A Defender's Heart. Tara Quinn Taylor

A Defender's Heart - Tara Quinn Taylor


Скачать книгу
you made me the writer I am. Thank you from the depths of my soul. I love and miss you all.

      Contents

       Cover

       Back Cover Text

       About the Author

       Booklist

       Title Page

       Copyright

       Introduction

       Dear Reader

       Dedication

       CHAPTER ONE

       CHAPTER TWO

       CHAPTER THREE

       CHAPTER FOUR

       CHAPTER FIVE

       CHAPTER SIX

       CHAPTER SEVEN

       CHAPTER EIGHT

       CHAPTER NINE

       CHAPTER TEN

       CHAPTER ELEVEN

       CHAPTER TWELVE

       CHAPTER THIRTEEN

       CHAPTER FOURTEEN

       CHAPTER FIFTEEN

       CHAPTER SIXTEEN

       CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

       CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

       CHAPTER NINETEEN

       CHAPTER TWENTY

       CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

       CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

       CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

       CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

       CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

       CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

       CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

       CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

       Extract

       About the Publisher

       CHAPTER ONE

      THE PARTY WAS in full swing. Vehicles, mostly expensive ones, lined both sides of the street. Slowing his SUV out front, Cedar could see the shadows of people milling around behind the sheer drapes that covered the massive windows. Men, women...indeterminate ages.

      He could almost hear the laughter and the conversation. Figured most of it would be sincere.

      Heather wouldn’t surround herself with fakes.

      In black jeans and a new button-down, black-and-white striped shirt, he started to feel underdressed. Thought about taking off.

      Judging by the quiet surrounding him outside, there were no other late arrivals. His entrance could cause a stir.

      She’d invited him to her engagement party.

      As someone who paid attention to people—although, admittedly, he’d used what he got to his own advantage—he was curious why his ex-lover and, he privately suspected, the one woman he’d ever loved, had issued that invitation. Curious enough to maneuver into a spot between two sparkling-clean SUVs and pocket his keys.

      He’d have stayed anyway, curious or not. His goal was atonement.

      It didn’t come easy.

      * * *

      “YOU LOOK BEAUTIFUL...”

      In a figure-hugging, short black dress and matching wedge heels, with her blond hair in a sophisticated updo, Heather smiled as yet another of her parents’ friends spoke to her as she passed by on her way to somewhere else. She’d occasionally worn the dress clubbing in LA, but had little reason to put it on now that she was back in Santa Raquel full-time. She exchanged a few more pleasantries, acknowledging that, yes, her independent polygraph business of five years was thriving, and moved on.

      She was looking for Charles. She’d seen him a total of five minutes max since they’d arrived at her parents’ beachfront home, just down the road from Charles’s house—and ten minutes from her own beachside bungalow.

      Fifteen years her senior, her fiancé was handsome. Fit. A dentist who was actually popular with his patients. He had a way of putting people at ease. She’d known him since he’d moved into her parents’ neighborhood after his divorce ten years before; she’d been home visiting while on break from college. And she’d started dating him the previous summer, when they hooked up at a neighborhood Fourth of July bash she’d attended with her folks.

      Because she’d been too lame to have plans of her own.

      Or a date.

      She


Скачать книгу