Authors: Bride of the Wind
Heather Graham (44 page)
Half of the noble sirs and lords were asleep in the hallway, some of them snoring over their wine cups, a few with their arms thrown around the wolfhounds.
Mary Kate and Garth were tucking up Woody, Mary Kate giving Garth instructions on how to do so properly, and Garth, incredibly, as silent as a lamb.
Ashcroft appeared to be asleep in the chair at the head of the table.
“Should we wake him?” Rose whispered.
“I think not!” Pierce returned.
Then he crossed the few feet to her, and swept her up in his arms. He stared down into her eyes and smiled. “We needed to come home,” he told her, starting for the stairs. “Here I can tell you just how much I love you once again. But I’ve done that already.”
She wrapped her arms around his neck, a slow smile beautifully curling her lip. “I shall be more than delighted to listen again.”
Pink streaks of the rising sun were just beginning to burst through the stained-glass window at the curve in the stair. It bathed them both. Pierce moistened his lips, watching her still as he walked. He paused halfway up the stairs and murmured dramatically, “I love you more than daybreak, more than light. More than the air I breathe, and more than life itself.”
“Oh!” she whispered. “And I love you, milord! More than the world.”
“More than the earth, the sea, the sky—”
A husky laugh intruded upon his speech. “I told you, daughter,” Ashcroft called up pleasantly, “milord DeForte was indeed the most incredible catch to be had!”
They stared at each other, and then down the stairs. “Go back to sleep!” they commanded in unison.
Then Pierce smiled tenderly at his wife once again and vowed, “Just a few more steps and I can
show
you just how much I love you.”
She gently smoothed back an irresistible lock of raven-dark hair. “And I shall be just delighted to see!” she promised softly.
And so he proceeded up the stairs, and into their room.
And there he most tenderly and passionately set forth to fulfill his vow.
Heather Graham (b. 1953) is one of the country’s most prominent authors of romance, suspense, and historical fiction. She has been writing bestselling books for nearly three decades, publishing more than 150 novels and selling more than seventy-five million copies worldwide.
Born in Florida to an Irish mother and a Scottish father, Graham attended college at the University of South Florida, where she majored in theater arts. She spent a few years making a living onstage as a back-up vocalist and dinner theater actor, but after the birth of her third child decided to seek work that would allow her to spend more time with her family.
After early efforts writing romance and horror stories, Graham sold her first novel,
When Next We Love
(1982). She went on to write nearly two dozen contemporary romance novels.
In 1989 Graham published
Sweet Savage Eden
, which initiated the Cameron family saga, an epic six-book series that sets romantic drama amid turbulent periods of American history, such as the Civil War. She revisited the nineteenth century in
Runaway
(1994), a story of passion, deception, and murder in Florida, which spawned five sequels of its own.
In the past decade, Graham has written romantic suspense novels such as
Tall, Dark, and Deadly
(1999),
Long, Lean, and Lethal
(2000), and
Dying to Have Her
(2001), as well as supernatural fiction. In 2003’s
Haunted
she created the Harrison Investigation service, a paranormal detective organization that she spun off into four Krewe of Hunters novels in 2011.
Graham lives in Florida, where she writes, scuba dives, and spends time with her husband and five children.
Graham (left) with her sister.
Graham with her family in New Orleans. Pictured left to right: Dennis Pozzessere; Zhenia Yeretskaya Pozzessere; Derek, Shayne, and Chynna Pozzessere; Heather Graham; Jason and Bryee-Annon Pozzessere; and Jeremy Gonzalez.
Graham at a photo shoot in Key West for the promotion of the Flynn Brothers trilogy.
Graham at the haunted Myrtles plantation, Francisville, Louisiana.
Graham and the Slushpile Band playing the Memnoch the Devil Ball at the Undead Con in New Orleans, 2010.
Graham with dear friend, actor Doug Jones.
Graham (third from left) with F. Paul Wilson, R. L. Stine, Jon Land, and other friends at the seventh annual ThrillerFest, held in New York City, 2011. The authors participated in the “Be Book Smart” campaign organized by Reading Is Fundamental, the nation’s oldest and largest children’s literacy organization.
Graham (seated center) with her local Romance Writers of America group in Broward County, Florida, 2011.
Graham (second from left) with fellow authors Stephen Jay Schwartz, F. Paul Wilson, and Barry Eisler participating in a panel at the Romantic Times Booklovers Convention, Los Angeles, 2011.
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