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A love like this only strikes once...
The storm that devastated the town of Logan Beach also ravaged everything Rosanna Turner once knew. First she lost her childhood home. Then the Thorn family bought out the store where she comfortably worked for most of her adulthood. Rosanna isn’t thrilled when eldest sibling David Thorn arrives in town, seeking her input before the grand reopening. Just like a Thorn, the man doesn’t play fair. He’s too charming, too gorgeous to resist...until she uncovers his secret agenda.
David wants to help repair the stricken town—all while discovering who’s been embezzling from his family’s new acquisition. Could it be Rosanna? The woman is irresistible and a force of nature in her own right. And he is in need of her expertise to make his store a success. Soon he also needs her in his arms...and anywhere else he can have her. Will mutual mistrust undermine their chance to build something wonderful together?
“What was that?” she asked. “A show of your superior strength? Was the seduction included or just the brute strength? I’m no high school girl trembling at the appearance of a guy she has a crush on.”
“So you have a crush on me.”
“We’re not changing the subject. The point is you think you can force me to bend to your wishes with a simple kiss?”
“You think that kiss was simple?”
He was baiting her and she didn’t like it.
David took a step forward. There was only a little space between them and he’d just decreased it by half. “Did you forget that you were in my arms? You were part of that kiss, simple or not. You were matching me tongue for tongue.”
Images of them kissing, with no space, not even air, between them threatened her resolve. Her stomach felt as if it would turn over or, worse, she’d fall into David’s arms as he was suggesting.
He grinned, something she wasn’t expecting. “Is it working?” he asked.
“Is what working?”
“Your memory. Your body. Is it pumping passion juice and you want to continue what I started?”
Welcome to the first book in my new series, House of Thorn. You’ll meet David and watch as he rebuilds a store and a relationship devastated by a major storm. The idea for this book came from a real place along the Atlantic Ocean. I love the sea, the salt air, the sound of the birds. But I know the sea can turn from friend to foe in an instant. This is what happens in Love in Logan Beach.
Rosanna Turner fully expected the manager position of Bach’s Department Store to fall to her. But a storm took everything she owned, and nearly her life. With David Thorn’s arrival, she’s sure it will finish her. Rose considers David a privateer profiting from the sorrow of others. Yet his actions prove the opposite and she finds that the storm in her heart is greater than anything Mother Nature could throw at her.
Shirley
Love in Logan Beach
Shirley Hailstock
SHIRLEY HAILSTOCK began her writing life as a lover of reading. She likes nothing better than to find a quiet corner where she can get lost in a book, explore new worlds and visit places she never expected to see. As an author, she can not only visit those places, but she can be the heroine of her own stories. The author of forty novels and novellas, Shirley has received numerous awards, including a National Readers’ Choice Award, a Romance Writers of America’s Emma Merritt Award and an RT Book Reviews Career Achievement Award. Shirley’s books have appeared on several bestseller lists, including the Glamour, Essence and Library Journal lists. She is a past president of Romance Writers of America.
To my brother, Eugene, gone too soon. He and I read, watched movies and laughed together. Thanks for the memories. I will always love and miss you.
Contents
David Thorn stood on the seawall in Logan Beach, New Jersey, his arms stretched out. The salty wind blew against his face and the open neck of his white shirt. The Atlantic Ocean stretched from here to the Scottish shores and beyond. Overhead, gulls cawed and swooped to the water in search of today’s lunch. David thought about his family vacations in this very spot. And now he would be here daily, working and making the House of Thorn’s new Logan Beach store the best he could.
“You’re going to work here?” his brother, Blake,