“Oh, you poor honey,” Hailey said, scooping up the tiny bundle and examining him closely. “I was afraid of this.” “What is it? What’s the matter with him?” Cole remained on the other side of the gate—mostly to keep Philip from barging in after him—but there was a sharp note of worry in his voice. Hailey nestled Rufus closer to her neck so he could absorb some of her body warmth. His small body was so delicate, his skin so much like paper, that she could feel each of his bones. “He’s not taking well to the family dynamic,” she said. “He’s always the last to eat and the first to wander away.” “Bess is rejecting him?” Hailey nuzzled the puppy closer, fearful of him overhearing the words and taking them to heart. Which was ridiculous for a lot of reasons, but she couldn’t help it. Rufus needed all the love he could get his tiny paws on. “Not rejecting, exactly,” she said. “She seems to like him just fine when he’s around, but with so many other, stronger, more insistent puppies to look after, he kind of gets lost.” Overlooked. Forgotten. It was no one’s fault, but that didn’t…

Her breath caught. The duke was still sound asleep, but he had turned and now lay on his back. The arm that had curved around his head lay flung over his face, hiding it from view. A chiseled chest dusted in crisp hair rose and fell with deep, even breaths. Her dread didn’t allow her to appreciate the frontal view of him—she was only intent on escape. Muttering an oath under her breath, Sarani blew out a breath. Easy does it, she told herself. Retracing her steps with her skirts in hand, she climbed up on the bottom bar and stretched out her left leg toward the bunk rail. She made the mistake of looking down in her precarious and admittedly lewd position—she was straddling the man, for heaven’s sake—and nearly toppled over. Everywhere her eyes fell, she saw nothing but acres upon acres of masculine perfection. If his back had been delicious, his chest was a veritable feast. A slow ache took up residence in her belly and then spread like hot oil elsewhere. She might be in a hurry, but she wasn’t dead! This man did not look like he had an ounce of excess anywhere on him,…

LONDON 1824: KENSINGTON HOUSE Never knew a moment made better standing still. Never knew an hour made perfect by silence. It’s been a long time since I’d had peace—moments of dance, hours in hymns. It disappeared when the Demerara Council forced its tax. Fidgeting, I sit in the front parlor of Kensington House switching my gaze from the sheers draping the window to the finishing school’s headmistress. Miss Smith, she’s across from me in a Chippendale chair sipping her chamomile tea. Her fingers tremble on the china handle. “Mrs. Thomas,” she says with eyes wide, bulging like an iguana’s. “Your visit is unexpected, but I’m pleased you’ve taken my offer to stay at Kensington to review our school. You’ll see it’s a worthy investment.” “I was always fond of the name Kensington.” My voice trails off as I think of walks, of choices, then my aptly named plantation. Kensington is a set of squiggled letters chiseled in a cornerstone back home. The headmistress chatters on, and I nod. The white egret feather on my bonnet jiggles and covers my brow. I bat it away like the memories I want gone, but you never get to choose what comes to mind….

“Come on, Oliver. Just give me an inch,” I muttered, trying to drag him up the front steps of my apartment building. Bringing the rock star to my apartment was my last resort. I tried to get him to tell me where he lived, but he couldn’t even form a coherent sentence for me to do so. All he did was mumble and drool. Then, I grabbed his phone to see if I could get a number to call, but his phone was dead, and I didn’t have the type of charger needed to charge his. Therefore, all I could think was to bring him to my apartment for the night. Getting him out of the car was a headache of its own kind, and now trying to get him to move his feet was a nightmare.  “I’ll give you a few inches,” he mumbled back.  I wondered how horrified the shy, distant Oliver would’ve been by his comments that night.  I wrapped his arms around me and pulled him to the best of my ability. He had the hiccups, and kept muttering something under his breath, but it wasn’t clear what he was saying. Honestly, I wasn’t even interested…

Now level with his, her eyes gleamed in the darkness from beneath her hood. He could practically see the thoughts spinning through that sharp mind of hers as she tried to come up with an explanation he would believe. He didn’t doubt for one moment that the little minx wouldn’t lie to him to keep her— She cupped his face between her hands and kissed him. Surprised, he caught his breath as her warm lips touched his. The kiss was nothing more than a feathery tickle, a soft whisper so light that he found himself leaning toward her to increase the pressure beyond this mere teasing. Sweet Lucifer. She tasted of wine and adventure, spiced oranges and exotic places…danger. And he drank her in. Her lips were soft and supple as they caressed his. Amazement swept through him that she should be so delicate beneath the hard surface she showed to the world, that he could taste an uncertainty in her that suggested a deeper vulnerability. The intrigue of her simply captivated him. She was kissing him merely to distract him. No other reason. He wasn’t arrogant enough to believe otherwise. Yet that didn’t stop his blood from heating as…

“Thank you, Reverend.” Mary held back her emotions with an iron will, determined to behave with all the dignity she’d thus far lacked in this man’s presence. It was well and truly over, if indeed, it had ever even begun. Turning, she silently urged the horse to pick up the pace. The sooner they parted ways and she forgot him, the better. When he spoke, it was with an air of studied indifference. “Am I to assume this means you no longer wish to accompany me on my Sunday calls?” She couldn’t look at him. Not without bursting into tears. “I would not want to cause you further discomfort. You’ve made it perfectly clear you have neither need for my assistance nor desire for my company. Therefore, to continue in our present mode makes no sense.” “What of the people you’ve promised to visit?” Oh, really! Must he make this more difficult? “I shall arrange to call on them during the week with my mother.” She clenched her teeth for a moment before continuing, gathering her courage. “With the exception of church, however, our paths need never cross again. I’m afraid I cannot avoid attending services without rousing my parents’…

PROLOGUE Cush shall hasten to stretch out her hands to God. PSALM 68:31 AD 31 He took one last aching look outside the crumbling window; the Nile was molten gold in the light of the rising sun, a sparkling coil winding its way into the horizon. Forcing himself to turn away, he came to kneel by the pallet where his bride lay sleeping. To have this woman, he would have to give up the lush beauty of his land, give up his family and heritage. He smiled. She was worth all the loss. For his sake, she had given up as much and more. “Time to wake up, love.” She groaned something incoherent, more asleep than awake. “Come now, lazy. Open those enchanting sea-green eyes. We can’t linger here. They will have discovered our absence by now.” He spoke in a light tone, making sure none of his mounting anxiety leaked into his voice. Still, the reminder of their vulnerability was enough to banish the last vestiges of her sleep. She snapped her eyes open and sat up in one smooth motion, holding the sheet to her throat. “How long have we been here?” “Too long.” He motioned to the…

Half an hour later, Letty opened the front double doors, dropping her keys and kicking off her heels at the front entrance of her temporary apartment. Emphasis on temporary. Her passive-aggressive, spineless cretin of a landlord had decided to jack up prices in an effort to evict tenants like Letty and those on lower incomes. Mitchell’s paid well, but her family made it impossible for Letty to save because every other month they seemed to need something. She truly believed there was a special place in hell reserved for people like her ex-landlord, preferably where they waxed his balls again and again with no pause in between. Waxing was a bitch and a half, no contest. Letty had bemoaned her homeless fate to Reagan, who had immediately called her older brother Callum. And voila, he’d let her stay in this upscale apartment free of rent, in a gorgeous part of Scarlet, while Callum lived on the sunny East Coast, in a city called Galena, on the other side of the country for the baseball season. Did she mention free rent? And six bedrooms? And bathrooms for days? Letty had grown up a child of divorce and hadn’t had her own…

Seemed everybody was talking about Aunt Perdie today. Truth was, plenty of Aunt Perdie stories floated around the mountains. She hadn’t ever married. Said nobody ever came calling to ask her, but if they had, she might just have said no. Leastways once she got past normal marrying age. By then she couldn’t see the purpose in sharing a cabin that wasn’t all that big with some man who’d want her to do things his way. Not when she was happy doing things her way. Would that be how Tansy ended up? An old lady in a lonesome cabin after spurning whatever marriage prospects might have come knocking on her door? Youngsters then might be sharing Aunt Tansy stories. Could be they already were talking about that crazy book woman, even if they were glad to see her coming. The thought made her laugh out loud. At Aunt Perdie’s, Tansy tied Shadrach to a handy tree, then climbed up the steps to bang on the cabin door. Aunt Perdie didn’t have a porch, just a little slab of roof over the top step. She was ready to knock again when the door creaked open. “Well, if it ain’t the book woman….

“Yeah, I noticed.” She sighed, wondering if she should have put the offer to join STAT out there anyway and feeling like an important opportunity had passed her by. “As long as you know that simply because other people see you as a monster, it doesn’t mean you are one. That’s Erin’s and Elliott’s baggage, not yours.” Sawyer gave her a warm smile. “Says the werewolf who hasn’t shifted since the day her family called her a monster and threw her out of the house.” Harley couldn’t argue with that. “Haven’t you ever heard the old adage, do as I say, not as I do?” she quipped. He laughed and so did she, right up until she realized it wasn’t funny at all. Sawyer was right. While they’d both been rejected by people they cared about, it seemed as if he was already dealing with it and moving on, whereas her entire life—­right down to her ability to control her inner werewolf and keep that part of her hidden away—­was still tied to that one painful moment eight years ago. It was more than sad. It was pathetic. Harley didn’t realize there were tears in her eyes until Sawyer took…