Harlequin LTD ISBN-10 0373751699 ISBN-13 978-0373751693 June 2007 Read It! Buy It!

Summer Lovin' Anthology The Preacher's Daughter www.onceuponaromancereview.net 4.5, Summer Lovin’ is made up of three stories entitled The Preacher’s Daughter, A Baby on the Way and A Reunion Romance. All three of these stories center around the high school reunion. The Silver Cliffe High School is being moved, so to speak. A brand new high school has been built and the old school is being turned into condominiums. To that end, the city has invited all classes for one last high school reunion in the old school. Often times it is tough to pull together a romance, which is believable, in a short story. However, these three women have done just that. Each of these stories creates a different feeling and background; however, they all stem from the same event. They flow well into each other but are not dependent in any way on the other. All in all, the greatest of relationships. I love the writing styles and how even with these short stories I was able to grasp the emotions of the characters, have a few chuckles and just a few heart tugs. This is a great kick off to summer!!

 

Silver Cliff, Colorado. Population 2,307.

The one place Jake Turner had promised himself he'd never return to after his high school graduation. Yet, here he stood in the middle of a Fourth-of-July barbecue in the city park. Not quite in the middle, more like off to the side--far side. Safely hidden in the shadows of a grouping of birch trees.

His gut twisted with the urge to run. He wouldn't. Not this time.

The town had changed in the twenty years since he'd sped off on his second-hand motorcycle, but the people hadn't--the pointed stares and burning glances evidence that a two-decade absence had done nothing to alter his bad-boy reputation.

A multi-year class reunion, the news that his former alma mater, Silver Cliff High School, was closing its doors, and an opportunity to shove his good fortune in his fellow classmates' faces had lured him back for a final goodbye to his childhood home. Jake, voted least likely to succeed, had indeed succeeded. Big-time.

In truth, his adolescent desire to thrust his accomplishments up the snouts of those who'd scorned him and his mother embarrassed him. But the once tortured teenager yearned to brag that the town lush's son had become a self-made millionaire.

Those reasons aside, Jake was man enough to admit the main motive for his decision to attend the daddy of 'em all class reunions was Amanda Winslow--the Methodist preacher's daughter. The one person who'd actually cared whether Jake had earned his high school diploma.

The only female who'd crossed his mind daily for twenty long years.

For the past half hour he’d searched for Amanda in the swarm of people milling about the park grounds conversing, eating barbecued pork and getting wasted on beer and wine coolers. Over a thousand people were expected to descend upon the small mountain community for the upcoming weekend festivities and it appeared as if half those people had shown up for the Fourth of July picnic.

Years ago a celebration of this size would have been impossible. Now the increase in B&Bs, motels popping up along the outskirts of town and the recent sale of the high school to a developer who planned to convert the building into high-end condos, was evidence the once sleepy hollow catered to an exploding tourist population.

Jake didn't give a damn that the town was changing. And he could care even less what happened to the high school. If it were up to him, he'd slam a wrecking ball into the eighty-year-old building, which housed nothing but bad memories--accept one. Amanda.

"Say, is that you, Jake Turner?"

Jake's muscles tensed. "Who wants to know?" He glanced over his shoulder. Thad Trevechy. A.k.a. Einstein. Five-feet-seven inches of pure scientific brilliance. The teen wiz kid had been the sole freshman in Jake's senior chemistry class. "Trevechy."

"Hey, you remember me." Einstein stepped forward and shook Jake's hand.

"Haven’t changed much," Jake commented, struggling not to stare at the two front teeth protruding from the man's mouth.

"Yep." Trevechy grinned. "Still short and still got bucked teeth." He rolled his upper lip back and sniffed like a rabbit. At least the man had a sense of humor and could laugh at himself--a talent Jake had yet to acquire.

Trevechy lifted a foot off the ground. "These help."

Jake gaped at the circa 1978 platform athletic shoes. "Where'd you find those?"

"Second-hand store in Denver. I got a dress pair for the dinner Saturday night. The wife towers over me." Trevechy pointed to a woman checking I.D's at the beer tent. The redhead was almost as tall as Jake and a good foot wider. "That's Valerie. I rescued her from a life of sin thirteen years ago."

No way could he allow that comment to slip by. "What kind of sin?"

"Prostitution."

"You don’t say," Jake mumbled, schooling his features.

"Val used to work Colfax Avenue in downtown Denver."

An image of Einstein trolling the seedy street searching for a woman to relieve him of his virginity flashed before Jake's eyes. "And you two met…how?"

"I belonged to a bible-study group in college and a few of us were sharing the word of the Lord when Val asked me for a prayer sheet."

Trevechy gazed at his wife like a lovesick-puppy. "After we prayed together and she agreed to accept the Lord as her savoir I proposed. Then I brought her back to Silver Cliff and Preacher Winslow forgave Val for her seven sins."

"Seven sins?"

"She’d just begun her career when we met. There wasn't a whole lot of sinning to forgive. Afterward, the preacher baptized her and married us."

He would have loved to have been present when Trevechy showed up on the preacher’s doorstep with a hooker on his arm. Jake had had his share of run-ins with Amanda’s father--there were only so many places a delinquent kid could hide in a dinky town. Over the years he'd been the recipient of stern warnings and religious sermons. In one ear and out the other--until he'd come home one night the summer before his senior year and found Amanda's father in bed with his mother.

Jake's mother had been no innocent. She'd been a drunk and yes, sometimes a whore. But the one person in their community who should have offered sympathy, protection and forgiveness used and abused her in an inexcusable way. Jake had threatened to tell the sheriff if the preacher ever came near his mother again, but Amanda's father had laughed in his face and insisted a troublemaker like him had no credibility.

Little did Amanda realize that she'd offered Jake the perfect opportunity for revenge when she'd insisted on tutoring him their senior year. He'd had one goal in mind--lure the preacher's daughter into his bed and ruin her. He hadn’t counted on falling head over heels for Amanda. They'd come close to having sex once but in the end, a guilty conscious had stopped Jake. He hadn’t been able to use Amanda in such a cruel way.

Several times he'd been tempted to expose Amanda's father--but what purpose would it serve, other than destroying her family? In the end he'd had no choice but to leave town after graduation. Had he stuck around he had no doubt Amanda would have ended up in his bed and hating me. "Glad things worked out for you, Trevechy." At least someone was happy with the way their life turned out.

"Val opened a new business a few years ago. It's called the Loving Hands Daycare."

Swallowing a groan, Jake choked, "What do you do for a living?"

"I'm an engineering professor at the University of Colorado in Boulder. I teach correspondence courses through the cable T.V. network and the internet."

"Sounds interesting."

“The hours are great. Plenty of free time to help Val with our three kids." He stuffed his hands into the front pockets of his plaid golfing shorts. "What's your story? You skipped town right after graduation."

"Ended up in California, working for a software company." He rolled his shoulders under the weight of the lie. He didn’t work for the company, he owned it. "The class reunion gave me an excuse to tie up a few loose ends."

Trevechy chortled. "One of those loose ends is still around, if you happen to be looking for her."

Memories lived on forever in small-town minds. Jake supposed everyone assumed he’d had a crush on the petite, soft-spoken blonde after the public kiss he'd given her following their high-school graduation ceremony. She was the one--only--good memory he'd carried with him when he’d blown off this place.

"Amanda was scheduled to help with the reunion registration early this morning. Did you stop by the Silver Palace?"

"Not yet." Whether Jake remained for the entire weekend of festivities depended on Amanda.

"My wife and Amanda are good friends. Valerie walks the daycare kids to the library once a week for story time." When Jake didn’t comment, Trevechy carried the conversation by himself. "I'm surprised Amanda's a librarian. I'd pegged her for a teacher.”

The comment triggered a rush of memories..."C'mon, Jake." "Stop goofing off and solve the math equation."

When Amanda had learned that their class might be the first one in the history of the school to fail to graduate all its students--meaning Jake--she'd decided to tutor him. After the way her father had used his mother, Jake had wanted nothing to do with the preacher's daughter. When he'd rebuffed her offer, she'd sat alongside him in detention after school every day.

"I don't need your help, Ms. Brain."

"Yes, you do." She'd leveled a pointed glare at him.

"Go find another charity case."

"Sorry. I handle one charity case at a time." Amanda had been so sweetly determined that Jake had been left momentarily speechless.

"What if I refuse?"

"Then I'll sit here until you change your mind."

Amanda's earnest determination offered him the perfect opportunity to seek revenge against her father, but he had to be sure she was in for the long haul. "People will talk."

"Gossip doesn’t bother me". That she didn’t appear concerned with the fact that his mother was a drunk and the only person in town receiving public assistance, baffled him.

"Please, Jake. Just try. For me."

In the end, he couldn’t say for certain if it was his need for vengeance or her sincerity, but he hadn’t been able to resist her plea.

If there was one thing he'd learned about his tutor that year, it was that once she set her mind to something she never turned back. Each F Jake earned caused Amanda to dig in her heels and push harder. Her gusty determination and I'm-not-giving-up-on-you attitude had won his admiration, further screwing with his evil intent to destroy her father. By the second quarter of the year, he'd quit skipping school and had handed in all his homework on time. Their combined efforts had paid off--Jake had graduated along with the rest of his class.

Dragging his mind away from memory lane, he murmured, "Amanda must be good at what she does if she’s been head librarian the past five years." He could easily picture the blonde sharing her love for learning and reading with children.

“How'd you know she was head librarian?”

Refusing to confess he’d spied on Amanda over the years, Jake lied. "Can't remember where I heard it from."

When Jake had ridden away from Silver Cliff he'd been determined to forget the place and everyone in it. But his attempts to purge Amanda from his thoughts and heart had failed. Two years after leaving town he'd subscribed to Silver Cliff's weekly jotter--a.k.a. gossip tabloid.

Through the paper he'd learned that Amanda had graduated from Colorado State University and had been hired as an assistant librarian for Silver Cliff's library located in the basement of Town Hall. Five years ago, an announcement appeared in the jotter that she'd been promoted to head librarian.

The one piece of news he'd expected…dreaded reading had never materialized. As far as he knew Amanda had never been engaged or married. Jake was determined to learn if what he'd felt for her all those years ago had been a simple high-school crush or something deeper. He suspected the something deeper was the cause of his tightly-wound body.

"Weatherman says we might hit eighty this afternoon."

"C'mon, Amanda. Rescue me from Einstein."

"Well, aren't you a sight for sore eyes--Jake Turner as I live and breathe."

The sound of the familiar voice sent Jake's heart into an uncontrolled spin. He shifted, his gaze colliding with the woman who'd haunted his memory for twenty long years…Amanda Winslow.





   

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Excerpt from: The Preacher's Daughter by Marin Thomas
    Copyright (c) 2007 by Brenda Smith-Beagley
ISBN-10 0373751699
ISBN-13 978-0373751693
By: Marin Thomas
Imprint and Series: Harlequin American
Copyright ©: 2007
By: Marin Thomas
® and ™ are trademarks of the publisher.
The edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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