Only My Love (58 page)
Authors: Jo Goodman
MY HEART'S DESIRE
Reviews & Accolades
"Delightful and exciting... Goodman holds the suspense as well as the surprises and never lets up on the passion."
~RT Book Reviews
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Rennie yawned. She stretched lazily, snuggling back into the thick comforter even as she tried to throw off the dregs of sleep. It was late; she knew that by the slant of sunlight filling her room, but she didn't want to get up. Her toes curled. She turned on her side. She saw Jarret Sullivan.
He was still asleep, folded uncomfortably in the armchair. His head was tilted at an awkward angle against the back, and he was sitting on one of his legs. The afghan that was supposed to be covering him was lying uselessly on the floor while his arms crossed his chest protectively for warmth. There was a shadow of beard along his jaw and heavy weariness in the slumped, contorted lines of his body.
Rennie was without sympathy. She rose silently from her bed and walloped him across the face and chest with her pillow.
Jarret's reflexes were surprisingly quick for a man who had been waked from a hard and heavy sleep. Before Rennie could dance away her wrist was caught, and she was yanked off the floor and onto Jarret's lap. He tossed the pillow on the floor and growled huskily, "What burr's got under your saddle this morning?"
Rennie merely gave him a tart, knowing look.
He had to smile. She was sprawled awkwardly across his lap, her gown hitched around her knees and twisted at the waist. The bodice stretched tautly across her breasts so that a deep, satisfying breath was out of the question. Her thick, curly chestnut mane of hair was the worse for sleep, curved in an unnatural wave near her temple and spilling across one cheek in a ratty tangle.
"By God, you could stop a man's heart first thing in the morning," he told her.
The blush had already begun to color her cheeks before she realized he hadn't meant it as a compliment. Rennie pushed at his chest and he let her go. Tossing back her head and raising her chin, she said, "It would be a service to women everywhere if I were to stop your heart."
Jarret rubbed his coarse beard and pretended to think about that. "You could be right. It'd keep me from breakin' theirs."
Rennie was of a mind to slam him with the pillow again. The look he leveled at her, as if he knew her intention, stopped her. "How did you know I put powder in your coffee last night?"
"So you do admit it?"
She shrugged. "It seems silly not to. Did you suspect right away?"
"When you brought in two cups and no pot, it made me wonder. When I tasted it I had a pretty good idea what you'd done. It was a little too bitter, even compared to the usual brew you make."
"There's nothing wrong with the coffee I make," she said sharply, taking offense.
One corner of Jarret's mouth curled in a baffled smile. He shook his head slowly, bemused. "A month of Sundays wouldn't serve for figurin' you out. You have no remorse about trying to poison me, yet you get all prickly when I tell you your coffee's too strong."
"One has nothing to do with the other. If I'd known you felt that way about my coffee, I'd have given you the powder in something else. I hadn't meant for it to taste bad. And it was only a sleeping draught that Mama sometimes takes, not poison, as you know very well. Anyway, you had no compunction about turning the tables on me."
She was actually taking him to task! "Lady, when it comes to pure, wrongheaded stubbornness, you could teach new tricks to a jack"—he caught himself—"to a mule. I switched the cups when you put the book away and let you drink what was intended for me. End of story. You fell asleep almost immediately."
"I didn't think the coffee was too strong," she said, feigning hurt.
Jarret leaned over the side of the chair, picked up the pillow and flung it at her head. Laughing, Rennie dodged the missile.
She had a husky, hearty laugh, he thought, infectious in nature, not the trilling, musical, and sometimes forced laughter he often associated with the women he knew. He watched her straighten, hugging the pillow to her midriff, and was caught by the becoming wash of color in her face and the spirited challenge in her eyes. The corners of her mouth lifted in a wide, beautiful smile.
She stopped his heart.
My Heart's Desire
The Dennehy Sisters Series
Book Two
by
Jo Goodman
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To purchase
My Heart's Desire
from your favorite eBook Retailer,
visit Jo Goodman's eBook Discovery Author Page
www.ebookdiscovery.com/JoGoodman
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Meet Jo Goodman
Jo Goodman is a licensed professional counselor working with children and families in West Virginia's Northern Panhandle. Always a fan of the happily ever after, Jo turned to writing romances early in her career as a child care worker when she realized the only life script she could control was the one she wrote herself. She is inspired by the resiliency and courage of the children she meets and feels privileged to be trusted with their stories, the one that they alone have the right to tell.
Once upon a time, Jo believed she was going to be a marine biologist. She feels lucky that seasickness made her change course. She lives with her family in Colliers, West Virginia. Please visit her website at
www.jogoodman.com
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Table of Contents
Excerpt from MY HEART'S DESIRE (The Dennehy Sisters Series, Book 2)