Dear Reader,

      My husband, Mike, and I love to visit the places where I set my books—and since I’m a big chicken when it comes to flying, we travel by car. Silly phobias aside, it really is the best way to experience the sights, sounds and textures that make locales interesting and exciting.

      We’ve visited Arizona’s prehistoric cliff dwellings, the Montana Rockies, the Maine coast and more, and each place is beautiful in its own way. But for us, there’s no place like the rich, wooded Allegheny Mountains of Pennsylvania—especially in early spring, when the creeks are thawing, the air is indescribably fresh and the trees are just beginning to green. This is our pretty part of the world—and the setting for Just a Whisper Away. I hope you’ll like it, too.

      Peace, love and happy reading,

      Lauren

      Just a Whisper Away

      Lauren Nichols

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      LAUREN NICHOLS

      started writing by accident, so it seems fitting that the word accidental appears in her first three titles for Silhouette. Once eager to illustrate children’s books, she tried to get her foot in that door, only to learn that most publishing houses used their own artists. Then one publisher offered to look at her sketches if she also wrote the tale. During the penning of that story, Lauren fell head over heels in love with writing fiction.

      In addition to her novels, Lauren’s romance and mystery short stories have appeared in several leading magazines. She counts her family and friends as her greatest treasures, and strongly believes in the Beatles’ philosophy—“All You Need Is Love.” When this Pennsylvania author isn’t writing or trying unsuccessfully to give up French vanilla cappuccino, she’s traveling or hanging out with her very best friend/husband, Mike.

      Lauren loves to hear from her readers. You can contact her at www.laurennichols.com.

      For Bob, Kevin and Ernie, brothers extraordinaire.

       And for the wonderful women who love them, Deb, Shelley and Kathy.

       And always for Mike.

      Acknowledgments

      My thanks to Tom Shields for the tour of his lumberyard and sawmill during the preparation of this book, and to Carmella Manno who took me through the kiln drying process and was always there to answer my goofy questions. I owe you.

      Contents

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

      Chapter 8

      Chapter 9

      Chapter 10

      Chapter 11

      Chapter 12

      Chapter 13

      Chapter 14

      Chapter 15

      Epilogue

      Chapter 1

      A powerful jolt of recognition hit Jace Rogan as he crossed the country club’s crowded dining room. He stopped dead in his tracks, his eagerness to leave the faux, day-early Mardi Gras celebration forgotten. For an instant he simply stood there, feeling his nerves vibrate and adrenaline pulse through him. Then the night, the music and the costumed crowd all faded to a blur as he watched a good-looking couple join the other partiers on the dance floor.

      It couldn’t be her… Yet when his gaze fell to the smooth, graceful slope of the woman’s bare back in her plunging gown, he knew it was.

      Jace drew a cautious breath. He’d touched that back…kissed the sweet, sexy small of it…held those hips in his hands and slid his fingers through that long auburn hair.

      The memory lasted only a second before a bitter one took its place. Jace jerked his gaze from the side-slit in Abbie Winslow’s dress to scan the lavishly decorated room.

      It didn’t take long to spot an old enemy.

      Wearing a powdered wig and the fancy brocades of an English lord, Abbie’s perpetually controlling father stood beside his table, beaming as the new surgeon in town kept his daughter smiling and engaged.

      Morgan Winslow’s venomous tirade thundered in Jace’s mind, as clearly as if it had happened yesterday, but he blocked it out. The words didn’t hurt anymore because he’d used Morgan’s humiliating rant to succeed beyond the banker’s wildest expectations—beyond the town’s expectations.

      And suddenly he wanted Abbie to know that, too.

      Cutting through the crowd, he tapped Abbie’s partner on the shoulder, all the while enjoying an unobstructed view of the shimmering, halter-style gown that clung like liquid silver to her body. Small diamond earrings winked at her lobes when she jerked her head up in surprise.

      “Mind, Doc?” Jace asked with a smile when the surgeon turned around. “We’re old friends.”

      “Not at all,” he returned amiably, then grinned at Abbie. “Okay with you?”

      Jace met her wide brown eyes and startled features. “How about it, Abbie? Care to dance for old times’ sake?”

      For a second, she didn’t seem capable of uttering a word, and Jace found some pleasure in that. Then she murmured, “Of course,” and turned to the doctor. “I’ll see you back at the table, Paul.”

      “I’ll be there. Enjoy.”

      “Thanks.”

      Then Jace opened his arms and Abbie stepped into them for the first time in fourteen years. The first time since her father had caught them locked intimately together in the gazebo behind the Winslow’s country home. Unexpectedly, some of his bitterness faded as her uneasy gaze searched his, and he silently—reluctantly—admitted that it felt good to hold her again.

      “Hello, Jace,” she said quietly. “It’s nice to see you again. You look wonderful.”

      The dress code for this shindig was always costume or black-tie, and for the first time tonight he was glad he’d worn a tux—the lesser of the two evils. It made a statement that he’d come far since that night in the gazebo.

      “So do you,” he returned as she pinned her gaze to his shoulder, and they began to move. “California living seems to agree with you.”