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If he stays, she’s in danger. But if he leaves…
All Mike Ryan can tell her is his name. Revealing any more to this beautiful stranger would put her in danger. And he’s not willing to jeopardize Stevi Roman’s—or her family’s—safety any more than he already has. Why this angel has taken him in, nursed him and trusted him, he can’t fathom. But it has been the best few weeks he’s ever known. For the first time, Mike can imagine having a real life, a real identity, a real future. Stevi has done more than save him. She’s inspired him.
And that’s why he has to go. The safest thing he could do for all of them is to disappear….
Stevi’s eyes widened as she drew closer and closer to the form that had been washed ashore.
Her breath had somehow gotten stuck in her throat. There was no longer a question in her mind what she was looking at. The clump of seaweed had somehow managed to turn into the very real form of a man.
A man lying still and facedown in the sand.
She didn’t remember how the last fifteen feet were reduced to less than a foot. Couldn’t remember if she ran toward the prone body or if she approached it cautiously. Given her usual recklessness, she probably ran, Stevi thought.
But suddenly, there she was, standing over the immobile body of a man, wondering if he was dead or just unconscious.
“Mister?”
So, we meet again. This time, it’s for Stephanie’s story. Stevi is Richard’s third daughter, the artistic, creative one who, just possibly, has given him the most concern. As Stevi’s formal education comes to a close and she graduates college, she finds herself growing more and more restless. Still undecided where she will wind up going—New York City? Paris? Or…? She takes to channeling some of her energy into early morning runs along the beach. This particular early morning, she finds more than just a seashell in her path. She comes across a man who has washed up on the beach and is half dead, thanks to the wound in his chest.
Thinking only that she has to save this man’s life, Stevi enlists the help of the inn’s gardener, a man with a mysterious past who came to work for her father some fifteen years earlier. Silvio brings the unconscious man back to the inn and patches him up.
As she nurses her stranger back to health, Stevi finds herself more and more enamored with the man who claims to have no memory of the events that brought him to her beach. By the time he’s well enough to leave, she fervently hopes he doesn’t. But he is just as determined to go before his past catches up to him—and hurts the family he has come to care so much about.
I hope you stay to find out how it all turns out. And if you do, as always, I thank you for reading, and from the bottom of my heart, I wish you someone to love who loves you back.
All the best,
Marie Ferrarella
Safe Harbour
Marie Ferrarella
MARIE FERRARELLA
is a USA TODAY bestselling and RITA® Award-winning author, and has written more than 240 books for Mills & Boon, some under the name Marie Nicole. As of January 2013, she has been published by Mills & Boon for 30 years. She earned a master’s degree in Shakespearean comedy and, perhaps as a result, her writing is distinguished by humor and natural dialogue. Her goal is to entertain and to make people laugh and feel good. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide. Visit her website, www.marieferrarella.com.
To Victoria Curran for giving me a really great suggestion
Contents
PROLOGUE
THE USUAL JUNE-GLOOM weather was happily absent from the scene despite the fact that it was barely eight in the morning. A light breeze was drifting in from the ocean, bringing just a faint touch of moisture to the modest family cemetery.
Richard Roman had made his usual pilgrimage down the hill from Ladera-by-the-Sea, the family bed-and-breakfast inn he owned and ran, with the help of his daughters, to the small family cemetery where, among others, his wife and his best friend, Dan Taylor, were buried.
It was his custom to come here to share his thoughts, his feelings and any news that might be unfolding in the sedate, yet ever-changing world of the one-hundred-and-twenty-year-old inn.
Richard felt as if he were still in touch with his Amy and with Dan, if he came here, to stand between their headstones.
He dearly loved all four of his daughters and regarded Alex’s and Cris’s husbands, Wyatt and Shane, as if they were his own sons, but the two people he had felt closest to were both here, resting beneath the warm earth, waiting for the day when he could come and join them. The family he lived with at the inn had his heart, but Dan