Kristin Holt
USA Today Bestselling Author
I recall the winter of my first grade year, basking in the
heat from our fireplace in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Dad read aloud Madeline
L'Engle's A WRINKLE IN TIME and Mom peeled orange segments for us to enjoy. That
was the definitive moment I fell in love with fiction.
I write frequent articles (or view recent posts easily
on my Home Page, scroll down) about the nineteenth century
American West–every subject of possible interest to readers, amateur
historians, authors…as all of these tidbits surfaced while researching for my
books. I also blog monthly at Sweet Romance Reads, Sweet Americana
Sweethearts, and Romancing the
Genres.
I love to hear from readers! Please drop me a note. Or find me on Facebook.
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readers. Please stop by for a visit
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His worst mistake was letting her go.
His second-worst mistake? Bringing her home.
Pleasance is back to reclaim her rightful
place at Jacob’s side. One way or another she’ll remind him theirs is a match
made in heaven…once the shock wears off. The teensy-weensy problem? Jacob
doesn’t know that she—his first love—is
his catalog bride..
Snippet #3
Who had
he been kidding? He couldn’t deny the truth, not to himself, not any
longer.
Drawn to her, he wandered toward her voice.
He stood on the threshold of the parlor, captivated by the golden-haired woman
in plain, serviceable, blue calico, her poise that of the greatest vocalist on
the stage in London, Paris, or New York.
He noted, then, she’d been compelled by the
heat of the kitchen to reject petticoats. By the limpness of her skirt, she
obviously wore not a single one beneath.
She faced the window, her body vibrating
with strength and passion, her arms outreached as if to a lover. She sang as if
her heart were breaking—but with enough power and control to stun him.
He
loved her.
He’d loved her since they were children. He’d
been in
love with her from the moment he’d first heard her sing.
She’d been fifteen, he, nineteen. She’d become a woman in his eyes and nothing
had been the same again.
He could not deny the truth; he loved
Pleasance Benton and always had.
Where did that
leave them?
She
belonged in a city, in her finest gowns, before audiences of kings and
presidents, millionaires and magistrates.
He belonged here, beneath wide-open skies,
working with the creatures who spoke to his soul.
Her final notes faded with complete
control. As if she were on that imagined stage, she curtsied, slow and deep.
Elegance and training and practice evident in the bend of her arms, the curve
of the hands he’d worked until they’d blistered.
She’d become precisely what
she’d hoped. Achieving her dream could not have been easy. No easier than his.
Maybe, because of the paths their lives had
taken, their love had a chance for success.
Maybe, because his love for Pleasance had been there all along, love would last. Love
had survived a four-year separation, spiteful words, anger and malice.
Maybe, with her, family could last.
She slowly came back to herself, that
persona of an opera singer before her adoring audience slipped away, thread by
thread, until Pleasance Benton stood in his parlor. She brushed the back of her
hand over her forehead with the grace of a ballerina.
With a suddenness he didn’t anticipate, she turned
toward him—or more accurately, the kitchen, but came face to face with him.
Was that embarrassment in her eyes?
“That
was—” He cleared the emotion from his throat. “You are beautiful.”
And
I love you.
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