His Comfort and Joy. Jessica Bird

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      Tiffany’s.

      “What are we doing here?” Joy asked slowly.

      “Come with me.” Gray touched her elbow, ushering her through the glass doors. As soon as they were inside the yawning space, a man in a three-piece suit came up to them.

      “Mr. Bennett, good afternoon. Please, this way.”

      Joy’s heart was beating like a bird’s and she took her hand from Gray’s because her palm was getting sweaty.

      The suffocating sensation got worse when Three-Piece appeared with a thin leather box about eight inches long and four inches wide. The man flipped open the top and slid the tray forward.

      Diamond rings.

      She reached out and plucked a ring from its velvet sheath. Beneath the overhead lighting, the stone’s brilliance hurt her eyes. And surely there was a hell of a metaphor in that.

      “What do you think you’re doing?” She didn’t look at Gray. Couldn’t.

      “Asking you to marry me.”

      His Comfort and Joy

      Jessica Bird

      With thanks to my first reader,

       aka Mom

      JESSICA BIRD

      graduated from college with a double major in history and art history, concentrating in the medieval period. This meant she was great at discussing anything that happened before the sixteenth century, but not all that employable in the real world. In order to support herself, she went to law school and worked in Boston in health-care administration for many years.

      She now lives in the South with her husband and many pictures of golden retrievers that she hopes to replace with the real thing sometime very soon. As a writer, her commute is a heck of a lot better than it was as a lawyer and she’s thrilled that her professional wardrobe includes slippers and sweatpants. She likes to write love stories that feature strong, independent heroines and complex, alpha male heroes. Visit her Web site at www.jessicabird.com and e-mail her at [email protected].

      72nd Annual

      Saranac Lake

      “Last Rows of Summer BBQ and Swing Dance”

      The Gazebo

       Town Square

      Saturday, September 12

      6:00 p.m.-Midnight

      Featuring:

      The Diamond Jim Swing Orchestra Uncle Bob’s World-Famous BBQ and a fifteen-foot Make-Your-Own-Sundae Bar!

      As always, kids and dogs are welcome…

      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 One

      The boat’s engine throbbed as Grayson Bennett kept the Hacker at a low speed and close to the lakeshore. The antique, thirty-foot craft was his pride and joy, a relic of the Great Gatsby era of lake life. Made of mahogany and varnished to a shine so bright it could hurt your eyes, the Bellitas was indeed a thing of beauty. And she was wickedly fast. The long, thin design provided three discreet seating areas, marked by contoured banquettes in dark green leather. The massive engine, capable of shooting the boat through the water at speeds of sixty miles an hour, took up a good six feet of space in the middle.

      He would miss her when he put her up on blocks for the winter, and the time for her yearly hibernation was coming fast. He could feel it in the air.

      Even though it was the middle of the day, September was cool in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York. To take the edge off the chill, he was wearing a windbreaker and his only passenger, aside from a big, very happy golden retriever, had on a thick sweater.

      Naturally, the dog had plenty of insulation.

      Gray looked across the seat at the woman who stared at the cliffs they were passing. Cassandra Cutler’s thick red hair was secured at her neck and her green eyes were hidden behind sunglasses. The frames covered up the dark circles of her exhaustion, too.

      No doubt she saw little of the rocks and pine trees, he thought. Life had to be an inconsequential blur for someone who’d become a widow only six weeks ago.

      “How’re we doing?” he asked his old, dear friend.

      She smiled slightly, a tense expression he knew she worked at. “I’m glad you pestered me to get out of the city.”

      “Good.”

      “I can’t imagine I’m enjoyable company, though,” Cassandra said.

      “You’re not here to perform.”

      Gray focused on the lake ahead as the silence was filled with the sound of the boat’s deep-throated engine and the lapping of water against the wooden gunnels. Sunshine glinted off the mahogany, flashed over the tops of the gentle waves, brought out the vivid blue of the sky and the dense green of the mountains. The air was so clear and clean that when he breathed deep, the inside of his nose hummed.

      It was a perfect fall day. And he was about to shoot the hell out of his quiet enjoyment.

      When they’d left his estate’s boathouse, he could have taken them in any direction. To the south, where they could have danced around a thicket of small islands. Across to the west to see some of the other big stretches of property.

      But no, he’d chosen the north where sooner or later the old Moorehouse mansion would appear. White Caps was a big white birthday cake of a house, perched on a three-acre bluff. Once the family’s lavish private home, it had been turned into a bed-and-breakfast by them when their money had run out.

      But he wasn’t going to look at the property.

      When the bluff appeared in the distance, his eyes narrowed. The long rolling lawn, which drifted from White Caps’ porches to the shore, was a dazzling green. Oaks and maples framed the house, already turning colors from the frosts that came at night.

      He couldn’t see anyone and he looked harder, even as he started to turn the boat around.

      Cassandra didn’t need to get anywhere near the Moorehouse place. Her husband’s sailing partner, who’d survived the yachting accident, was recovering there with his family. Gray wasn’t sure she knew that or whether she’d want to see Alex, but he wasn’t inclined to take a chance at giving her another shock. She’d had enough bad surprises lately.

      Cassandra’s voice did not break his concentration. “My husband liked you, Gray.”

      “I liked Reese,” he said, looking over his shoulder at the house, eyes searching.

      “But he thought you were a dangerous man.”

      “Did he?”

      “He