Love, aged to perfection
As a reckless teenager, Colby Malone made a catastrophic mistake. One he’s regretted every day since. So when Hayley Watson—the woman he’s never forgotten—returns to sell her family’s vineyard, he seizes the opportunity to make amends.
But she’s not making this easy for him. Hayley wants nothing to do with him or Sonoma, California. And the intense attraction between them? Yeah, she’s ready to ignore that, too. Colby must convince her to take a chance on him…on them. And what better place to do that than the land that sparked all their dreams of a future together?
Colby had to fight to keep his touch gentle
Desire dug its claws into him. He wanted…damn, how fiercely he wanted to pull her into his arms and kiss her until the regret of the past and the question mark of the future both disappeared into the fire of right now.
He searched her face for a sign, and found it. Her eyes…they gleamed in the moonlight, shining with need.
“Hayley,” he whispered. And then, his nerve endings firing in painful anticipation, he lowered his lips to hers and reclaimed what once was his.
Her lips were hot and sweet, and they parted almost instantly, as they always had, welcoming him into the even hotter darkness of her mouth. He groaned, and took it all. His other hand went around her waist, and pulled her body into his, breast to chest, beating heart to beating heart.
She held back maybe three seconds, and then he felt her yield, and sink into him. Her hands rose and threaded themselves into his hair.
Hayley…
Dear Reader,
On a recent trip to California, my husband and I took a short tour of wine country. Like millions of other tourists, I fell in love.
A life in this serene, rolling landscape could be very special, I thought. Days spent in harmony with nature, coaxing rich purple, red and green clusters of sweet grapes from the earth, surely would be healing, soothing, good for the soul.
The story of Colby Malone and his high school sweetheart, Hayley Watson, is the fourth book dealing with this complex San Francisco family, and the one that I knew would be the most emotionally difficult to write. The tragedy of their young love, and the years of exile and emptiness that followed, would leave deep scars. It would take a lot of healing to bring them back to joy.
That’s when I knew that this reunion tale should take place against the peaceful backdrop of California’s Sonoma Valley. A vineyard that has fallen into ruin, and a pair of hearts almost as lost…both restored by the power of love.
I have loved getting your emails and letters about the Malone brothers! Please let me know how you enjoy this one. Stop by the website at KOBrienOnline.com or email me at [email protected].
Warmly,
Kathleen O’Brien
The Vineyard of Hopes and Dreams
Kathleen O'Brien
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kathleen O’Brien was a feature writer and TV critic before marrying a fellow journalist. Motherhood, which followed soon after, was so marvelous she turned to writing novels, which could be done at home. A Floridian, whose soul thrives on the flatlands and sunshine of her native state, she believes there will always be a special place in our hearts for the sights, smells and sounds of the place where we were born.
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
FOR THE MALONE family, party meant pizza.
Because the family business was a string of pizza restaurants, the three Malone brothers had more or less started eating it in the cradle. For as long as Colby could remember, the family had celebrated every occasion—holiday, birthday, anniversary, whatever—with platter after platter of Diamante’s signature hand-tossed Margherita pizza. Their kids loved it, their friends loved it. Even their girlfriends loved it, or at least pretended to. Otherwise, they became ex-girlfriends in a hurry.
The only time anyone refused Diamante pizza was when one of the Malone wives was pregnant. It was half joke, half legend in the family—for the Malones, morning sickness took the form of an extreme aversion to pizza.
But today, at his brother Redmond’s engagement party, Colby couldn’t eat a bite. That was a first. Also a first: the chattering of the family and the chaos of the children irritated him.
After the toasts were raised—California zinfandel for the grown-ups, and lemonade for the kids who had graduated from milk—Colby found himself standing slightly apart from everyone, in the shade of an old leather oak, watching the black shadows of clouds try to smother the silver fire of sun on the bay.
Every few minutes, he’d check his phone to be sure the party noise hadn’t drowned out the sound of its ringing. Finally, he put it on vibrate, then shoved the thing back into his pants pocket and cursed silently. That old bastard wasn’t going to call, was he? This was simply another of Ben Watson’s eternal manipulations.
After a few minutes, Colby saw Red lean down and whisper something to Allison. Then Red peeled himself away from her, something he rarely did, and ambled over to Colby.
Colby almost laughed at the casual air Red adopted. He’d used it himself a million times, to escape sticky situations, or to disguise his real intentions. At the moment, Red was obviously trying to hide the fact that he was worried about Colby.