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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781426868719 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Silhouette |
| Publication date: | 06/01/2010 |
| Series: | Dynasties: The Connellys , #9 |
| Sold by: | HARLEQUIN |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 192 |
| File size: | 1 MB |
About the Author
The only thing Cindy had in mind when she started writing her first book was finishing it. The issue of actually selling it came much later. Only after she made that life-altering first sale did she realize that one book would never be enough. Now, over 20 books and numerous awards later, Cindy laughingly admits that she can barely remember life before...well, was there life before writing?
Actually, yes there was, and still is. A professional career woman, Cindy is a trainer for the Iowa Department of Human Services, a position she states is both challenging and rewarding. "Human Services is a front-line, real-life event. Everything about the job is immediate, from serving families in crisis, to assisting staff with difficult situations, to meeting tension-fraught deadlines."
Cindy's career has taught her much about the human condition, its frailties, its strengths, and its spirit. The evocative emotions that pour from the pages of her books are a reflection of some of her work experiences. Her writing celebrates life's richness and trials, offering a wide range of emotions— hope and elation, anger and indecision, laughter and, of course, love. And, according to her readers, her powerful love scenes run the gamut from steamy to tender to lusty to just plain fun.
Cindy's writing has netted her spots on bestseller lists, numerous RT nominations and awards, the Colorado Romance Writers Award of Excellence, a National Reader's Choice Award and two RITA nominations.
Between writing and working full time you wouldn't think Cindy would have much time for anything else. And while she does find her work and her writing rewarding, there does have to be more. Cindy has more. Much more. She is happily married to the perfect man. Tom's a cowboy, ladies!
Yes, even Iowa has its share of that saddle-straddling, Wrangler-wearing species who love their horses almost as much as they love their women. As a matter of fact, recently a whole herd of Texans gathered at the Gerard "Ranch" to treat their little ones to real horseback rides. Go figure.
Cindy has a passion for pink depression glass—she always has her eye out for the special piece to add to her collection. Cindy's down time often takes the form of the classic "busman's holiday." She loves to read and most of all, she loves to read at their summer place, a cabin in the woods on Lake Kabetogama in northern Minnesota.
Both Tom and Cindy enjoy gardening and have recently expanded their annual beds into a perennial garden. Cindy says she can hardly wait for spring and the promise of all that reawakening and the colorful blooms.
In addition to the horses, the Gerards have two dogs, Ellie and Boomer, who pretty much get anything they want. Tom and Cindy have one son, Kyle, who, after years of keeping them in suspense, found Eileen, the perfect woman.
Read an Excerpt
The Secret Baby Bond
By Cindy Gerard
Harlequin Enterprises Limited
Copyright © 2002 Harlequin Enterprises LimitedAll right reserved.
ISBN: 037376460X
Chapter One
For two years, Michael Paige had been a dead man. To some, he was a dead man still. In actuality, not only was he alive, he finally remembered the many things that he'd forgotten.He remembered what he'd had. He remembered what he'd lost. And he wanted it back.
From a distance, from behind dark glasses, he watched Tara - the wife he'd lost even before the world had decided he was dead - while his wildly beating heart reminded him how very much alive he truly was.
Sitting quietly on the park bench, while the early September sun shined brilliant and pure through the shifting oaks and the scent of summer's last roses drifted on the breeze, he watched. And he remembered the way she moved, the way her short, sleek cap of stylish black hair felt sliding like silk between his fingers, the way her violet eyes clouded to misty lavender when he made love to her. Two years ago. A lifetime ago.
She smiled, her face full of love for the child who toddled by her side. The boy wore tiny running shoes, a baby-sized Chicago Cubs jacket and cap and stared up at his mother through laughing gray eyes.
Through his eyes. A lump formed in his throat that he couldn't swallow. He had a son.
He had a son whose name was Brandon, whose face he'd seenand whose name he'd learned for the first time just two weeks ago. Michael buried his hand in his jacket pocket and clutched the dog-eared piece of newsprint. The photo of Tara in the grainy gray print of a tabloid newspaper had caught his eye in a Quito, Ecuador supermarket and blindsided him with a staggering rush of memory. So had the dramatic account of his own death.
A shooting pain stabbed through his right temple. He touched two fingers to the scar there and rode it out. It would pass soon and until it did, he focused on reality.
The reality of his wife. The reality of his son. An ache swelled and grew and filled his chest with a love and a longing so profound that he almost went to the boy then. Just to gather him close. To feel that robust and healthy little body warm and real against his own. To look into his liquid silver eyes and see a reflection of himself there. To cement into fact that the amazing miracle he and Tara had made together was not a cruel trick of his imagination. And to confirm, unequivocally, that he really was alive.
But the man who had been Miguel Santiago for the past two years couldn't do that. Not yet. Not here. So he stayed where he was and accepted that this was not the time. This was not the way. He couldn't just walk up to his child - his child who didn't know him. He couldn't just smile and say to his wife, "I'm not dead. I was just lost for a while. And I've missed you."
He couldn't say any of those things because to Tara, he was dead. And because, just before he died, she'd told him she wanted a divorce.
So he sat, unable to move, unwilling to leave as his son tumbled to his back with a shriek of gurgling laughter - and the man at Tara's side bent to pick him up and lift him into his arms.
Then the three of them walked away together. Tara, his son and the man who would take his place - or so said the tabloids.
It was only after they'd faded to a memory that he realized his hands were clenched into fists inside his pockets, that his eyes were staring blankly.
"Mister ... Hey, mister, you okay?" He looked up abruptly, squinted against the crisp September sun. A tall, gangly teenager frowned down at him. The boy had a basketball tucked under his arm and freckles bridging his nose. He wore baggy pants, a sloppy Chicago Bulls T-shirt and an expression that mixed wariness with concern. Even from where he stood, a cautious couple of yards away, Michael could smell the salt and sweat and vitality of him.
"Man," the kid said. "You're white as a ghost." A ghost.
It should have been funny. If the kid only knew. Michael took one last look at the spot where his wife and son had disappeared. Then he rose and started walking.
This time he promised himself that when he walked, it would be out of the shadows. This time he would walk toward the living, not away.
He wanted his life back. He wanted his wife back. He did not want to be dead any longer.
* * *
Tara Connelly Paige sat cross-legged on the plush rose carpet that covered the floor in the den at Lake Shore Manor. She stared into a fire that cut the unusual chill of the early September evening.
Beside her, on his favorite quilt that was soft and blue and plump with the loving care his great-grandmother, Nana Lilly Connelly had sewn into it, fourteen-month-old Brandon slept like the babe he was: blissful, innocent, ignorant of the turmoil his mother was feeling.
"It's a little late for second thoughts, Tara," her father said carefully from the sofa behind her.
Tara looked up and over her shoulder into the concern in Grant Connelly's eyes. It shouldn't surprise her anymore that her father could read her thoughts. His insight was almost frightening. He didn't call it insight, though. He called it understanding.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Secret Baby Bond by Cindy Gerard Copyright © 2002 by Harlequin Enterprises Limited
Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.