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You can search the world over...
But sometimes love is right next door.
Deputy Sheriff Seth Collier is content to serve and protect the citizens of Wickham Falls...until the sexy ex-marine meets his new next-door neighbor. Dr. Natalia Hawkins left the big-city ER for a small-town practice. And while Seth is everything her nasty ex wasn’t...Natalia’s head says to leave him in the friend zone. But her heart says this may be a second chance at love.
Since 1988, national bestselling author ROCHELLE ALERS has written more than eighty books and short stories. She has earned numerous honors, including the Zora Neale Hurston Award, the Vivian Stephens Award for Excellence in Romance Writing and a Career Achievement Award from RT Book Reviews. She is a member of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc., Iota Theta Zeta Chapter. A full-time writer, she lives in a charming hamlet on Long Island. Rochelle can be contacted through her website, www.rochellealers.org.
Home to Wickham Falls
Her Wickham Falls SEAL
Claiming the Captain’s Baby
Sweet Silver Bells
Sweet Southern Nights
Sweet Destiny
Here I Am
Because of You
Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk
The Sheriff of Wickham Falls
Rochelle Alers
ISBN: 978-1-474-07815-3
THE SHERIFF OF WICKHAM FALLS
© 2018 Rochelle Alers
Published in Great Britain 2018
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.
® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.
The Sheriff of Wickham Falls is dedicated to
my three brothers and late father—
all of whom honorably served in the US military.
Contents
Tap! Tap! Tap!
Natalia Hawkins opened one eye and then the other, and stared up at the ceiling in her bedroom; staccato tapping had jolted her out of her much-needed sleep, and she wasn’t ready to accept that she’d moved into a house with a woodpecker living in a tree on the property.
Tap! Tap! Tap! Tap!
There it was again. After sitting up and sweeping off the sheet and lightweight blanket,