A Forever Home. Lynn Patrick

      

      Another man in uniform isn’t part of her plan

      She’s earned some good karma. An army widow at twenty-one, Heather Clarke has spent the past three years running her aunt’s quilt store, raising her twin girls alone and earning a degree in landscape horticulture. Finally, she’s launching her new career and starting to feel as though she’s on solid ground. And then Rick Slater rides onto her job site.

      Heather needs a mysterious, gorgeous, ex-army distraction like a hole in the head. Especially when he’s the restless type who’s flirting with reenlisting. And flirting with her! Even if she were ready to love again, she wouldn’t risk it on a man who might not stay. Now, if he decides to stop moving and grow some roots…then that’s a whole other story.

      Would he reenlist?

      “What if you get bored staying in one place?” Heather asked.

      “It’s not the places that attract me,” Rick said. “It’s the people. In the army, I had my men. We were a team…almost like a family.” He paused, studying her closely. “Maybe I’m looking for something else to fulfill me.”

      Like a family of his own?

      “There might be more benefits to staying in one place than I realized.” Rick slid his hand over hers and squeezed.

      The way he was looking at her made Heather blush. And when he leaned forward, cupped her cheek and grinned at her, the warmth spread down to her toes.

      His lips brushing softly across hers made her head go light.

      Yet…this was another man who might put himself back in the line of fire.

      Dear Reader,

      Lynn Patrick is a pseudonym for longtime writing partners Linda Sweeney and Patricia Rosemoor.

      Patricia is a master gardener, trained by the University of Illinois Extension service. She volunteers, holding workshops for enthusiastic local gardeners, mentoring a high school eco-club and working garden walks to hand out information and answer gardening questions. Her experience inspired the idea of having a heroine whose goal was to be a landscape architect who wanted to design and install beautiful gardens using mostly native plants.

      As she did for scenes in Home to Sparrow Lake, Linda got the lowdown on her niece’s twin daughters to add authenticity to scenes with Heather’s twins.

      We hope you enjoy A Forever Home.

      A Forever Home

      Lynn Patrick

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      LYNN PATRICK

      Lynn Patrick is the pseudonym for two best friends who started writing together a few decades ago. Linda is a professor with a reading specialty, and Patricia writes as Patricia Rosemoor. Together they enjoy creating worlds that are lightened by the unexpected, fun and sometimes wonderful vagaries of real life.

      To our very understanding and gracious editor, Laura Barth.

      Contents

       PROLOGUE

       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

       EPILOGUE

      PROLOGUE

      AN UNUSUAL NOISE woke Cora Stanton at two-fifteen a.m.

      At least she thought it was a noise.

      Squinting at her illuminated bedside clock, she groggily rose to her elbows, listening intently. There was plenty to hear with the wind whipping around the creaking eaves of the old mansion and the crash of waves as Lake Michigan hit the shore some yards away. The shadow of branches clawed at the wall nearest the bed.

      But it wasn’t branches scraping or the wind or the waves she’d heard...

      It had been a thud.

      Cora jumped as she heard the sound again. She sat up, trying to locate where the noise had come from. Definitely inside the house. But where?

      No one was sleeping on this side of the house but her. Her flesh crawled at the thought of a stranger creeping around the passage outside or messing about in another room.

      Not wanting to turn on a light and alert the intruder, she crept out of bed and went to the door. She turned the lock, then grasped the knob to crack the door slightly for a view of the hallway outside. Nothing. No one. It seemed empty and quiet in the faint glow of a nightlight.

      She stood there for several minutes, waiting, listening...until her feet got cold.

      No more thuds. No thumps.

      Closing the door, she locked it again and made her way back toward the bed and her slippers lying beside it. Could her imagination have been playing tricks on her? Easy enough to conjure up noises on a windy night in a big, old house.

      As she slid into the slippers and grabbed her robe from a nearby chair, she had second thoughts. Surely she’d lived here long enough to distinguish familiar sounds from strange ones. She’d definitely heard something. Could it have come from the attic? Squirrels had gotten in once and maybe they’d found their way back again. She’d have to call the exterminators tomorrow.

      There was nothing she could do now except go back to sleep. But the adrenaline flowing through her veins had wakened her completely. She’d go downstairs and fix herself some warm cocoa.

      Pausing in front of the windows overlooking the trees and the beach and lake beyond them, she glimpsed a sudden movement. Was it a person? She froze, then pulled back the curtain. In the dim light of a waning moon, something dark and human-shaped darted out of the shadows. It stopped,