading and writing connected stories because of the opportunities they provide to meet new characters and revisit old friends.
A few years ago, I wrote a book called
Of course, Gage Richmond was an unapologetic playboy who had some growing up to do before he was worthy of his own happily-ever-after. Thankfully, Megan Roarke is just the right woman to help him on that journey.
I’m thrilled to share their story with you and excited to announce that
I hope you enjoy reading their story as much as I enjoyed writing it.
All the best,
To my mom—
Because you taught me to be strong, to believe in
myself, and to never give up.
And because there’s a little bit of you in every
one of my heroines.
I love you
Megan Roarke hated shopping.
Her older sister often teased that there was something defective in Megan’s double-X chromosome that she balked at going to the mall. Of course, Megan couldn’t expect her to understand. Ashley was “the beautiful one”—the one who looked good in anything and drew glances of admiration wherever she went.
Megan, on the other hand, had always been referred to as “the smart one.” She’d started to read when she was three years old and had spent most of the next twenty years with her nose in a book. She read everything she could get her hands on—from fantastical stories about magical lands to biographies of world leaders to technical manuals. Books were her bridges to so many different places, knowledge was the key that opened new worlds—and a whole lot of other clichés that hid the real truth: she’d been a painfully shy and socially inept child who found refuge from the harsh realities of life between the covers of a book.
And through her reading, she’d learned that the childhood labels attached to herself and her sister did both of them a disservice. While Ashley was undeniably beautiful, she was also a smart and savvy woman; and though Megan accepted that there would always be people who were intimidated by her high IQ, she knew her intelligence wasn’t the sum total of her character.
Still, she didn’t bother to try and dispel the stereotypical image people inevitably formed when they learned that she was a scientist, because she
Ashley claimed that was what made people so interesting, and she would know. Not only had Megan’s sister enjoyed an active social life before she’d met the man who was now her fiancé, she taught first grade at a local school and absolutely thrived in the environment of incessant noise and unending chaos that was created by twenty six-year-olds in a classroom.
But it was the recent engagement that was the cause of Megan’s dreaded trip to the Pinehurst Shopping Center. Apparently it wasn’t enough that Trevor had put a ring on Ashley’s finger, now they were having a party to celebrate the event.
“Nothing fancy,” Ashley had assured her. “Just drinks and hors d’oeuvres with family and some close friends.”
Of course, Megan knew her sister’s definition of “nothing fancy” was drastically different from her own and that even drinks and hors d’oeuvres required something a little more formal than comfy faded jeans and her favorite “Go Green” T-shirt—especially since their mother had become involved in the planning.
The sky had turned dark by the time Megan pulled into a vacant parking space and the first drops of rain were starting to fall as she dashed across the lot.
The mall was busier than she would have expected for a Friday afternoon, and she found herself hesitating inside the entrance.
She’d always been a little uncomfortable in crowds, always feeling as if everyone was looking at her. It wasn’t just an irrational feeling but a ridiculous one, because the reality was that no one ever noticed her. Megan didn’t stand out in a crowd of one, but she still had to force herself to take a deep breath before she could step forward.
For a lot of years, she’d simply avoided crowds rather than fight against the panicky feelings they stirred inside. But over the past few years, she’d made an effort to overcome this fear, and had mostly done so. She rarely felt afraid anymore, just awkward and uncomfortable.
A strand of hair had come loose from her ponytail and she tucked it behind her ear as she studied the mall directory, looking for Chaundra’s Boutique.