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The Wedding Promise
Grace Green
In search of a wife!Logan Hunter had made a promise: to find a new bride for himself, and a mother for his darling daughter. That was five years ago, and he hadn't even started looking! But Sara Wynter found him anyway….Only Sara had none of the attributes Logan wanted in a second wife. She was too pretty, too outspoken. Logan tried not to fall for her–he simply wanted a marriage of convenience. But Sara reminded him that he had a heart, and it looked as though he'd soon be the happiest reluctant bridegroom ever!"Ms. Green spins an enchanting tale with marvelous characterization."–Romantic Times on The Wedding Promise
Logan sighed, his heart crushed by the weight of his promise (#u3a5ebd2f-1201-52ca-a476-8328b7f667ae)About the Author (#ua65feb15-9958-5ffe-a8ad-ac48fe1ff3d1)Title Page (#uf2fd2938-30b1-5d7e-ac20-dd44f9074ebe)Dedication (#u59e3d90a-6833-598e-b6f5-0e6a1ed55808)CHAPTER ONE (#u193df600-1337-56f7-bf75-7e9807158c1c)CHAPTER TWO (#u2f71edd9-75eb-5159-b395-dc88ade5415d)CHAPTER THREE (#u2214596e-a6b8-50b4-9918-d36c66c2cc2a)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)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Logan sighed, his heart crushed by the weight of his promise
The promise he hadn’t fulfilled. He couldn’t keep putting it off.... Throwing back his head, he closed his eyes and wrote his mental checklist of attributes essential in a suitable bride.
LOOKS: plain, but not distractingly so
HEIGHT: average
BUILD: neatly assembled, but unobtrusively so
MANNER: modest
ATTITUDE: nonargumentative
He drew a line under “nonargumentative.”
Sara Wynter—now there was an argumentative female. In fact, the woman he was looking for was the very opposite of Ms. Sara Wynter....
Grace Green was born in Scotland and is a former teacher. In 1967 she and her marine-engineer husband, John, emigrated to Canada where they raised their four children. Empty-nesters now, they are happily settled in West Vancouver in a house overlooking the ocean. Grace enjoys walking the sea wall, gardening, getting together with other writers...and watching her characters come to life, because she knows that, once they do, they will take over and write her stories for her.
Grace Green has written for the Presents
series, but now concentrates on Harlequin Romance
...bringing you deeply emotional stories with vibrant characters.
The Wedding Promise
Grace Green
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
For Moyra Tarling, Kay Gregory and Kathy Garner
because they’ve been there from the beginning
And for Barbara Schenck
because of Taggart!
CHAPTER ONE
THE woman at the wheel of the cabin cruiser was a blonde.
A drop-dead-gorgeous blonde, Logan noted as he glowered at her through the brass telescope set up in the bay window of his sitting room. She had the face of an angel and an eye-popping figure set off by a flirty yellow dress—but though he could appreciate beauty as well as the next man all he felt now was irritation.
Intense irritation!
He’d come to his island summer place for a purpose and the last thing he wanted was uninvited company. But this craft so gaily riding the choppy waves of the Juan de Fuca Straits was headed directly for his waterfront property.
He swung the scope to the boat’s name: Zach’s Fancy.
Muttering under his breath, he swung the powerful instrument up again...
In time to see someone join the woman at the wheel.
A man, dressed in black, with the dark, rakish looks of a pirate and a physique to match. He smiled and draped an arm around the shoulders of his female fancy...who was, Logan recognised with distaste, young enough to be his—
A bell rang somewhere in Logan’s head and he frowned.
Refocusing the scope, he brought the man’s face in so close that the silver strands in his black hair were visible.
Good God. Logan blinked. Zach Grant!
Movie idol, modem-day Valentino, swinging bachelor. A tabloid wouldn’t have been a tabloid without a lurid spread on Hollywood’s most notorious womaniser and his current sex object.
What was the name of that rag Andrea was forever poring over? SuperGossip? GossipIsUs? Whatever Grant’s mug had adorned it only last week. Andy had pointed it out.
‘Look, Dad, he’s with Felicia Mosscov, that new red-haired model! She’s hot...and isn’t he something?’
‘He’s something, all right,’ he’d muttered, before telling his daughter to put the magazine in the trash where it belonged. She hadn’t, of course.
It was at times like those that he realised just how much Andy needed a mother.
Soon, he mused grimly, she would have one.
He jerked his attention back to the boat, and saw that the small craft had now almost reached his dock.
Tension snapped at him like a yappy dog. He shoved the scope aside and stormed across the living room, and the foyer, and then out of the open front door.
Damned intruders! He leaped down the flight of narrow steps, charged down the sloping lawn and thundered across the narrow strip of sandy beach to the jetty.
The sign at the end of the dock was executed in electric blue lettering and its message was clear:
‘PRIVATE: KEEP OUT.’
These idiots should have been able to see it by now. They should have been changing direction, and heading back out into the Strait. They were not. They were pulling in alongside the jetty. Logan saw red.
‘Ahoy there!’ He pounded along the wooden boards.
The couple turned to look up at him.
The breeze caught the woman’s glistening blonde hair, blowing it across her face. When she swept back the pale strands, he saw that her eyes were an unusual turquoise colour, and as they met his her expression of vulnerability took him by surprise...and touched something deep inside him that hadn’t been touched in five years.
Memories of Bethany, memories he’d managed to hold at bay ever since he’d returned to the island just hours ago, suddenly flooded his heart till he could hardly bear the pain. As a result, when he spoke again, his voice had a cold harshness that was quite unwarranted.
‘You can’t tie up here.’ He fisted his hands on his hips and glowered at the intruders. “This is a private jetty.’
Sara’s first glimpse of the man looming down from above threatened to buckle her knees. For a second, she’d thought it was Travis. Like her ex-husband, the stranger was tall and superbly built, dark-haired and attractive. But even as dismay curdled through her she realised the resemblance was superficial. Travis’s hair was brown; this man’s was black. Travis’s face was pale; this man’s was tanned. Travis’s eyes were tawny; the stranger’s were green.
Green and cold and hostile. And when they skimmed from Zach to her she detected a flicker of contempt.
Her hackles rose, and she felt Zach’s arm tighten around her shoulders, deliberately, warningly.
‘This is Madronna Island?’ he asked.
‘That’s right.’
‘And this is the Logan Hunter estate?’ Zach raised his brows.
‘Right again.’ The stranger rammed his hands into the pockets of his grey cotton shorts. Despite his casual attire every line of his body, from the arrogant set of his head to the confident set of his wide shoulders, indicated authority. ‘I’m Hunter, and this is my private property.’
‘The house.’ Zach nodded towards the enormous white house situated up on the crest of the hill. ‘You live there, I assume. But the cottage—’
Sara, for the first time, noticed the cottage. It was huddled beside a stand of trees, the setting sun pinking the white-painted stucco walls and glancing off the window-panes.
‘Yeah, the cottage?’ The man sounded as if he was having a struggle to control his temper. ‘What about it?’
‘I’ve rented it for the next couple of weeks. Till the middle of July.’ Zach withdrew a neatly folded form from the breast pocket of his black T-shirt. “Through—’ he glanced at the form ‘—Hunter West Realty in Vancouver.’
‘No way! Not this cottage, you haven’t—’
‘Yes.’ Sara finally found her voice. ‘We have. Zach, tie up the boat and let’s get settled in.’
‘Right, love.’ Zach scooped up the line and started to secure the vessel.
Sara put a hand on his shoulder to steady herself, and stepped off the deck onto the jetty.
She could feel the stranger’s hostility coming at her in almost palpable waves.
‘Excuse me,’ she said, lifting her chin haughtily and making to go past him.
He moved to stand in her way.
Resentment formed tight bands around her skull. ‘Do you mind?’
He didn’t budge. ‘There’s been a mistake.’ His tone brooked no argument. ‘The cottage is not for rent.’
Zach heaved a large red cooler, a box of groceries and a travel bag onto the jetty. He bounded after them, and the wooden structure shuddered under the impact of his weight.
‘If there’s been a mistake,’ he said firmly, ‘it’s not mine. OK, you obviously didn’t want the place rented out, but somebody in your office screwed up. You are the owner of Hunter West Realty?’ He held out the contract.
After a tense moment, the other man took it. He scanned it. His lips tightened. He thrust back the form.
‘Somebody’s head’s going to roll,’ he snapped. ‘But in the meantime I’ll fax my Vancouver office; we’ll find you somewhere else—and since the mistake was ours it’ll be a five-star chalet, and I’ll absorb the difference in price—’
‘Here we are—’ Zach tucked the contract back into his pocket ‘—and here we stay. You’re going to have to make the best of it.’ He swung up the cooler and travel bag. ‘Sara, can you manage the groceries? Good, then let’s get going. Sun’s well over the yardarm—time for us to have a drink.’
Logan Hunter stood his ground. ‘I’m putting this property up for sale. I need to have ready access to the cottage, to show prospective customers around.’
‘No problem.’ Zach took off along the jetty, with Sara at a half-run to keep up with him. She could hear Hunter; he was right behind her. ‘Sara, love, have you the key?’
Sara slipped it from the deep pocket of her dress as they crossed the beach. When she and Zach reached the cottage, she had the key ready. She unlocked the door quickly and stepped inside, with Zach at her heels.
‘Wait!’ Hunter’s voice had a distinctly frustrated edge. ‘We need to talk.’
‘You know what they say,’ Zach called back over his shoulder. ‘Possession is nine tenths of the law.’
He slammed the door shut, and ushered Sara through to the shabby living room. Dropping the bag on the worn beige carpet, he looked at her with twinkling blue eyes.
‘The man thinks you’re one of my floozies.’ He slapped his hand solidly against his thigh as he chuckled. ‘Does that bother you?’
‘Of course not!’ Sara kept her tone light, made it slightly scornful. The last thing she wanted was for Zach to guess how off-balance Logan Hunter had made her feel. ‘I don’t give a toot what he thinks of me. He’s the most hateful man I’ve ever met!’
Her lips twisted cynically. No, not the most hateful. Travis occupied that position. But certainly the second most hateful. And what rotten luck that Zach should have happened to choose this particular cottage for her holiday. He and her mother had wanted to give her a break, now that her divorce from Travis had finally come through. A time alone, a time for healing, a time for her to regain some peace of mind.
Peace of mind? With Logan Hunter sending hostile vibes her way from his rambling two-storey house on the hill?
Fat chance!
‘Daddy.’ Andrea Logan skidded to a halt just inside the kitchen doorway. ‘There’s somebody down there on our beach!’
Logan tightened his grip on the handle of the vegetable knife, sliced the blade viciously through the hothouse tomato on the cutting board, and turned to his daughter.
‘Yeah, I—’ He stared disbelievingly. ‘What the hell have you done to your hair?’
She put a hand up to the cropped brown strands that now raggedly cupped her head, dropped it again. And shrugged.
‘Cut it.’
But the careless twist of her thin shoulders was belied by the unmistakable welling of tears in her huge brown eyes. Tears she blinked back, but not before Logan had seen them.
She padded in her bare feet to the sink, and stood looking out, her back to her father.
Logan put down the knife, closed his eyes, suppressed an oath.
You’ve done it again, Hunter, he jeered silently: opened your big mouth and jammed both size eleven feet right in it.
Being the father of a motherless thirteen-year-old, he was fast discovering, wasn’t any cakewalk. Andy had been so easy to bring up...until she’d hit her teens. Then—wham! Overnight change, from angel to—
‘It’s Zach Grant!’ Andrea whirled round, her eyes no longer shining with tears, but with excitement. ‘Daddy, the man on the beach, it’s—’
‘Zach Grant. I know.’
