Crystal Green – Daddy in the Making (страница 1)
A woman with brown curly hair pulled into a side ponytail that flowed past her shoulder. A lush mouth in an angular face. Light-colored eyes that reflected the same blindsided attraction he was feeling.
All Conn could do was hold his hat to his stomach, which was flipping end over end, crackling with the tremors dancing through it. It was as if a bright light was blazing over his sight, a lightning strike that illuminated that night again.
White sheets on a bed ⦠a woman lying down on them, her hair curled over the pale linen.
Sheâd been in St Valentine.
She was the reason he was here. Somehow he knew that without a doubt.
When his vision cleared, she was still staring at him.
Something inside him told him that this had never happened before.
But how could he know for sure?
Dear Reader,
Thank you for returning to St Valentine, Texas, with me!
This time around, youâre going to meet Connall Flannigan, a Texas rancher who has returned to town for one reasonâafter an accident he lost his memory, and he keeps having flashes of St Valentine ⦠as well as a woman. When he finds her, Conn, a former playboy, discovers that he broke her heart.
Not the smoothest start to a courtship, huh?
However, in spite of all his
I hope that youâll drop by my website (www.crystal-green.com), where I always have a contest running. I would love it if youâd join me on Twitter, too, at @CrystalGreenMe!
All the best,
About the Author
CRYSTAL GREEN lives near Las Vegas, where she writes for the Mills & Boon® Cherish⢠and Blaze® lines. She loves to read, overanalyze movies and TV programs, practice yoga and travel when she can. You can read more about her at www.crystal-green.com, where she has a blog and contests. Also, you can follow her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/people/Chris-Marie-Green/1051327765 and Twitter at www.twitter.com/ChrisMarieGreen.
Daddy in the
Making
Crystal Green
To my fantastic writer buddies, Ann, Ara, Cheryl, Janet, Judy, Lorelle, Mary and Sylvia.
Eternally onward!
âAre you sure youâre ready for this?â
Connall Flannigan didnât answer his brother at first. He just kept staring at the three-story, gray-wooded St. Valentine Hotel with its lacy curtains peeking through the windows.
How many times had he seen flashes of this place in what was left of his memory?
As a few obvious tourists brushed by him, Conn looked down at his hand, where heâd been palming a necklaceâgolden, shiny, with a pendant in the shape of an
Conn wrapped his fingers over the necklace. âIâm not sure about much these days, but this?â He nodded. âIâm sure.â
Emmet, who had the same blue eyes and black hair as Conn did under their cowboy hats, looked wary. âI donât know what you think youâre gonna find here when the family can tell you everything you need.â
Conn shook his head. What he
A place where he could find himself again.
Once more, the flashes came back to him: this hotel. The name âSt. Valentine.â A truck bearing down on his pickup just before the world went into a tailspin. And â¦
He held his breath, waiting for the most puzzling and heart-clutching image of all.
According to Emmet and his other two older brothers, Conn had enjoyed his share of women in the past. Heâd never been the type to settle down, they said. Footloose, fancy-free and raising hell whenever possible. One woman on this livestock trip, another on that one.
Yet here he was, in search of this one woman whoâd haunted his thoughts since the accident four months ago, flash by provocative flash.
But if thereâd been so many women, why her in particular?
And why did he ache every time he thought of her?
âI just want to see whatâs in here,â he said to Emmet, gesturing toward the hotel. âThereâs got to be a reason Iâm remembering this place more than any other. And a reason Iâm recalling â¦â
âHer,â Emmet said just before he chuffed.
Conn sent a sidelong glance to him.
âIâve told you,â Emmet said. âSheâs just one of many, Conn. Your time would be better spent on the ranch with your family, relaxing, not running off to a little town that you drove through one night.â
âSo youâve told me.â Over and over. Connâs brothers in particular had been pointedly direct with him about his habitsâall the flirting, all the disappointed women heâd left behind. They told him that, even though heâd always made it clear that he wasnât in anything for the long haul, heâd always managed to make the ladies think that they were the ones, only to break their hearts in the end.
Conn had a hard time imagining he could be that callous, even if he was friendly enough about loving âem and leaving âem.
âWell,â Emmet said, planting a booted foot up on the boardwalk. âIf thatâs how you want to go about this, the sooner you get this done, the sooner we can go back home.â
Conn grabbed onto the image of home, as if he was afraid of losing that, too. Home was the cattle ranch he ran with his brothers about a hundred miles away from St. Valentine, Texas. They told him that he went on business trips, such as for selling and replenishing livestockâthe type of trip heâd been on when heâd had the accident. Heâd felt a connection to home when heâd returned there, although thereâd been something else, as well, along with the comfort, a yen to go somewhere beyond the ranch. And, months later, itâd turned out to be St. Valentine, for whatever reason.
He stepped onto the boardwalk, taking off his hat and running his fingers through his hair. His heart was beating a mile a minute.
At the flash that kept coming to him every once in a while, his pulse jerked to a pause before jumping to a start once again.
He was just anxious about getting this over with, getting on with his life. That had to be it.
As he and Emmet walked toward the hotel, then entered the lobby, Conn took a moment to absorb the fringed lamps, the velvet-upholstered furniture, the scent of lemon polish and wood. Tasteful maroon-and-beige wallpaper lent some ease to the tone of the room, but Conn wasnât feeling so easy at all.
They moved to the reception area, where tourists lingered, reading framed newspaper articles on the walls about the so-called ghosts that haunted this Old West establishmentâsupposedly a gentleman and a lovelorn woman from the 1930s. There would also be articles about the town founder, Tony Amati, and that was why these tourists had come to town on a warm November weekday, Conn thought. Theyâd been lured by a new mystery that had been uncovered by a couple of town reporters whoâd realized that old Tony, the former Texas Ranger, had died under a shroud of seeming conspiracy and strange circumstances.
To hear the tales, Amati, whoâd settled in these parts and founded St. Valentine way back in the late 1920s, had started to matter more than ever around here after a man who was his spitting image had wandered into town over four months ago, before Conn had arrived. People had started looking very closely at the pictures of the town founder then, comparing them to the stranger, the cryptic Jared Colton. Theyâd started getting very interested in Tony, tooâa man whoâd done so much for St. Valentine, yet had managed to remain a puzzle all the same.
Both Tony and this modern-day stranger had certainly captured everyoneâs romantic inclinations and imagination. And the town, which had suffered through rough economic times, was now starting to benefit from the story, attracting more and more tourists. Just how had Tony died? everyone wondered. And
Yup, Conn had sure done all the research he could about St. Valentine before coming out here. Not that it had helped with his