It's Never too Late
Page 1
In the shelter of this town…
Mark Heber accepts a mysterious scholarship to a prominent college in Shelter Valley, Arizona. Being a mature student is a big change from his hardscrabble life in the mountains of West Virginia, one that could transform his whole future.
For attorney Adrianna Keller, Shelter Valley is the scene of a childhood tragedy and she returns for one reason only—her loyalty to college president Will Parsons. Somebody’s blackmailing him. Adrianna agrees to investigate discreetly, posing as a student named Adele Kennedy.
“Adele” and newcomer Mark become neighbors and develop a friendship that quickly becomes something more. In fact, Adrianna begins to envision a life with him. But maybe it’s too late. Because her secret—and the shocking discovery she makes—could destroy Mark’s future. And her own….
“You want to go out to dinner sometime?”
Mark’s words sounded like firecrackers in the quiet night.
“That depends.” Adele’s gaze didn’t move from the fountain.
“On what?”
“Why you’re asking.”
He wasn’t sure. He’d just asked. “We’re friends. I’d like a night out and don’t know anyone else around here.”
Not entirely true, but close enough. He didn’t know anyone well enough to want to hang out with them for a whole night.
“So we’d be going as friends.”
“Sure, we can keep it at that,” he said. Friends was what he wanted, too. Except for when he was thinking about making love with her. Which he was trying not to do. And sometimes succeeding.
“Friends is all I can offer you.”
He wondered why, but didn’t ask. “I’m good with that,” he said.
“Tara Taylor Quinn’s deeply felt stories of romance and family will warm your heart.”—Jennifer Crusie, New York Times bestselling author
Dear Reader,
Welcome to Shelter Valley! If you’ve never been here before, you’re in for a treat. And if you know and love Shelter Valley, you’re going to enjoy being here all over again.
Shelter Valley Stories are about people who look out for each other. This is a town that has a personality of its own, and a people who embody that personality. Bring your hurts, your tragedies, your struggles and shames to Shelter Valley, and the people here will offer you comfort, understanding, strength and a chance to start all over again.
These new Shelter Valley Stories will give you everything you expect from this unique and compelling town, and more. We’ve got newcomers this time. Three people who’ve been brought to Shelter Valley on full scholarships to attend Montford University. They didn’t ask for the scholarships, didn’t apply for them. Didn’t even intend to go to college. They don’t know each other. They come from different parts of the country. None of them have ever been to Arizona before. All three are well past the age when they’d normally have started college. If you’re a longtime Shelter Valley visitor, you’ll see the town anew through their eyes.
In this, the first of the three stories, the scholarship recipient is Mark Heber from West Virginia. We also meet Addy. She’s a lawyer from Colorado and she moves in next door to him. Addy has a few secrets—including the fact that she was born in Shelter Valley. She doesn’t tell Mark or anyone else in town about that. She has her reasons….
Anyway, join us. Settle in. I guarantee that as long as you want to feel love and acceptance, as long as you want to see justice prevail, you’ll find a place here. And you’ll find ways to deal with a life that doesn’t always provide those things.
I love hearing from readers. You can reach me at staff@tarataylorquinn.com. And watch for the next story in this trilogy coming in August 2013 from Harlequin Superromance!
Tara Taylor Quinn
It’s Never Too Late
Tara Taylor Quinn
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
With sixty-one original novels, published in more than twenty languages, Tara Taylor Quinn is a USA TODAY bestselling author. She is a winner of the 2008 National Reader’s Choice Award, four-time finalist for the RWA Rita® Award, a finalist for the Reviewer’s Choice Award, the Bookseller’s Best Award, the Holt Medallion and appears regularly on Amazon bestsellers lists. Tara Taylor Quinn is a past president of the Romance Writers of America and served for eight years on its board of directors. She is in demand as a public speaker and has appeared on television and radio shows across the country, including CBS Sunday Morning. Tara is a spokesperson for the National Domestic Violence Hotline, and she and her husband, Tim, sponsor an annual inline skating race in Phoenix to benefit the fight against domestic violence.
When she’s not at home in Arizona with Tim and their canine owners, Jerry Lee and Taylor Marie, or fulfilling speaking engagements, Tara spends her time traveling and inline skating.
Books by Tara Taylor Quinn
HARLEQUIN SUPERROMANCE
1309—THE PROMISE OF CHRISTMAS
1350—A CHILD’S WISH
1381—MERRY CHRISTMAS, BABIES
1428—SARA’S SON
1446—THE BABY GAMBLE
1465—THE VALENTINE GIFT
“Valentine’s Daughters”
1500—TRUSTING RYAN
1527—THE HOLIDAY VISITOR
1550—SOPHIE’S SECRET*
1584—A DAUGHTER’S TRUST
1656—THE FIRST WIFE**
1726—FULL CONTACT*
1793—A SON’S TALE‡
1811—A DAUGHTER’S STORY‡
1829—THE TRUTH ABOUT COMFORT COVE‡
MIRA BOOKS
WHERE THE ROAD ENDS
STREET SMART
HIDDEN
IN PLAIN SIGHT
BEHIND CLOSED DOORS
AT CLOSE RANGE
THE SECOND LIE**
THE THIRD SECRET**
THE FOURTH VICTIM**
SINGLE TITLE
SHELTERED IN HIS ARMS
*Shelter Valley Stories
**Chapman Files
‡It Happened in Comfort Cove
Other titles by this author available in ebook format.
For Libby Banks.
Thank you for the emotional shelter...
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-N
ine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Excerpt
CHAPTER ONE
“I’M NOT GOING, ELLA.”
“Yes, you are.”
Sighing, Mark disentangled himself from the girl who’d been his one and only for the past couple of years—ever since his twenty-eighth birthday party, which had taken place at the exact same spot by the lake where he and Ella were right then.
Their lake. Really more of a pond a couple of miles outside of Bierly, West Virginia, where both he and Ella had been born and raised.
Gazing out at the water now, Mark couldn’t figure out why everything was falling apart before his eyes.
He’d had it all going for him. The promotion to operations shift manager—making him the youngest manager in the history of the gasification plant that supported their small town—and the small savings account that was going to build until he didn’t have to worry about money anymore.
Nonnie was having a good spell.
And Ella...she was nice looking. Content to stay in Bierly her whole life. And faithful to him.
He spun back to her—and found her sexy in her work jeans and T-shirt. “You want to get married?”
* * *
ELLA STARED UP AT HIM, her blue eyes and blond hair familiar in the dusky light of the setting sun. They were good together. In so many ways.
“What would Nonnie have to say about that?”
Huh? “I just asked you to marry me and you bring up my grandmother?”
But he knew why. Ella and Nonnie... Things had never been right between them.
A female territorial thing, he’d figured. He’d also hoped the situation would ease as time went by.
“Where would we live?” Feet in front of her on the blanket they’d spread, Ella wrapped her arms around bent knees.
“My house, of course. It’s set up for Nonnie’s chair.” He’d been born there. Figured he’d die there, too.
And Ella lived in a rented apartment in town. A small, one-room place with a hot plate for a stove.
“Nonnie’s house, you mean.”
With a sick feeling in his gut, Mark sat down, took her hand and stared straight into her eyes. “I think we’ll be good together.”
“I want to have a family.” She pulled her hand out of his and stood with her back to him.
He stared at her behind. He’d just proposed marriage. A once-in-a-lifetime event. It wasn’t going well.
“I’ll make a great father.”
“I know.” Her words were muffled by the breeze and the water that lapped at the shore.
Mark’s throat tightened. Ella was a decent woman. The best. He went to her, wrapped his arms around her from behind, pulling her back against him. “I’ll do right by you, Ella. I’ll be faithful to you until the day I die. I’m a good provider. We have fun together. We can make this work.”
She leaned her head against his chest and he relaxed into her. This was home.
The lake beckoned and he thought of the rowboat that he kept stashed in some brush a couple of yards away from where they stood. A couple of yards away from where they’d first made love.
This was the life he’d been born into.
“Do you love me, Mark?”
“Course I do.”
“You never say so.”
“I’m not much of a talker, you know that.”
“You say it to Nonnie.”
“She’s my grandmother!”
Ella turned to face him, her hands on his chest. “I can’t leave this town. It’s my home. I love it here.”
“I know!” Had he asked her to move? Ever? “I’m not leaving, either.”
“I think you will.”
He’d have scratched his head if he hadn’t been holding her. “Whatever gave you that idea?”
She looked away, off to the trees on their right. And then she took a step back. “Rick Stanfield asked me to a pig roast at his church.”
Rick Stanfield was new to town—to the plant. An operations field tech. Just like Ella. Like Jimmy had been.
“Doesn’t he know you’re my girl?”
“Yeah, he knows.”
“So? What’s the problem?”
“I told him I’d go.”
“What?” Grabbing her hand, Mark pulled Ella back to him, her hips snug up against his. Reminding her. “You going to invite me, too, Ella? ’Cause we made a vow not to go out single.”
“I know. I just think—”
“It’s the scholarship, isn’t it? You’ve been acting weird ever since I told you about that letter.” A fluke. Incredible. The idea that Montford University, the Harvard of the West, would offer him a four-year full ride without his even asking for it. It was completely ludicrous.
“I barely graduated high school, Mark. I’m no good anywhere but here.”
“That’s crazy talk.”
Her blue gaze was direct as she stared straight at him. “You used to say the same kinds of things. You didn’t even graduate high school!” The words weren’t unusual; the accusatory tone was.
“I know.” He’d never pretended to be something he wasn’t. Not even to himself. Especially not to himself. “And I’m not leaving, I keep telling you that.”
“You’re going to go, Mark. You’re going to get some fancy degree, and I won’t be good enough for you anymore.”
“That’s just more crazy talk.”
“Is it?” She stared at him.
“Yes!” Rubbing his hips against her, he smiled and then kissed her. A long, wet kiss. “You will always be good enough for me, Ella Holland. Better than me. You’re good enough for anyone. But you fit me.”
“You said you weren’t leaving.” Her kiss was fervent as always. Her passion unrestrained. And then she stepped back.
“You didn’t say you weren’t going to get the degree.” She was trying to trap him into saying something he didn’t mean.
Because he’d been busy saying she’d always be good enough for him.
“I’m going to the pig roast, Mark.”
“I don’t believe this.”
“Bierly’s not a huge place. I want a husband and kids and my choices are limited.”
“I just asked you to marry me.”
“And live with Nonnie.”
Yes. Because that one was not negotiable.
“She doesn’t like me.”
“Of course she does.”
“She doesn’t think I’m good enough for you.”
“Ella.” He grabbed her back, held on, as though by doing so he could hold on to the life she was trying to take away from him. “You are my equal in every way.”
“You’re smarter than I am, Mark. We both know that. You explain things to me all the time.”
“At work, yes. That’s my job.”
“And about finances and world things. You watch the news and documentaries and I like to watch reality shows.”
“Difference between girls and guys, is all.”
“Nonnie wants you to take that scholarship offer.”
“You talked to her?”
“No, but I know.”
“I’m not going to Shelter Valley.” Because Ella was wrong. He wasn’t smart. And he most certainly was not a book learner. “I haven’t read a book since before I quit high school.”
“But you read stuff on the internet all the time.”
> A guy had to know about the world around him if he was going to keep his family safe. If he was going to provide.
“Marry me, Ella. Please.” He hadn’t meant to ask yet. Hadn’t really even thought about it. But if marriage was what it took to keep things as they were...
She shook her head. “I can’t, Mark. I can’t sit here and wait for you while you go off across the country and get even smarter on me. I can’t take the chance that you won’t be back. Besides, I want a family now. Another two years and I’ll be thirty years old, Mark. And you ain’t ready. Even without the scholarship. You’ve said so often enough. You want to save first. And if you go get this degree—that would be another four years at least.”
“We’ve got time, Ella. Heck, people have kids into their forties nowadays.”
“I don’t want to be an older mother. I want kids now, while I’m still young enough for them to think I’m cool.”
That was so Ella, wanting her kids to think she was cool. Ella’s mother had been sixteen when she’d had her and the two had been more like friends than mother and daughter.
“Even if I went and got the degree, you’d only be thirty-two when I get back. That’s plenty young enough.”
Her gaze narrowed and he was pretty sure he saw the beginnings of tears there. But Ella wasn’t a crier.
“So you’re thinking about going?”
“No! I keep telling you, I’m not going.” He’d never make it in college. And had nothing to learn there, either. He was a working man. And he was climbing the ladder just fine. He’d just been talking about the age thing. There was no need to rush kids.
“Even if you came back, you’d be different. I’d bore you in no time.”
“You don’t bore me, Ella.” His boredom was a product of an overactive mind. One that had to be kept busy. He’d never been good at sitting around.
“Maybe I just don’t want to live my life with someone who’s smarter than me, you ever think of that?”
She had him there. Because he did think of that—about himself being the stupid one. Or he used to. Before Ella. A high school dropout, Mark had dropped out of the dating scene, too. He hadn’t liked how he’d felt hanging out with girls who were more educated than he was.