BOOK 6: BITTERSWEET RETURN
In the jungles of Central America, archaeologists Marc Hansen and Kit Korban are winding up a project. Marc walked away from his family after learning that all his life had been a lie. He hasn't seen them in four years and doesn't plan to return any time soon. Although Kit sees potential in the man, and his presence makes her pulse race, he's carrying far too much personal baggage, so a relationship with him is out. However, when she learns there's an unexcavated Indian mound on his family's ranch, Kit talks Marc into taking her there. But whereas Marc's mother welcomes him with open arms, it's not the same with his father. Marc walked away from a mother who'd loved him unconditionally, and Jack Hansen isn't ready to put that behind. But as Kit begins to peel back the layers of a very complicated man, she also finds in Marc a man worth loving. The problem is convincing Marc that, just because he's no blood kin, he's not the outsider in the family he's always believed himself to be.
CONTEMPORARY ROMANCES
JUSTIFIED DECEPTION
Ruth Crawford's on a quest to find her daughter, who was kidnapped four years before. Ruth's private investigator is all but certain that ranch owner, Matt Kincaid's, adopted daughter Annie is Ruth's own little Beth. But Matt's the maverick in a powerful family of lawyers and politicians, so even though she manages to land the job as nanny to Matt's willful, six-year-old daughter, Ruth must tread carefully. She can't predict what Matt or his family might do if the adoption is challenged. However, Ruth's carefully laid plans go awry when she finds herself falling in love with the man who might have stolen her child.
ADVERSARIES AND LOVERS
When Kate O’Connor learns that Ben Stassen's new corporate office will replace a block of charming old buildings that include the Corner Cafe, where Grandma and her friends have been lunching for half a century, she vows to stop it, taking her case directly to the man. But that's not the way Ben Stassen sees it. He built Stassen Sports from the ground up and he refuses to let a woman on a mission stand in his way. But, Kate has advertising skills he can use, so ignoring her crusade, he invites her to submit ideas for his ad campaign. And Kate accepts—a strategic move to use against the man. But working with Ben stirs feelings Kate hadn't anticipated, and when she at last finds the chink in Ben's armor, the key to stopping his business venture, she also finds a troubled man who refuses to be touched by love, and she’s determined to know why.
BROKEN PROMISES
Tess O'Reilly can't forget the words engraved inside the ring Zak de Neuville gave her when he promised to love her forever, then disappeared from her life without a word. Eskauldun fededun--the Basque is faithful. More appropriately, the Basque is faithless! And now Zak's back in Baker's Creek. He's also the father of a boy who had to have been conceived shortly after he left. Tess too has returned to Baker's Creek to help her ailing father. After a lengthy estrangement from him because of Zak, she's come home to rebuild the relationship they once had, before it's too late, and she has no intention of getting involved with Zak again. The problem is, time has done nothing to temper the white-hot flame that's once again building.
A DOLPHIN'S GIFT
Inheriting her uncle's yacht and living on it is just what Nellie Reid needs to get out of the financial abyss she's in and put the lives of herself and her ten-year-old son back on track. But what she initially thinks is a dream come true, quickly becomes a nightmare. Not only is the owner of the boathouse threatening foreclosure for back rent, he claims he had an agreement with Nellie's uncle for use of the boat for his whale study. But if Will Edenshaw cruises off on her yacht, Nellie will have him arrested for grand theft! And Will hasn't the heart to foreclose on a homeless, jobless widow. But once at sea, life aboard the Isadora becomes perilous. Will's in hot pursuit, and there's no place Nellie can run and hide from her heart. But there are also others in pursuit—a grizzled old sea dog and a bald-headed man with a gun—and Nellie and Will don't know why. But as they venture into rough waters, it's evident that whoever's in pursuit is dead set on seeing Nellie... dead.
NEVER TOO LATE
SOMETIMES WHEN IT'S LEAST EXPECTED, LOVE FINDS ITS WAY... When Andrea and Jerry set out on a luxury cruise neither wanted, before long they find themselves drawn into a drug-smuggling scheme by the smooth-talking Italian who singled Andrea out for flattery the first day aboard. That's also when Andrea and Jerry begin to see each other in a whole different light, one that ignites a flame that had long since died.
HISTORICAL ROMANCES
COLBY'S CHILD
He's a man with a dark past, a quick hand on the draw, and a soft spot for her child. She's a widow who needs protection. A marriage of convenience is the means of keeping her safe in a town populated by gold miners, dance hall girls, and scurrilous men, until her gold mine is producing and she can return east. But soon after Jenny MacDonald marries Jason Colby, she finds herself falling in love with a man whose dark past is quickly catching up with him, the very man who might have killed her husband.
HER MASTER'S TOUCH
She's the mystery debutante of the season, who arrived on the London scene as if from out of nowhere. But Lord Damon Ravencroft knows her dark secret. Two years before, when she was roaming with Gypsies and living by her wits in India, he hired her as a housemaid, and she stole from him a rare and valuable opal once belonging to the Empress Josephine. Damon intends to be compensated for its loss, which set him back years in his quest to prove his innocence in a crime he's accused of committing. The sizable dowry that comes with Lady Elizabeth Sheffield's hand in marriage is a start. It's also his price to keep her secret from all of London. But there's more to the marriage of convenience that Damon proposes than Elizabeth anticipated, but by the time she learns what it is, she's trapped into a marriage to a man who both stirs her passions and fuels her resentment for the man she was forced to wed.
COME BE MY LOVE
When Sarah Ashley arrives in Victoria, British Columbia to open a mercantile for the manufacture and sale of bloomer costumes, she turns Governor Jonathan Cromwell's colony upside down. But while her enterprise is diving the town and disrupting every facet of Jon's life, he can't decide whether to seduce the stunning suffragette into sweet submission, set more obstacles in her path, or send her away to preserve his colony. But Sarah didn't liquidate her entire savings and sail all the way from San Francisco to Victoria just to have her dreams dashed by Vancouver Island's arrogant young governor. Come hell or high water, she will establish her business despite Jon's unfairly imposed obstacles... and a longing heart that tempts her to surrender her principles for one night of passion with the insufferably handsome rogue.
WICKED TEMPTATIONS
Having a close resemblance to Queen Elizabeth I, and claiming descendance, served Priscilla Phipps well when as a girl she was teased mercilessly about her carrot-red hair and bleached-white skin. So on arriving in Cheyenne, Wyoming, when she implies as much to avoid a humiliating situation, she suddenly finds herself sought after by the matriarchs of Cheyenne's wealthy British cattle barons. But Priscilla didn't come west to be sucked up into British society. She came on a wagon train with homesteaders to start a newspaper addressing the needs of women, and she will not be deterred from her goal, even if it means facing up to the powerful Wyoming Stock Grower's Association and cattle barons like Adam Whittington who want every homesteader run out of the territory. But Adam has his own means of handling the troublesome spinster who's stirring up a cauldron of controversy with her Town Tattler scandal sheet, alienating every cattleman in the area, and even threatening his run for mayor.
PERILOUS PLEASURES
Loving a man who faces death every day of his life can be wearing Joanna Livingston learns, soon after Stefan Janacek joins the show with his big cat act. Before Porter Brother's took Stefan on, Joanna was star of a major vaudeville show that traveled the Mississippi on a luxurious stern wheel steamer. Then a man with the charm of a British lord and the body of a gladiator joined the show and stole the limelight, a
long with Joanna's heart. But working with big cats is all Stefan knows, which means being under contract with a major show. So ultimately Joanna has to make a painful decision: stay with the show and live in fear, or leave the show, and Stefan, and at last have peace of mind.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana, Patricia Watters gave up the glamour and pageantry of the city and now writes novels from a hand-built log cabin nestled in the evergreen forests of Oregon. An author with Harlequin and Avon-Harper Collins in the past, Patricia specializes in romance, and she invites you to visit her website and drop her a line. She responds to all notes, but please allow a couple of weeks for her to do so:
www.patriciawatters.com
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