Love Rising: Spring (Mandrake Falls Series Romance Book 4) (17 page)

Ryan opened his eyes wide and smiled into her pretty face.
“No, I’m not dead. I’m in love.”

Paula nodded her head vigorously. She wiped tears from her
eyes. “I know you are, dearest. I’m in love too.”

He pulled her down into his arms and they held each other,
lying flat on their backs on the sidewalk on Main Street in Mandrake Falls.
Ryan gazed at the pristine blue spring sky. “Hey Paula, look at us ... we have
a love rising.”

His eyes pulled down sleepily. He was very, very tired all
of a sudden and it was so comfortable on the sidewalk with Paula in his arms.
She smelled so good....

Paula matter-of-factly shook her boyfriend awake and called
the Sheriff’s Office. “Your brother, Ryan has a concussion,” she said joyfully.
“We butted heads and I won.”

♥

LATER THAT night, Jeremy lay with Jocelyn fast asleep in
his arms, practicing what he’d say to his father in the morning. He decided to
call his dad and invite him to Mandrake Falls to meet Jocelyn. Face it head-on.
He didn’t expect Kenneth to give his blessing and Jeremy wasn’t looking for it,
but he didn’t want his dad to feel shut out of his life. Jocelyn said she and
Jeremy were a lot alike, and she was right. Kenneth would see how suited they
were and how happy she made him and he’d come around. His dad was ultimately a
good guy. He just wanted his son to be happy.

Jeremy would have to give
Joce
plenty of warning though. She was used to him being poor. Kenneth Marks would
take the corporate helicopter to Mandrake Falls and it makes quite an entrance.
Jeremy would have to prepare
Joce
for shock and awe.

The quiet of the house folded around them where they lay,
entwined, in her bed.

It had happened.
It
had actually happened
. If it wasn’t for that engagement notice, he wouldn’t
have found the courage to fight for her. Jeremy shuddered at the narrow grace
of fate.

Jocelyn shifted and sighed against his chest.

His heart cracked and warmth spread through his body, a
physical sensation of overflowing joy. A loopy wide grin crossed his face as at
last he understood. He and Jocelyn were like crocuses pushing out of the spring
snow—inconceivable that it could happen and yet inevitable.

Summer was coming.
Joce
would love
to have a place to sit and watch her garden growing. He could fix the front
porch up....

Jeremy Marks fell asleep, mulling over the list of hardware
he would need.

♥

THE RETRACTION notice ran in the
Mandrake Falls
Gazette
on
Monday morning as promised. But no one in Mandrake Falls—least of all the
patrons of the Beauty Box—paid it any attention at all.

The End

CATHERINE LLOYD is a romance author, mother and avid
reader. She loves reading, writing and red wine--not necessarily in that order.
A glass of red wine, in front of the fire with a good book is her idea of a
party. In addition to contemporary romance, she also writes historical
adventure romance set in the time of King John’s reign, 13th Century England.

The author has two grown children, two stepdaughters, a cat,
and three grandsons. She lives with her long-suffering spouse in Quebec, Canada
where she writes full time.

Contact Catherine Lloyd at
[email protected]

Or visit:
Writewood
Creations

Visit
her Author Page on Amazon

Four Seasons Series

THE JILTING

SUMMER.
Ryder Dean was Scout
Rutherford’s best friend since they were eight-years-old and there was a pretty
good chance she was in love with him. So why was she marrying Noel Trace?
Because he was rich, older and he said YES. The last person Scout wants to see
at her wedding is Ryder. But there he is: gray-green eyes, messy hair, wearing
his one good suit, watching her walk down the aisle like he knows something is
going to go wrong. Nothing ever happens in Mandrake Falls except the day Scout
got jilted.

LIE FOR ME

AUTUMN.
Shelby Porter doesn’t like
Sheriff Sawyer McIntyre and everyone in town knows it except Dolly Porter,
Shelby and Sawyer’s much-loved aunt. Dolly worries too much over Shelby’s
single status. To ease her mind, Shelby tells a little white lie that morphs
into a whopper, until she is standing in Sheriff McIntyre’s bedroom at three o’clock
in the morning with a teeny request: “Lie for me.”

THE WAY HOME

WINTER.
A bureaucratic mix-up
forces Hudson Grace to spend his Christmas holidays in close quarters with
daytime diva, Michael Shannon. Michael is in Mandrake Falls by order of the
court to learn the value of anonymity. Hudson thinks the star has as much
chance of learning the value of anonymity as she has of coaxing his
three-year-old nephew to eat with a fork. But the one thing they can both agree
on is to
never
fall in love.
Seventy-two hours to Christmas. Who will crack first?

MANDRAKE FALLS Romance is also available in print!

WANTON

The year is 1228. King John is dead and an uneasy peace has
settled over England. Callie of
Wideopens
is the
beautiful 18-year-old ward of Jane and Ethan. Jane is dying and the crone who
supplies her herbs has had a vision of a terrible act. In a misguided attempt
to alter the fate of her husband, Jane makes a desperate request of Callie. In
doing so, she unwittingly sets in motion the crone’s prophecy. Arrested on
charges of witchcraft and sentenced to hang, Callie recounts her story from a
tower cell just as the crone predicted, and Ethan is haunted by a girl he
believes dead and a love that sprang out of sin.

WASTREL

King John is on the throne and Lord Sebastian Redford’s
drinking, card-playing and womanizing is legendary at court. However, it is his
brazen affair with the wife of the most powerful man in England that has put
his life in danger. In an attempt to ward off disaster, Lord Redford’s man
hastily arranges a marriage of convenience to a mouse of a girl named Beatrice
Fall. Sebastian’s bride proves to be anything but convenient when he
consummates their marriage. Beatrice Fall is not who Sebastian believes her to
be and quite suddenly, their marriage of convenience becomes a dangerous
wedding of illicit love.

TRAITOR

King John’s crown has been usurped by Louis the Dauphin
during the Baron’s War. The Earl of Dorset has betrothed his only child,
pampered 18-year-old Lady Elspeth to the French lord, Tyndale to secure his
favour
with the new French king. The trip to Canterbury is
a great adventure accompanied by her father’s Captain of the Guard, Griffith of
Nottingham. The captain is a skilled bowman, loyal to the Earl and admired by
Lady Elspeth—he is also a double agent working to restore King John to the
throne. Forced to choose between Ellie and the men of his company who want to
do her harm, Griffith crosses the line and becomes a traitor to all.

SOLDIER

A medieval Christmas romance.
Soldier
tells the story of two amoral
men transformed by the women who love them. In
Mercenary
,
Broderick,
has been made a new
father but infant son is failing to thrive. Then Tess is brought before him,
the daughter of the lord whose lands Broderick has usurped. The new master of
Castlemuir
confines the young woman to his inner sanctum to
nurse his son, but his desire for the silent girl drives him to take dangerous
risks. In
Jester
, Dumas is a
hideously deformed clown who travels the countryside in a caravan with his
young assistant, Fallon, a young woman disguised as a boy. In return for
keeping her identity a secret, Fallon must perform for the misshapen man each
night. But Dumas has a secret of his own as Fallon soon learns after a
performance at
Castlemuir
Hall.

DARK REDEEMER Historical Romance is also available in print!