His Winter Rose and Apple Blossom Bride Read Online Free

four in the morning and leaving mayhem behind, nobody wandering the streets at all hours, causing a disturbance. Not here. Not while she could stop it.
    Curious sounds so different from the city noise she was accustomed to carried down the cliff’s side on a light breeze that fluttered the bedroom curtains.
    Piper got up for a glass of water, and noticed someone moving across her property toward the peak of the cliff. At a certain point he or she stopped, removed something from a backpack and knelt down. A second later the figure had disappeared.
    Lookout Point had always been a place where teens met for a good-night kiss. That’s probably who was out there now.
    She stood watching for a moment, her thoughts drifting to the mayor and the many plans he had for the direction the town should take. She’d never had a problem working with anyone before, but something about the way Jason Franklin had watched her respond to the council’s questions made her wonder if he was as confident of her abilities as he’d said.
    In her past jobs she’d been given a mandate and left to accomplish it, filing the paperwork, making her reports at the appropriate stages. But primarily she’d been her own boss. A tiny voice in the back of her head told her this job wouldn’t be like that. Mayor Franklin had an agenda. He wanted the Bay to start growing and he wanted it to happen his way. From what he’d said, Piper was fairly certain he wanted it to happen yesterday. It might be hard to appease him when developers didn’t immediately respond to her initial probes.
    She smothered a yawn and padded back to bed.
    Whatever happened, happened. She’d deal with it.
    Maybe in doing her job she could coax Jason’s diamond-blue eyes to come alive, maybe get him to loosen up a little. Piper had a hunch that somewhere under all that grit and determination, a guy with a sense of humor lurked.
    Maybe the girls were right. Maybe Jason Franklin would turn out to be more than the mayor.
    Maybe she could finally come to terms with why God had taken away the only people who’d loved her and left her with a father who couldn’t see beyond his money to the daughter who wanted to be loved.

Chapter Two
    W hen he’d handed in his resignation in Boston, he’d been told he wouldn’t last a year in the sticks.
    A lot they knew.
    Not only had he endured, he was thriving.
    Jason swallowed the last of his morning coffee, certain he’d never tire of this view. He had no desire to go back. Not to traitors....
    Don’t think about it.
    He jerked to his feet. In his haste to escape what he couldn’t forget, he almost crashed the foot of his chair into the Plexiglas panel surrounding the deck.
    “Calm down,” he ordered his racing pulse. “Just calm down. Forget the past. Let it die.”
    Easier said than done.
    Originally he’d thought living on top of his marina store was the kind of kooky idea one of his former high-flying clients might have come up with. But after two years in Serenity Bay, he still relished his perch high above the water.
    His neighbor to the left was an age-old forest whose trees sheltered him from the wind. On the right, Jason shared the view with the docks and a public beach.
    Nobody watched him, and he only watched the water. A little lonely, perhaps. But then again, he’d come to Serenity Bay for the solitude. At least that’s what he told himself.
    Today the sun shone, the water sparkled and sent the wind skimming over the land in a faint caress. Serenity Bay looked picture-perfect.
    He squinted across the lake. That early sailor with two sheets billowing in the wind was bolder than most. The fun seekers he’d once hung around with wouldn’t have endured more than five minutes of this cool April breeze blowing off the barely thawed lake before they’d turn back.
    But this sailor didn’t hesitate. The craft continued on a clear, invisible course directed by sure and steady hands, straight toward Jason. The streamlined hull