Back To Us (Shore Secrets 3) Read online

  Back to Us

  By Christi Barth

  Ward Cantrell always went for the long shot. But that recklessness cost him his college scholarship and his chance to play pro ball, and—worst of all—it ended his relationship with the girl next door. Neither the town nor the girl has ever forgiven him. Now he’s taking one last long shot by opening a boutique distillery on the family farm he inherited.

  Piper Morrissey spent high school in Ward’s shadow, but she’s come into her own in the years since. Maintaining her spotless image, and that of her family’s winery, is priority number one. Nobody knows that she still yearns for her golden-boy ex. Or at least they didn’t—until Ward agrees to sell Piper the land she needs to start her precious port line. The caveat? She’ll need to date him for one month.

  Ward hopes a month is all it’ll take to convince his former sweetheart that while he’s changed, his love for her hasn’t. But when the chance arises to thumb his nose at the town that turned its back on him, he can’t afford not to reject Piper’s offer. Will that make her reject him and his love—for good?

  95,360 words

  Dear Reader,

  I’ve been hearing the term brand promise a lot recently in business articles. This is something we talk about behind-the-scenes at Carina Press quite often, because we know there’s a trend right now to call something romance but not deliver on a happily-ever-after or even a happily-for-now. But those of us at Carina Press are longtime romance readers and fans, and we know how important that brand promise of a HEA is to romance readers, so we want to assure you that if we call something romance, we’ll deliver a story with strong characters, a wonderful relationship and, eventually, an emotionally satisfying ending at the conclusion of the story (even if that conclusion comes after two, three or four books, not just one!) You can trust us to want that romance ending just as much as you do!

  This month, we have seven romances in a variety of subgenres I’m happy to be sharing with you, including one by a debut author.

  Christi Barth wraps up her contemporary romance Shore Secrets trilogy with the stand-alone novel Back to Us. When her ex-boyfriend refuses to sell her his land unless she dates him for a month, an uncompromising winemaker learns that some bargains are worth making for a second chance at love.

  Joining Christi in the contemporary romance category, with one of a male/male nature, is A.M. Arthur and her Restoration Series. In Finding Their Way, Boxer thought he was done with relationships, but deepening his new and evolving friendship with Riley could be worth the risk of another heartbreak.

  And in the erotic contemporary romance subgenre, a financially destitute and desperate woman agrees to a shocking contract—engaging in BDSM sex with a man who has a dark and mysterious past—in exchange for all the money she could ever wish for. Check out Under Contract, part of Jeffe Kennedy’s Falling Under series, which also includes her previous two novels Going Under and Under His Touch.

  Fan-favorite Cindy Spencer Pape is back with a new steampunk romance in the Gaslight Chronicles. In Ether & Elephants, Tom and Nell have loved one another since they were children, but one cataclysmic mistake destroyed their chances. Now they are forced to work together to save a missing child and all the old sparks have returned, igniting fires that may burn out of control.

  If you’re looking for a bit more of a traditional historical romance, Alyssa Everett delivers a fantastic one with The Marriage Act. Though bitterly estranged since their wedding night, warring husband and wife John and Caro must mask their hostility to play a devoted couple for Caro’s unsuspecting family in a second-chance-at-love regency romance.

  Taking a less traditional historical romance route is Kari Edgren. Defying her goddess-born family, Selah Kilbrid joins with a mortal enemy in An Immortal Descent to save the two people she loves most as they race toward a long-forgotten nightmare that awaits them in Ireland.

  And this month we’re proud to present debut author Caitlyn McFarland and her Dragonsworn trilogy. In book one, Soul of Smoke, Kai Monahan’s uneventful hike in the Rocky Mountains ends with a dragon shapeshifter named Rhys magically bound to her—now she must complete the bond and give up her freedom or risk unleashing dragons on humanity in a war that will decimate both.

  Escape into fun (and a happy ending!) with a Carina Press romance this month by picking up one of these novels or one of our more than a thousand backlist titles.

  Until next time, here’s wishing you a wonderful month of books you love, remember and recommend.

  Happy reading!

  ~Angela James

  Executive Editor, Carina Press

  Dedication

  For my husband, who helped me discover the romantic awesomeness of Seneca Lake...and its wine...and its vodka...

  Contents

  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

  Excerpt from Planning for Love by Christi Barth

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Christi Barth

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Ward Cantrell knew damn well he was being played. He just wished he was wearing comfortable pants for the occasion. Suits weren’t only stiff and scratchy to Ward. They were wrong. Wrong for him, at least. Because today, wearing a classic grey double-breasted suit, Ward felt as ridiculous as when his best friend, Casey, had stuffed him into a Robin Hood costume for Halloween.

  But the manager’s office at the Seneca Savings and Loan had windows facing the hallway behind the row of tellers. He’d felt every damn eye in the place on him as soon as he walked in the door. So Ward didn’t loosen his noose of a tie. He didn’t rip off his jacket and toss it in the corner with the ease he’d sunk three-pointers from half-court back in the day. And he didn’t pace out his nerves and frustration. Or his anger at being kept waiting fifteen minutes past his scheduled appointment with the manager.

  There was no bank crisis. No sudden shortage of rolls of quarters. Ward could hear Frank Rogers laughing through the wall. Along with the distinctive ping of a microwave timer. Frank’s office must be next to the break room. If that walking comb-over came in here smelling of Hot Pockets, Ward might just lose it. Swallowing his pride was hard enough. Wearing a suit pushed him to the limit of his endurance. Seeing greasy-fingered proof that Frank had stalled to finish an afternoon snack? That’d send Ward bolting out the door before his string of cuss words finished bouncing off the metal file cabinets.

  “Ward Cantrell.” Frank Rogers hustled through the door. The stench of burnt popcorn trailed behind him. A classic reason—among many—that Ward thanked his lucky stars every day he didn’t work in a cubicle farm. “What are you doing in my bank?”

  The emphasis was slight but noticeable. A slight lean on the words you and my. Like Ward was some vagrant that had stumb
led into the wrong building. Oh, yeah. Ward had known coming here would suck. Frank hated him. But he’d had a stupid, tiny hope that Frank would feel compelled to act professionally at his place of business. Might as well have wished for Santa Claus to drop a couple of stacks of Ben Franklins down the chimney.

  You didn’t blow your top when begging for a favor. No matter how much a guy pushed your buttons. So Ward kept his reply as cool and smooth as the big lake right outside the window. “Like I said when I called for the appointment, I’d like to discuss terms of a loan.”

  Frank pushed his reading glasses up to rest on his forehead. Blinked in surprise. “For you?” Again, said with a barely veiled derogatory tone. “For your father’s farm?”

  Dad had died three years ago. The farm had a new name, with a huge sign to catch the eye of drivers along the lakeshore, as well as another on the main building. Every last speck of his father’s crazy schemes and money-sucking projects were gone. No more alpacas. No more blotchy, disgusting-looking pumpkins he’d tried to genetically engineer with red-and-white stripes to sell at Christmas. How damn long would everyone still insist on calling the farm his?

  “I’m checking on the loan application for my business. Lakeside Distillery.”

  “That’s right.” A sneer lifted one side of his thin lips and turned down the other. “You turned it into a booze-making barn.”

  The hypocrisy stank worse than the popcorn. Frank’s bulbous red nose—along with the town-wide common knowledge that the man drove his recycling down to Corning so nobody would talk about the number of bottles he went through in a week—proved that Frank had zero moral or ethical aversion to a cocktail or twenty.

  Besides, the biggest business in New York’s Finger Lakes, right behind tourism itself, was winemaking. Seneca Lake had sixty-three wineries circling it. Nobody in this town frowned on the production of alcohol.

  “That’s right.” Ward tossed Frank’s words right back in his face. “We make vodka and whiskey from the local grapes.”

  “Didn’t have the stones to compete with your neighbor’s winery?”

  Ward had a lot of feelings about Morrissey Vineyards. They mostly centered around the gorgeous redheaded spitfire Piper Morrissey. A complex jumble of regret, friendship and a hot need that blasted through him on a daily basis with the strength of a missile. That all fell under personal business. So personal that he locked it away. Not even his best friends knew Ward still held out hope some miracle would bring them back together. When it came to the distillery business, he’d never once been in competition with her family’s winery.

  But he knew one thing for sure. If he’d wanted to spend his life working on a girly, snooty drink like wine instead of the real sock to the gut that whiskey delivered, nothing would’ve stopped him. Especially not the fact that he shared a fence line with an award-winning winery.

  He had to play the game, though. Take all of Frank’s shots and not fire any back. After all, Frank had been taking potshots at Ward for ten years now. Not to mention mocking his father’s failures for a lifetime before that. Ward was used to it. What he wasn’t used to was not taking a shot back at the fooling-no-one comb-over. Damn it.

  Ward folded his hands in his lap. Leaned back with a deep breath and a self-assured smile. “Seneca Lake’s got plenty of wineries already. A nice set of breweries sprang up in the last ten years too. Only one distillery. Mine. It’s better to be a big fish. Own the whole market instead of trying to elbow my way into a tiny piece.”

  “So you’re saying you took the easy route.”

  Sure. If you called starting a business from scratch easy. If you called carting into the distillery fifty-pound bag after fifty-pound bag of rye, barley and corn for their whiskey. Stirring enormous vats of fermenting local grapes for vodka. Hunching for hours over the labeling process. Sweating every night of the first year, wondering if he’d truly be able to open the tasting room on schedule. Or if anyone would come to try something as unique as grape-based vodka once they did open.

  “I’m looking to expand.” Ward pushed the black folder he’d balanced on the edge of the desk across the blotter. To be on the safe side, he’d had his business-whiz friend, Gray, look it over. Snazz it up with the kinds of catchphrases money men wet themselves over. “As you’ll see, I’ve worked up a long-range projection. Included both my current business plan, and one amended to include the expansion. Lakeside Distillery has been remarkably successful in the past three years, outperforming not only every estimate, but longer-established similar businesses. I won’t say my expansion is a sure thing. It is, however, a very safe bet.”

  The bank manager didn’t bother to look down at the folder. He did narrow his eyes and sneer. Used his letter opener to push it back at Ward like it was a flaming, shit-filled paper sack. “Banks don’t gamble. And if we did? This one would damn sure never gamble on you.”

  Even though he’d more than half expected it, the words were a punch to the gut. Seneca Savings and Loan was Ward’s last shot. All the big institutions had turned him down for not having enough established credit history. Explaining that was because the business was only three years old got him sympathy. It hadn’t gotten him a loan. Yes, one of the big conglomerates had purchased SS&L last year. All their advertising still hawked their small-town commitment and heartfelt promises to maintain a special bond with local account holders, though.

  So Ward gave it one more try. “Look, maybe I used the wrong words. My business is solid. Growing. This is an opportunity for you to give a local small business a foot up. We’d both win.”

  “There was a time when you knew about winning.” Frank raised his voice with every word.

  It struck Ward that he’d left the door open on purpose. So the whole bank could hear him tear Ward down a notch or five. This wouldn’t just be a no. It’d be a spanking.

  Frank stood. Bent in half to rest his palms on the desk and lean over till he was just inches from Ward’s face. So close the ruptured capillaries on his cheeks could be counted as easily as the drinks he racked up on any given night in the Mayhew Manor pub. “There was a time when you brought glory to this town. If that Ward Cantrell had asked for a loan, we’d have been proud to service him. But you’re not that boy anymore. Now you’re the man who brought shame here.”

  For a while, it had seemed like all of Seneca Lake held a grudge against Ward. Time smoothed out that anger in a good number of folks. But Frank Rogers never met a grudge he didn’t hoard as closely as the money in his vault.

  “Frank, for God’s sake. That’s old news. Now I’m a respected member of the community.”

  “Not respected by all. Not by a long shot. You know all about those, don’t you? I’ll bet coming here today was a long shot for you. Shouldn’t have wasted your time.”

  * * *

  Piper Morrissey swung around on her stool to survey the room. The Red Newt Bistro attracted a brisk business in tourists, especially with so many sticking around this week after Labor Day. They filled the tables, soaking up a day’s worth of wine-tasting with charcuterie and bread.

  But the bar scene was all about the locals. The dead giveaway was the full wall of wine bottles tagged by their owners. The bar itself folded in a zigzag pattern. That configuration made it easy to see everyone lined up with their drinks, nod hello or even grab your glass and join a friend.

  Tonight’s view enabled her to see a friend. One of her three best friends in the entire world. And one she’d been quietly—and occasionally not so quietly—fuming at for almost ten years.

  Ward Cantrell looked...Piper sucked in a breath. He looked edible, just like always. Damn it. Dark stubble, halfway between scruff and a goatee, lined his jaw. It also highlighted his lips. His kissable lips. She ought to know. Piper had spent hour after hour kissing them. Both in reality, for that short, amazing time back in high school, and to this day, in her dr
eams. No matter how hard she tried to stop them from invading her subconscious. Ward’s lips were impossible to ignore, even when asleep.

  Against his thick hair and dark slashes of brow, his blue eyes popped like neon. She remembered how in the heat of the moment, they’d darken to the same navy as the faded tee stretched taut across his sculpted chest. Because really, one of those Renaissance sculptors dripping with talent couldn’t have carved a more godlike and perfectly muscled figure than Ward’s. Damn it.

  His shoulders hunched forward. Forearms on the bar, they circled his beer mug with the same protectiveness she’d seen him use on one of his bottles of small-batch whiskey, a lottery ticket that won him the spectacular sum of one hundred dollars in their senior year, or a plate of nachos any given day. To be fair, Piper knew she channeled the same ferociousness when showing off a new pair of Ferragamo pumps to her friends Ella and Casey.

  Right now, the keep-away pose was being aimed at a woman with blond hair down to her ass. Great streaky highlights. Something Piper envied, as she’d never pull them off with her own red hair. The woman’s black platform wedges put her breasts—something else Piper envied, as she relied on bras to work, well, miracles on her own B cups—even with Ward’s eyes. Yet he didn’t even look up from his beer. Just shook his head and took a long, steady pull.

  That was weird. The blonde was low-hanging fruit. Piper couldn’t imagine any single man in the whole restaurant turning her away. Ward certainly hadn’t turned any women away since he’d come back to town three years ago. She’d give him credit: he took care not to rub the casual encounters in her face. But word still got around. Everything got spread around in Seneca Lake, thanks to their uniquely bizarre lakeshore mailbox journal where everyone spilled secrets.

  The surly attitude he wore as easily as his faded jeans would scare away strangers, no problem. Not Piper. It might as well be a red cape of challenge flapping in her face. Lifting her voice, she asked, “Should I call for an ambulance?”