eBookOriginal (Original)
Available on Compatible NOOK devices, the free NOOK App and in My Digital Library.
Related collections and offers
Overview
Born to luxury and comfort, Chelsea Tedmannever expected to be climbing Mount Everest. But her need to solve the mystery surrounding hersister's fatal fall on the mountain had Chelsea inNepal, determined to climb the unforgiving terrainat all costs. She just needed a guide.Mysterious as he was alluring, Kurt Jellic was theonly man for the job, and all she had to do wasconvince him. But Chelsea didn't know which was more difficult: Everest's brutal climb or herirresistible attraction to Kurt. With danger so near,Chelsea could soon be victim to the mountain…and to her own passion.
Stranded with a StrangerSparked by danger, fueled by passion.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781426871108 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Silhouette |
| Publication date: | 07/01/2010 |
| Series: | The Men of Mayes County , #5 |
| Sold by: | HARLEQUIN |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 256 |
| Sales rank: | 824,992 |
| File size: | 483 KB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Swept Away
By Karen Templeton
Harlequin Enterprises, Ltd.
Copyright © 2005 Harlequin Enterprises, Ltd.All right reserved.
ISBN: 0-373-27427-0
Chapter One
In the three years since his wife's death, Sam Frazier had prided himself on not tumbling into the abyss of helplessness common to many widowers, especially those with young children. Whether his refusal to let chaos gain a toehold stemmed from his wanting to do Jeannie proud or just plain stubbornness, he had no idea, but he thought he'd been doing okay. Until this bright and sunny September morning when his teenage daughter tried to sneak past him wearing more makeup than a Las Vegas showgirl and not a whole lot more clothes, and he realized he had one foot in that abyss, anyway.Not that Libby was having a good morning, either, having attempted her little maneuver when the kitchen was filled with her five younger brothers, several of whom thought girls had cooties as it was. Girls who were related to you and who had suddenly taken to looking like women were clearly the embodiment of evil and hence to be thwarted at every opportunity. Or at the very least greeted by a chorus of disgusted gagging sounds, which even Sam - inured as he generally was to such noises - would be hard put to ignore.
Sam caught Libby's hand and spun her around on her army-tank shoes, the ends of her long, dark hair stinging his bare arm. Silence shuddered in the room, broken only by one of the dogs lapping at his water dish, as something damn close to terror shot through him, that his little girl - especially in that skimpy, midriff-baring top and dark lipstick - was no longer "little" in any sense of the word. And he knew damn well exactly how every teenage boy in the county was going to react to that fact.
"More fabric, less makeup," Sam said calmly, his gaze riveted to Libby's defensive light brown one. He felt a twinge in his left leg, an old ache trying to reassert itself. "Go change."
"No time, Sean's already here -"
"He can wait." Sam dropped her hand, nodding toward her room, an old sunroom off the kitchen he'd converted so she'd have more privacy and because five boys in two small bedrooms upstairs was no longer working.
"I'm not changing," she said, chin out, arms crossed, in a pose that would have been the picture of defiance but for the slightly trembling lower lip. Sam felt for her, he really did: teenage angst was bad enough without the added indignity of being the only girl in a houseful of males. "All the other girls wear makeup, everybody'll think I'm a total loser if I don't."
"First off, baby girl, all the other girls don't wear makeup. Or wear clothes that look like they outgrew them four years ago." Since Sam substituted up at the high school on a regular basis, Libby knew better than to argue with him. "And anyway," he added before she could load her next round of ammunition,
"I didn't say you couldn't wear any makeup. Just not enough for three other girls besides you. And you know the school dress code won't allow a top like that -"
"Well, duh, I've got a shirt in my backpack to put on over it when I'm in school. This is just for, you know, before and after."
"And this is, you know, not open for discussion. Go change. Or," he added as the black-cherry mouth dropped and an indignant squawk popped out of it, "Sean goes on to school and you take the bus. Or better yet, I'll drive you."
A fate worse than death, Sam knew. "This is so unfair!" she yelled, then stomped away, only to whirl around and lob across the kitchen, "You're only on my case because you don't like Sean!"
"Has nothing to do with whether I like him or not," Sam said mildly, even though hormones poured off the boy like sweat off a long-distance runner. Locking Libby away in a tower somewhere for ten years or so was becoming more appealing by the second. "I don't trust him," he said, just so there'd be no mistake.
Eyes flashed, hands landed on hips. "What you mean is, you don't trust me!" Four-year-old Travis snuggled up to Sam's flank and asked to be picked up; behind him, he could hear muted clanks and clunks as Mike and Matt, his oldest boys, went about making sandwiches for lunch. "God!" Libby said on a wail. "I wish you'd find a girlfriend or get married again or ... or something so you'd stop obsessing about us all the freaking time!"
Five sets of eyes veered to Sam as he idly wondered where the sweet little girl who used to live here had got to, even as he tamped down a flash of irritation that would do nobody any good to let loose. Smelling of Cheerios, Travis wrapped his arms around Sam's neck, while eight-year-old Wade and first-grader Frankie, still at the breakfast table, silently chewed and gawked.
"You're entitled to your opinion, Libby," Sam said levelly.
"But you're upsettin' your brothers, you're keeping Sean waiting, and you're gonna be late for school. So I suggest you keep those thoughts to yourself until a more appropriate time. Now get moving, baby girl."
"Don't call me that!" she shrieked, then clomped out of the room.
Letting Travis slide back down to the floor, Sam turned to the boys and said, "It's gettin' late. Time to get a move on. Wade, is it my imagination, or is that the same shirt you had on yesterday?" He frowned. "And the day before that?" At the kid's sheepish shrug, Sam swallowed back a smile. "Go change before your teacher makes you sit outside, okay?"
The eight-year-old trooped off as, with a time-honed precision that was truly a thing of beauty, breakfast dishes were cleared, lunches distributed, assorted arms shoved into jacket or sweatshirt sleeves, and Sam felt a little of his hard-won peace return. Farming was a challenge, no doubt about it; raising six kids by himself even more so. But it was amazing how smoothly things could run - or at least, had run up until the Attack of the Killer Hormones - by simply establishing, and enforcing, some basic parameters, making sure everybody did their fair share.
As all the boys except Travis filed out to catch the school bus, Sam shifted his weight off his complaining leg, deciding there was no reason at all why the method that had stood him in good stead since Jeannie's passing shouldn't continue to do so. Not that it hadn't been hard at first. Lord, he'd missed her so much those first few months he'd thought he'd go crazy, both with grief and unfulfilled longing. But the pain had passed, or at least dulled, as had the collective ineptitude. Jeannie hadn't meant to make them all dependent on her, Sam knew that, but it had simply been in her nature to do for them. She hadn't wanted anyone else messing in her kitchen; there was no reason for the kids, or Sam, for that matter, to remember where anything was because Jeannie had a photographic memory. But when she died, of a freak aneurism that nobody could've predicted, let alone prevented, and it became clear exactly how useless they all were in the house....
Well. Never again, was all Sam had to say. And now that everything was running more or less smoothly, he saw no need to go mucking it all up by introducing another human being into the mix. He'd had his one true love. Maybe it hadn't lasted as long as he'd hoped, but there'd be no replacing Jeannie, and he had no intention of trying. No matter how much Libby thought otherwise.
No matter how bad the loneliness tried to suffocate him from time to time.
His daughter clomped past again, her midriff now covered, her makeup more in keeping with what Sam considered appropriate for a girl who didn't turn fifteen for another month. He grabbed her again, this time to inflict a one-armed hug, which she patiently suffered for a moment or two before grabbing her backpack and sailing out the back door. Now alone in the kitchen, except for a dog or two and a cat who must've slipped inside when everybody left, he silently reassured his wits it was okay to come out of hiding.
Like his mother used to say, it was a great life if you didn't weaken.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Swept Away by Karen Templeton Copyright © 2005 by Harlequin Enterprises, Ltd. . Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.