Emily March - Lovers Leap

C AMERON D ANIEL M URPHY .

Sarahs heart pounded. Her mouth went dry and her knees went weak and she thought she might hyperventilate.

Cam Murphy.

He looked Wow Oh, wow He looked like hed come straight off the cover of a paperback romance. The boy shed known two decades ago had disappeared beneath mature muscle and suntanned skin. He was still lean, his stomach still flat, but his shoulders had broadened and hed added definition to his abs. He wore his hair a little longer and his beard lost-my-razor-three-days-ago scruffy. The words beach bum and surfer dude and pirate sprang to mind.

But his eyesthose mesmerizing eyeshadnt changed. He stared at her with eyes of shades of green. Mountain eyes. Just like Loris.

Lori.

Sarah gasped and twisted around to look at her daughter. His daughter. Our daughter. Lori stared back at her with a question in her eyes. His eyes.

Oh, Lori. The potential consequences of this chance meeting hit Sarah like a brick.

Lovers Leap is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

A Ballantine Books eBook Edition

Copyright 2012 by Geralyn Dawson Williams
Excerpt from Nightingale Way by Emily March copyright 2012 by Geralyn Dawson Williams

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

B ALLANTINE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

This book contains an excerpt from the forthcoming book Nightingale Way by Emily March. This excerpt has been set for this edition only and may not reflect the content of the forthcoming edition.

eISBN: 978-0-345-53212-1

Cover design: Lynn Andreozzi
Cover illustration: Roberte Steele

www.ballantinebooks.com

v3.1

First love is dangerous only
when it is also the last.

B RANISLAV N USIC

March
Near Cairns, Australia

Mom! Hurry up, Lori Reese urged, sounding more like a six-year-old than a young woman in her sophomore year of college. We dont want to be late!

At the sound of her daughters voice, Sarah Reese rolled over in bed, buried her face in the thick, downy pillow, and contemplated taking up bank robbery in order to afford a return trip to this resort. She and Lori were nearing the end of their two-week all-expenses-paid Australian vacation, and the experience had given her a tantalizing taste of traveling in the lap of luxury.

Ten more minutes. This bed was heaven.

Its already six-fifteen.

Their ride to the marina was scheduled to arrive at seven oclock, and getting ready would take fifteen minutes, tops. She didnt need to hurry. Five more minutes.

Indulgent frustration laced Loris voice. When exactly did we switch roles? I think it must have been the first day of the trip, when you spent half of that interminable plane ride flirting with the man across the aisle.

Sarah grinned into her pillow, then lazily rolled her head and looked at her daughter. Her heart melted with a potent combination of love and pride. Lori was a sophomore majoring in biomedical science at Texas A&M University and making excellent progress toward her goal of earning admission to A&Ms College of Veterinary Medicine. Shed worked hard to work ahead and cleared an extra ten days of spring break with her professors. At twenty, she was taller than her mother by seven inchesa fact she loved to tease five-foot-nothing Sarah about at every opportunity. She had Sarahs high cheekbones and dark hair, and her grandmother Ellens sweet smile. Her eyes were a beautiful blend of shades of green. Sarahs late father had called them mountain eyes, because her eyes were a mountainside of aspen and fir and pion and cottonwood.

Sarah didnt see the mountains when she looked at Loris eyes. She saw Cam Murphy. Her daughter had her fathers eyes. She had Cams height and Cams eyestwo distinctive characteristics that provided Sarah an unwelcome reminder of the man shed just as soon forget.

I wasnt flirting with the guy across the aisle. I was just being friendly. He was the one doing all the flirting.

Yeah, right. Loris eyes gleamed with amusement as they made an exaggerated roll. Okay, heres the deal. Im going to wander over to the lobby and get two cups of coffee. If youre not out of bed by the time I come back, Ill drink both of them.

Sarah scowled and grumbled, Obviously I didnt spank you enough when you were little.

Lori laughed, and a moment later, Sarah heard the door to their suite softly close. She gave a wistful sigh, rolled onto her back, and sat up. Her reluctance to rise had more to do with the fact that today was the last day of their dream-of-a-lifetime vacation than with fatigue.

Theyd had an absolutely, positively wonderful trip, seeing enough of the country to make them feel like theyd gotten a taste of Australia but not so much that they felt rushed. The past three nights theyd spent here at a magnificent resort on the Coral Sea, and today theyd ice their vacation cake with a catamaran trip out to the Great Barrier Reef.

Sarah stretched as she gazed out through glass-pane French doors, past the veranda, with its private spa tub, and across the golden-sand beach toward the turquoise sea. She crossed to the doors and pushed them open, then took time to count her blessings. This trip had been the grand prize in a contest sponsored by Angels Rest, the healing center and spa owned by her friend Celeste Blessing in the little Rocky Mountain town where they lived. Back home in Eternity Springs, snow covered the ground, and the day theyd left, the thermometer flirted with zero degrees. As the seaside breeze softly stirred, Sarah murmured, I still cant believe Im here.

Shed dreamed of visiting Australia since childhood. Back in high school, she and Cam had stretched out on a quilt up at their favorite make-out spot, Lovers Leap, and planned how theyd backpack across Europe, explore the pyramids of Egypt, and dive the Great Barrier Reef. When life took a pair of unexpected turns their junior year, youthful dreams had faded in the face of stark, cold reality.

She wished one of those realities would hurry back with the coffee.

Sarah turned away from the breathtaking view and headed into the bathroom. When she emerged showered and dressed ten minutes later, she spied Lori seated outside on the veranda. Two cups of coffee and two huge cinnamon rolls waited on the small table between the chairs.

You are both wonderful and wicked, my child, Sarah told her daughter as she took her seat. Ill gain two pounds just looking at that roll.

Nah, we have a strenuous day ahead of us. We need the calories. Besides, you need to check out the competition. You might want to tweak your recipe for the cinnamon rolls you make for the Mocha Moose.

Sarah sipped her coffee and raised her brows in disdain. My cinnamon roll recipe doesnt need to be tweaked, thank you very much.

Lori tilted her head, considering, then said, Okay, youre right. Its impossible to improve on perfection.