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Spring In The Valley
Charlotte Douglas
North Versus South…Police officer Brynn Sawyer is all but married to Pleasant Valley, her picture-perfect Southern hometown. And even if she were in the mood for romance, smooth New York lawyer Rand Benedict is the opposite of everything Brynn wants in a man. So why can't she stop thinking about him and his little boy, Jared?Rand can't deny the electric chemistry that burns between him and the beautiful Brynn. But Rand's real motivation for his arrival in Pleasant Valley isn't pleasant at alL.and the discovery of his secret just might tear apart a once-in-a-lifetime chance at love.
All Brynn could think of was how much she was attracted to Rand, from his thick brown hair to the tips of his Gucci loafers
And especially everything in between.
Rand gave her a look that made her suddenly hot. “It’s been such a great day that I don’t want it to end. Come to River Walk with us.”
No way, her mind was screaming, but her reply came from her heart. “I’d love to.”
His face lit up like Fourth of July fireworks, his delight so obvious Brynn had to look away. She restrained herself from beating her hand against the window in frustration. Why hadn’t she just said no?
Because Rand Benedict is a very special man, maybe the one you’ve been looking for all your life, a voice inside her head insisted.
But she hadn’t been looking for a man, not even a special one.
Had she?
Dear Reader,
In the words of an ancient Chinese saying, we live in interesting times. Due to tumultuous world events, we appreciate more than ever security, solace, acceptance and love as bulwarks against the troubles of the day. In my series A PLACE TO CALL HOME, I’ve created a small town in upstate South Carolina, where love and acceptance, along with only occasional mayhem, abound. For the residents of Pleasant Valley, friends are family, and family is everything.
In Spring in the Valley, book three of the series, Officer Brynn Sawyer, one of Pleasant Valley’s finest, finds her heart and values shaken by Yankee stranger Rand Benedict, a lawyer on a secret mission to the South. But Brynn has always given as good as she gets, and Rand soon discovers his life and expectations upended after being ticketed by the curvaceous cop.
I hope you’ll enjoy the romantic skirmish between Brynn and Rand, aided by Rand’s adorable nephew and ward, and as we say in the South, y’all come back and visit Pleasant Valley again early in 2006.
Happy reading!
Spring in the Valley
Charlotte Douglas
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
The major passions of Charlotte Douglas’s life are her husband—her high school sweetheart to whom she’s been married for over three decades—and writing compelling stories. A national bestselling author, she enjoys filling her books with love of home and family, special places and happy endings. With their two cairn terriers, she and her husband live most of the year on Florida’s central west coast, but spend the warmer months at their North Carolina mountaintop retreat.
No matter what time of year, readers can reach her at charlottedouglas1@juno.com (mailto:charlottedouglas1@juno.com). She’s always delighted to hear from them.
Books by Charlotte Douglas
HARLEQUIN AMERICAN ROMANCE
591—IT’S ABOUT TIME
623—BRINGING UP BABY
868—MONTANA MAIL-ORDER WIFE* (#litres_trial_promo)
961—SURPRISE INHERITANCE
999—DR. WONDERFUL
1027—VERDICT: DADDY
1038—ALMOST HEAVEN† (#litres_trial_promo)
1049—ONE GOOD MAN† (#litres_trial_promo)
1061—SPRING IN THE VALLEY† (#litres_trial_promo)
HARLEQUIN INTRIGUE
380—DREAM MAKER
434—BEN’S WIFE
482—FIRST-CLASS FATHER
515—A WOMAN OF MYSTERY
536—UNDERCOVER DAD
611—STRANGER IN HIS ARMS* (#litres_trial_promo)
638—LICENSED TO MARRY
668—MONTANA SECRETS
691—THE BRIDE’S RESCUER
740—THE CHRISTMAS TARGET
Contents
Chapter One (#ubb96c143-b7e4-5f6c-8f77-a26487508571)
Chapter Two (#u3bc75e4a-6806-5ceb-b458-055881f2fcfc)
Chapter Three (#uef4cd39b-87bd-53fe-b0aa-6a8b5a333c01)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One
Officer Brynn Sawyer was definitely out of uniform. At the rate her friends were getting married, she contemplated with a wry chuckle, a bridesmaid’s dress was beginning to feel like her backup wardrobe.
Recalling Jodie Nathan and Jeff Davidson’s wedding earlier that day, she couldn’t help smiling as she drove her SUV down the dark, winding road toward the valley highway. Hours ago, she and a few hundred other guests had given the happy couple a great send-off for their Bermuda honeymoon.
After most of the others had departed the festivities at Archer Farm, Brynn had remained behind to help the staff and clients clean up at the juvenile rehabilitation center that the groom had founded. The teenage boys, most of whom she knew well, both through personal encounters and from memorizing their rap sheets, had had other ideas. Refusing her offers of assistance, they had settled her in a deep chair in front of the great room fireplace, slipped a hassock under her high-heel-clad feet and placed a mug of hot chocolate in her hands. Then, insisting they were used to grunt work, they’d ordered her not to muss her pretty dress. In less than a year, Jeff Davidson and his staff of former Marines had worked miracles with their sixteen at-risk boys.
Contemplating Jeff and Jodie’s well-earned happiness, Brynn drove slowly through the darkness. The only illumination on the narrow road was the high beams, and the only interior light came from the faint glow from the control panel. She briefly fingered a fold of her dress before taking hold of the wheel again. The full-length gown was pretty, as the teens had said, a delicate leaf-green silk, perfect for the first day of spring and new beginnings, and to complement the midnight-blue of her eyes.
“You’re next,” Jodie had declared after Brynn caught the bridal bouquet of apple blossoms, paper-whites and fragrant ivory roses. “Remember the rule of threes. It was Merrilee last year, now me. You’ll be married, too, before you know it.”
Brynn had shaken her head and laughed. At thirty, she had no special man in her life, and certainly not one likely to propose. Steady dating, much less marriage, was the furthest thing from her mind. Although she definitely enjoyed men’s company—most of her fellow officers were male—she didn’t need a man to make her feel complete. She loved her job as a Pleasant Valley police officer and aspired to fill her father’s shoes as chief of police someday when he retired. And the people of the valley were her extended family. What woman could want more?
A blast of frigid wind shook the vehicle. Switching on the windshield wipers, she peered through the first flurries of blowing snow, glad she’d donned her department-issue, down-filled parka over her lightweight dress and changed her high-heeled sandals for waterproof boots before she’d left Archer Farm. The early spring snowstorm had timed its arrival just right—after Jodie’s wedding and reception had ended, thank goodness.
Reassured by the heavy-duty tires and four-wheel drive of her SUV, Brynn eased onto the highway that led through the valley, filled with small farms, to town. If she drove carefully, she’d have no trouble reaching home before heavy snow, which practically never fell in South Carolina, made the roads impassable.
To her right in the darkness, the Piedmont River, already swollen with melting winter snows from the surrounding mountains, paralleled the highway. Her car topped a ridge, and, on her left, lights flickered through the trees in front of Grant and Merrilee Nathan’s home.
Merrilee, along with Jodie’s fifteen-year-old daughter Brittany, had also been bridesmaids at this afternoon’s wedding, and Grant and Merrilee had headed home hours ago. Brittany had left soon after to stay with her grandparents for the honeymoon’s duration. Brynn had been the last guest to depart.
Valley Road was deserted, and she uttered a prayer of gratitude that the snow was falling so late. By morning, when the locals went about their business, the snowplows would have cleared the accumulated white stuff and made the roads safe and her job easier.
No sooner had those thoughts formed than the blinding glare of headlights filled her rearview mirror. A vehicle was approaching rapidly from behind. Definitely too fast for existing conditions. The speeding car bore down on her, swung into the opposite lane and blasted past, leaving Brynn’s SUV vibrating in its vortex.
“Idiot,” she muttered under her breath. “He’s going to kill himself and someone else if he doesn’t slow down.”
Keeping her eyes on the road, she reached to the floor of the passenger seat for her portable warning light, popped it onto the dash, and turned on it and her siren. Flooring the accelerator, she took off after the speeder. For now, the falling snow formed only slush on the asphalt, but with temperatures dropping like a rock in a pond, dangerous ice would soon coat the roads, a recipe for disaster.
Brynn grabbed her police radio from the seat beside her and keyed the mike. “This is Officer Sawyer. I’m on Valley Road in pursuit of a silver Jaguar, South Carolina plates.” She rattled off the tag number.
“10-4,” answered the steady voice of Todd Leland, the night dispatcher. “I’m running the plates now. Do you need backup?”
“10-4.” Especially if Todd had a hit on those tags. “Sawyer out.” Brynn dropped her radio and gripped the wheel. Ahead, heeding her signals, the Jaguar’s driver slowed, pulled to the side of the road, and stopped.
Adrenaline pumping, Brynn parked behind him and switched off her siren. Traffic stops were generally routine, but one going bad was always a possibility. A fleeing felon with nothing to lose wouldn’t hesitate to kill a cop to make his escape. She retrieved her off-duty gun from the glove compartment, shoved it into the pocket of her parka and keyed the mike again.
“Anything on those plates yet?”
“It’s coming through now, registered to a Randall Benedict on Valley Road. No report of the vehicle being stolen. No outstanding warrants on Benedict. Your backup’s on the way.”
“10-4.” According to Todd’s report, the driver was merely stupid, not criminal, but from a cop’s point of view, she could never have too much backup. Especially on a deserted road so late at night.
Hiking her long silk skirt above her boots, Brynn slid from the car and used her Maglite to guide her steps to the idling Jaguar. At her approach, the driver’s window slid down with an electronic whir.
The driver started to speak. “I have a—”
“I’ll do the talking. This is a state highway, not a NASCAR track,” Brynn said in the authoritative manner she reserved for lawbreakers, especially those displaying such an obvious lack of common sense. “And the road’s icing up. You have a death wish?”
“No.” The driver seemed distracted, oblivious to the seriousness of his offense. “I need to—”
“Turn off your engine,” Brynn ordered, “and place your hands on the wheel where I can see them.”
She shined her flashlight in the driver’s face. The man in his midthirties squinted in the brightness, but not before the pupils of his eyes, the color of dark melting chocolate, contracted in the light. She instantly noted the rugged angle of his unshaven jaw, the aristocratic nose, baby-fine brown hair tousled as if he’d just climbed out of bed…
And a wad of one hundred dollar bills thrust under her nose.
Anger burned through her, but she kept a lid on her temper. “If that’s a bribe, buster, you’re in a heap of trouble.”
“No bribe.” His tone, although frantic, was rich and full. “Payment for my fine. I can’t stop—”
“You can’t keep going at your previous speed, either,” she said reasonably and struggled to control her fury at the man’s arrogance. “You’ll kill yourself and someone else—”
“It’s Jared. I have to get him to the hospital.”
Labored breathing sounded in the back seat. Brynn aimed her light at the source. In a child carrier, a towheaded toddler, damp hair matted to his head and plump cheeks flushed with fever, wheezed violently as his tiny chest struggled for air.
Brynn’s anger vanished at the sight of the poor little guy, and her sympathy kicked in. Accustomed to emergencies, she sorted quickly through alternatives. Her four-wheel-drive SUV was safer under present conditions, but removing and reinstalling the child carrier would take time, precious time, judging from the boy’s obvious respiratory distress. But the driver—the child’s father?—was so rattled, he might wreck his car if left entirely on his own.
“Follow me,” Brynn ordered. She’d push her speed, but only as fast as was safe. “I’ll radio ahead for the E.R. to expect us. What’s Jared’s problem?”
“He had a cold, but it’s developed into something worse. He’s having trouble breathing.”
Brynn hurried to her vehicle, drove onto the highway and turned on her siren again. The Jaguar pulled in behind her. After radioing Todd to cancel her backup and alert the hospital, she concentrated on the road, vigilant for signs of ice as she sped through the night, emergency lights flashing.
Questions flitted through her mind. Who was Randall Benedict? She’d never seen the Jaguar’s driver before, and she knew everyone who lived on Valley Road. And where was the boy’s mother? Wouldn’t a kid, especially one as sick as he was, want his mommy?
“Where’s Mommy?” four-year-old Brynn asked.
Her mommy had been gone for a long time, and the house was filled with flowers, so many that the overpowering sweetness of their mixed fragrances made her tummy feel sick.
Her father lifted her in his arms. “Mommy’s gone to Heaven.”
