by T. L. Haddix
The hint of a smile was beginning around the corners of his mouth. “Are you thinking Vegas?”
She ducked her head. The idea was slightly scandalous. “I am.”
He started walking again, and she followed. “Huh. That could be… exciting. Can I get back to you?”
“Of course.”
As they made their way back to the hospital and the waiting room, the more she thought about it, the more fun eloping sounded. When she laughed softly while thumbing through a magazine left on a table, Ben turned away from his conversation with his brother.
“What’s funny?”
“Nothing,” she answered, not wanting to pressure him.
He leaned toward her. “Didn’t sound like nothing. What is it?”
She hesitated. “I was just thinking about the look on everyone’s faces if we did… you know.”
Ben kissed the tip of her nose. “You really want to elope?”
“I think it would be fun.”
Zanny came in then, a wide, tired smile on her face. “She’s getting close. We should have a baby within the hour.”
And they did. Emma delivered a perfectly healthy, seven-pound-ten-ounce baby girl, whom she named Sydney Marie.
After going in to give a personal congratulations to Emma, Ainsley and Ben headed back to his apartment. It was almost ten o’clock in the evening.
“Didn’t you say you have an appointment Tuesday?” he asked as they were getting ready for bed.
“I did.” Ainsley pulled a small, leather-bound book from her overnight bag, just to touch it and make sure it was still there. When Ben saw the book, he stopped what he was doing.
“Is that…?”
She held it out to him, and he sat on the edge of the bed, thumbing through the worn pages of the book he’d given her five years earlier as a token of his love. When he came to her half of the photo of the two of them, he stopped and stared down at their images.
“Can we be back from Vegas in time for your appointments?” he asked.
Ainsley could hardly breathe through her excitement. “Seriously? You want to do it?”
“Yes.”
Squealing with excitement, she threw her arms around his neck and knocked him off balance, sending them both tumbling back onto the bed. Peppering kisses all over his face, she laughed. “I’ll do whatever I have to do with the appointment. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
Ben grinned up at her. “If you want to thank me properly, I have some suggestions.”
Ainsley goosed him, but then set about showing him just how happy his acceptance had made her. When they were both breathless and sweating, clinging to each other with what little strength they had left, she whispered how much she loved him.
“Those are the most beautiful words in the world,” he told her. “I love you, Ainsley Soon-To-Be Campbell. And don’t you ever forget it.”
She didn’t. And she never let him forget how much she loved him, either.
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Firefly Hollow
THE MYSTERIOUS RECLUSE…
Owen Campbell holds himself apart from other people. Badly scarred from emotional wounds that have never healed, he doesn’t expect to find true love or happiness. He remains isolated in a prison of his own making, determined to not let anyone close enough to hurt him again.
But his willpower is shaken to the core when Sarah Browning enters his world.
The girl next door…
Sarah Jane Browning is three years into her college degree when a call from home changes everything. Back at the family homestead in the heart of Appalachia, she’s forced to reevaluate her hopes and dreams for the future.
Distraction from her heartache comes in the form of her parents’ neighbor. Whispers about “odd Owen Campbell” abound in their small community, and Sarah’s curiosity is aroused. When she breaks the rules and trespasses onto his land, what she finds is beyond her wildest imaginings.
As Sarah struggles to overcome tragedy and loss, her burgeoning relationship with Owen is sorely tested. Will love conquer all, or will the secrets from Owen’s past tear them apart forever?
Butterfly Lane
WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN the person you love, the person you share a life with, decides things just aren’t working for them?
That’s the dilemma facing John Campbell. As the oldest of Owen and Sarah Campbell’s five children, John had long worn and accepted the mantle of responsibility. But five years into his marriage, things fall apart. Through his own actions, the life he has built is in shambles, and John is left trying to figure out what to do with himself.
Zanny Franks Campbell loves the family she and John have built with their children. She believes she’s happy until the day everything falls apart. In the aftermath of a personal tragedy, she realizes that in order to go forward, she and John have to fix what’s broken. But John isn’t talking to her, and no matter what she tries, she can’t seem to get through to him.
To have a future together, they first have to learn to live without each other. And once they start down that road, neither Zanny nor John is certain they’ll ever be able to put the pieces back together again.
Secrets in the Shadows
SECRETS CAN KILL, SOMETHING LAUREN Grant was finding out the hard way.
Thirteen years ago, she had been the innocent victim of a crime that still shaped her life to this day. Just as she is starting to build a new life for herself and her daughter, the past comes calling with a violence she could not have imagined. Her shop is vandalized, another female business owner is brutally murdered, and Lauren can’t shake the feeling that the past is catching up to her. Will she have the strength to finally face her demons and fight for the future, or will the past overwhelm her once and for all?
Secrets in the Shadows is the first book in the Shadows Collection, standalone Romantic Suspense novels set in small-town Indiana.
Note for Readers: This book does deal with the issues of incest and sexual abuse, more with the effects on the victims than the abuse itself. Reader Discretion Advised.
Under the Moon’s Shadow
JOURNALIST BETH HUDSON KNOWS HER hometown. When disappearances are coupled with strange nighttime events on local farms, she puts two and two together to make a terrifying picture. She turns to her friends, family and a mysterious, handsome stranger for assistance in rooting out the truth, determined to solve the mysteries before another person disappears.
As if that weren’t enough, her contentious relationship with Detective Ethan Moore takes an unexpectedly tragic turn. Will Beth be able to figure out what is going on in time to stop a dangerous killer, or will she be the next victim?
Under the Moon’s Shadow is the second book in the Shadows Collection, standalone Romantic Suspense novels set in small-town Indiana.
Shadows From the Grave
WHEN IT COMES TO MURDER, the past is never really dead…
For ten years, Chase Hudson has carried the weight of his college girlfriend’s unsolved murder on his shoulders. When a ghost from the past comes calling, Chase’s friends and family become the targets of a serial killer who’ll stop at nothing to make Chase suffer. Now, Chase is in a race against time to convince the authorities of his innocence, and catch the real killer.
Annie Jameson-Tucker has been burned more than once. Afraid to get her heart broke
n again, she is careful to keep her lovers at a distance… until Chase Hudson manages to slip inside her walls. Terrified of being hurt, Annie has to choose whether to let Chase stay, or to close him out and let her insecurities destroy their chance at happiness.
Shadows from the Grave is the third book in the Shadows Collection, standalone Romantic Suspense novels by T. L. Haddix.
Hidden In the Shadows
EVEN THE GOOD GUYS SOMETIMES have secrets they don’t want revealed to the rest of the world…
For thirty years, Wyatt Dixon had worn a badge. Sworn to protect and serve, he’d done just that for the people of Olman County, Indiana. He’d even sacrificed his first marriage on the altar of the office of Sheriff. But then the blackmail letter came… And everything he’d worked so hard to build threatened to crumble around him.
Wyatt wasn’t the only one to receive a letter, either…
Fighting a deep attraction to a woman he should know better than to become involved with, Wyatt’s professional frustration also grows as the investigation is thwarted at every turn by a master extortionist who has the citizens of Olman County, Indiana, in an uproar. With decisions to make that will affect his life and the sheriff’s department for a long time to come, Wyatt has to choose—to reach for personal happiness and risk it all, or to walk away from what could be his soul mate.
Come to Leroy, and see just how dangerous small-town living can be. Hidden in the Shadows is the fourth book in the Shadows collection, standalone but linked Romantic Suspense novels by T. L. Haddix.
In the Heart’s Shadow
DETECTIVE STACY KIRCHNER HAS GIVEN up on finding Mr. Right. Convinced a happily ever after simply isn’t in the cards for her, she focuses instead on building her career and making her small house a comfortable home to share with her cat, Chloe. Without warning, she finds herself thrust into a world filled with uncertainty and deception. Struggling to keep ahead of a malicious prankster hell-bent on destroying everything she’s worked for, Stacy is blind-sided by her feelings for dark and mysterious Galen Gordon.
After a series of devastating losses, Galen Gordon is moving forward. The former FBI agent is settling comfortably into life in small-town southern Indiana. He’s finally ready to risk losing his heart again, to reach for what he wants—a life with Stacy. All he has to do is convince her the idea has merit. That, and keep her alive in the face of growing danger.
Come to Leroy, and see just how dangerous small-town living can be. In the Heart’s Shadow is the fifth book in the Shadows collection, standalone but linked Romantic Suspense novels by T. L. Haddix.
