by Jamie Carie
The door behind her opened.
It was Neko. “You okay?”
She nodded, leaning against the brick wall, hugging herself. “I just needed a few minutes.”
“That was Jake, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“He seemed pretty intense. You want me to do something?”
She laughed, a short, harsh sound. “He’s nearly six foot seven and in top physical shape. You think you can take him?”
Neko grinned back at her and shrugged one shoulder. “I’ve got cunning on my side. A roll of duct tape? The other guys in the band helping me?”
Maddie went over and gave him a quick hug. “Thanks. But I can handle it. Is it time to go back on?”
“Past time.”
“Okay, let’s go. This is a job, remember?”
“Yeah. A good job.”
She knew what he meant. Neko and the others had been in a lot of bands, but there had never been this sweet meshing that had magically occurred with this group. They loved playing together and getting a recording deal was a dream come true for all of them.
Maddie walked back on stage determined to do her job and do it well. Her gaze scanned the crowd as she began the next song. Jake was nowhere to be seen.
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Sasha yelled into the phone at one in the morning after Maddie’s final set. “You let him go after he said that to you?”
“I can’t go through it again. Sasha, you know me, I can’t do it.”
“Yes, you can.”
“Love hurts too much.”
“That’s life and you know it. Quit hiding from it. You found something so great…something a lot of people long for their whole lives and you are being a coward, telling yourself that you’re taking the high road when really you’re just afraid. Maddie, I know I’m being tough here but you can do this. You can trust him and have a wonderful life with him if you will just let your fears go and love him back with all your heart.”
Maddie was sitting in her car in the dark parking lot. She paused, letting the words sink in. “What if he isn’t who I think he is? What if he leaves me?” She wailed it, beating on the steering wheel.
“What if he doesn’t?” came Sasha’s soft reply. “Go to him.”
“I don’t know…I just don’t know.”
“Yes, you do. You’ve been miserable without him. Now put that car into drive and go. Right now. Don’t talk about it anymore. Don’t think about it anymore. Just drive.”
Maddie let out a laughing sob, shaking her head back and forth against the headrest. “Okay. Okay, I’ll do it.”
She hung up, put the car into drive and began the trek downtown.
She’d forgotten about the gate and the security guard she would have to get through to enter Jake’s condo. Did he still live here? Her heart was beating so hard her hands shook.
The guard must have remembered her. He grinned at her, walked over to her rolled down window and said, “How you doin’, Miss Maddie?”
“I’m okay, Darrell. Is Jake home, do you know?”
“Well, he came though over an hour ago, looking dog sick, but he left again about twenty minutes ago. Would you like to go in and wait for him?”
Maddie’s heart sank. The last thing she wanted was to sit in a dark parking lot with lots of time to think and grow more nervous. “Uh. No, I’ll just talk to him tomorrow.”
“You do that,” he said, like he meant it. “He misses you.”
“I miss him too,” she said softly.
The drive home was long and Maddie was tired as she pulled onto her street. She would call Jake tomorrow when she was fresh and able to put her feelings into words.
As she approached her driveway she saw it—Jake’s SUV. Her heart began to gallop in her chest, her palms sweating. She pulled into the driveway and saw him sitting on the front porch of her parent’s home.
He stood up as she got out of her car, walked toward her and she walked toward him. They both stopped just a few feet away from each other.
“Jake,” she whispered, brokenly.
She came into his arms. Felt them reach around her. Felt how right they were, like coming home.
“I’m not going away, Maddie,” he whispered into her hair, the warm June breeze growing stronger, moving her hair around them. “I’m not ever letting you go again.”
Maddie nodded into his chest. “You promise?”
He took a box out of his pocket and knelt down in the grass on one knee. “Will you be my wife again, Madeleine Hart?”
Tears sprang to her eyes. She nodded. “Yes.”
He stood, opened the box and slid her glittering diamond engagement ring back onto her finger. He pulled her toward him and she reached up on tiptoes to meet him halfway for a kiss—a sensual, branding kiss that left her breathless and dizzy.
He pulled back and took a piece of paper out of his pocket. “I wrote this for you. My true vows.” He cleared his throat and began to read:
“I, Jake Alexander Hart, take you, Madeline Faith Goode, to be my wife, from this day forward. I bestow on you all my earthly possessions, my body and my heart. There shall never be another to take your place for as long as we both live. I promise to protect you from anything that might seek to harm you. I promise to love and cherish you wholeheartedly and remember what my life was like without you. As God is our witness, from this time forward, I will be your lover and your friend. I will be your loving husband.”
Maddie stared in awe, trying to hold back the tears that were clogging her throat. Taking his vow as a pattern, she began. “I, Madeline Faith Goode, take you, Jake Alexander Hart, to be my husband from this day forward. I bestow on you all my earthly possessions, namely and most importantly to me, my son, Max, to be your son. I give you my body and my heart. There will never be another to take your place for as long as we both shall live. I will always remember…” Her throat clogged completely and she leaned back her head waiting for it to pass before continuing. “I will always remember what my life was like without you. I promise to love you wholeheartedly, be your helper and cherish our time together. As God is our witness, from this moment on, I will be your lover and friend, your wife.”
Jake pulled her into his chest, kissed her, both of them laughing with the joy of it, then he wiped the tracks of her tears from her cheeks with his hands, an anointing of emotion that covered them both.
“I’ll be a good father.”
“Yes.” She nodded. “I know that you will.”
She decided, right then and there, to make the vows true. She would never let the poison of her past sully this marriage with Jake. She would not doubt him if he came home later than expected. She would not listen in suspicion to his phone calls, always wondering if there was another woman. She would not doubt him or his love for her. She would not fear the worst and think the worst and expect something bad to happen. No. She would blindly trust again, letting life carry them on God’s wind. Because blind trust was the only way to love another person and begin a marriage.
He groaned. “I don’t want to wait another day. How soon can you and Max come home with me?”
“Let’s go get him now.”
“You would do that?” Jake looked like he might cry.
Maddie nodded. “It’s where we both belong.”
Other Books by Jamie Carie
Snow Angel
Please . . . God . . .
She whispered before collapsing.
When Noah Wesley hears the faint sound outside the door of his remote Alaskan cabin during a violent nighttime blizzard, it is no less than the voice of God that urges him to take a closer look, to discover there his snow angel.
Unconscious and more than half frozen to death, her name is Elizabeth, a beautiful young woman, fragile yet fierce, intent on discovering gold like so many others rushing headlong toward the Yukon.
But why Elizabeth is so drawn to the gold, and why she would chase it even through a pounding storm that no man would
dare face, is a secret to be shared with no one, not even at the invitation of Noah’s deep-blue, trusting eyes.
Jamie Carie has penned a can’t-up-down debut novel in Snow Angel, a masterfully romantic story wherein cold and lonely hearts risk everything to be forever warmed.
The Duchess and the Dragon
“To those who choose the path of passion, and the costs and rewards therein.”
Two Worlds, One Destiny
Drake Weston, Duke of Northumberland, is heir to wealth, prestige, and power. But when his rage pushes him to a tragic mistake, he must leave everything behind. Not just his home, but England herself. Cloaked in a false identity, Drake slips aboard a ship bearing indentured servants to America.
Serena Winter lives out her Quaker beliefs tending the sick who arrive on ships in the Philadelphia harbor. But never before has she seen such squalor and misery as she finds on the latest ship from England. Nor has she ever met such a one as the half-conscious man with the penetrating eyes and arrogant demeanor. Though she saves his life, even taking him into her family home, there is little gratitude or humility in this man. And yet Serena is certain that beneath the brash exterior is a heart in search of peace.
Against the rich backdrop of Regency-era England and a young America, two passionate, seeking hearts find in each other the strength to face hard truths – and confront an insidious web of deceit that may destroy all they hold dear.
Wind Dancer
A love story beyond imagination …
Isabelle Renoir is different. A free spirit who dances alone in the moonlight as a praise offering to God, she’s more at home in the woods with her long rifle and knife than cooking and cleaning like the other women in her wilderness town.
But as the shadow of the American Revolution stretches to the frontier, Isabelle finds herself on a journey that may overwhelm even her fearlessness and strength. And when the raven-haired beauty meets mysterious Samuel Holt, sparks fly. It takes an unthinkable attack and capture at the hands of Indians to push them together in a fight against deep spiritual forces …
Forces no physical weapon could ever conquer.
Love’s First Light
Christoph’e, the Count of St. Laurent, has lost his entire family to the blood-soaked French Revolution and must flee to an ancient castle along the southern border of France to survive. But the medieval city of Carcassonne proves more than a hiding place. Here Christoph’e meets the beautiful widow Scarlett, a complex and lionhearted woman suddenly taken by the undercover aristocrat’s passion for astronomy and its influence upon his faith. Although their acquaintance begins brightly enough, when the Count learns that Scarlett is related to the man who murdered his family, he turns from love and chooses revenge. Heaven only knows what it might take for Christoph’e to love again, to love his enemy, and to love unconditionally
Angel’s Den
In 1808, when Emma meets and marries Eric Montclaire (the famed “most handsome man west of the Appalachians”), this young daughter of prominent St. Louis citizens believes a fairy tale has just begun. Instead, her husband’s angelic looks quickly prove only to mask a monstrous soul all too capable of possessive emotions and physical abuse. Praying for mercy, she is devastated when Eric insists on her joining his yearlong group expedition to the Pacific Ocean, following the trail Lewis and Clark blazed just a few years earlier. By the time cartographer Luke Bowen realizes Emma’s plight, it’s too late to easily untangle what has become an epic web of lies, theft, murder, courtroom drama, and a deep longing for love. Only God can show them the way out.
“Jamie Carie’s most riveting work to date . . . a story that defines grace.”
Window to My World
“Jamie Carie seamlessly weaves in historical details of the Lewis and Clark expedition and the Louisiana Purchase into this engaging story.”
TitleTrakk.com
The Snowflake
Ellen Pierce and her brother are determined to reach the Alaska gold rush. But when ice stalls their steamship, all seems lost, until Buck Lewis makes a decision: he’ll lead all who dare to follow on foot toward Dawson City. Buck is determined to leave behind a heartbreaking past. No amount of ice or weather will stop him. But he never counted on a woman joining a dangerous wilderness trek—or on falling in love with her.
As their journey unfolds and Christmas approaches, Ellen and Buck discover that the greatest gift of all can’t be wrapped in paper and tied with a bow. It comes from, and is received in, the heart. Come share in a soul-deep romance that gives a joyful reminder of a redeeming God who makes us each unique, yet loves us all the same
Pirate of My Heart
She gave up everything for a chance at true love . . .
When her doting father dies, Lady Kendra Townsend is given a choice: marry the horrid man of her uncle’s choosing or leave England to risk a new life in America with unknown relatives.
Armed with the faith that God has a plan for her, Kendra boards a cargo ship and soon finds herself swept away by the rugged American sea captain Dorian Colburn. But this adventurous man has been wounded by love before and now guards his independent life.
He wasn’t prepared to give up anything for anyone…
No swashbuckling man needs an English heiress with violet-hued eyes to make him feel again or challenge his faith with probing questions—or so he thinks. It is not until Dorian must save Kendra from the dark forces surrounding her that he decides she may be worth the risk.
The Guardian Duke
“Someday I will meet you and see your face.”
Gabriel, the Duke of St. Easton, is ordered by the king to take guardianship over Lady Alexandria Featherstone whose parents are presumed dead after failing to return from a high profile treasure hunt. But the heart-driven Alexandria ignores this royal reassignment. Believing her parents are still alive, she travels to faraway lands to follow clues that may lead to their whereabouts. Gabriel, pressured by the king’s ulterior motives, pursues Alexandria across windswept England and the rolling green hills of Ireland but is always one step behind.
When they do meet, the search for earthly treasure begins to pale in comparison to what God has planned for both of them.
The Forgiven Duke
Tethered by her impulsive promise to marry Lord John Lemon—the path of least resistance—Alexandria Featherstone sets off from Ireland to Iceland in search of her parents with a leaden heart. Her glimpse of her guardian, the Duke of St. Easton—the path less traveled by—on Dublin’s shore still haunts her. Will he come after her? Will he drag her back to London, quelling her mission to rescue her treasure-seeking parents, or might he decide to throw caution to the wind and choose Foy Pour Devoir: “Faith for Duty,” the St. Easton motto. The Featherstone motto Valens et Volens: “Willing and Able” beats in her heart and thrums through her veins. She will find her parents and find their love, no matter the cost.
The powerful and wing-clipped Duke of St. Easton has never known the challenge that has become his life since hearing his ward’s name. Alexandria Featherstone will be the life of him or the death of him. Only time and God’s plan will reveal just how much this man can endure for the prize of love.
The Duke’s Promise
Award-winning writer Jamie Caries concludes her most epic storyline with a wonderful twist in A Duke’s Promise, the final Forgotten Castles novel.
From the Land of Fire and Ice back to England’s shores, Alexandria Featherstone finds herself the new Duchess of St. Easton. Her husband has promised a wedding trip to take them to the place where her imperiled parents were last seen — Italy and the marble caves of Carrara — but a powerful Italian duke plots against Alex and her treasure-hunting parents.
Hoping to save them, Alex and Gabriel travel to Italy by balloon. Fraught with danger on all sides and pressured by Gabriel’s affliction to the breaking point, they must learn to work and fight together. The mysterious key is within their grasp, but they have yet to recognize it. This journey will
require steadfast faith in God and each other — a risk that will win them everything they want or lose them everything they have.
Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
