Midnight at the Oasis. Оливия Гейтс

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      “Come here,” Noah said, reaching out to her. “Take my hand. We’ll go back to the car together. I promise I won’t leave you again.”

      She hesitated, then placed her palm in his. Heat infused his skin, racing up his arm. Noah knew, as he pulled Victoria toward him, that leaving this city, this woman, wasn’t going to be simple. No, this tie was becoming more and more tangled by the minute.

      “Thank you,” she said again after they’d made their way to a quieter section of the street. “I got a little swamped by the crowds.”

      A little swamped? He didn’t say it, but to his eyes she looked as if she’d been caught in a storm. He held tight to her hand, keeping her close as they made their way back to where her car was parked.

      The woman beside him was a reality that Noah hadn’t counted on. His best-laid plans had just been disrupted—by his own heart.

      Dear Reader,

      This book was probably one of my most challenging to write, and certainly an experience I will never forget. Because, in the middle of writing about Victoria’s loss, I lost my own mother.

      I think, just as Victoria says, that losing someone so close to you changes you forever. I know it has impacted the way I look at the world, how tightly I hug my children, and also how and what I write.

      Although there were many days after my mother died that I couldn’t write, ultimately I realized that putting my words on paper and bringing my books to readers was the best testament I could give her. She was always so proud of me, and would brag about her “daughter the author” to everyone from the UPS driver to her hairdresser. She would have wanted me to press on, to finish this book and then write another. And another.

      I hope that you, dear reader, will persevere in whatever is important to you. That you, too, will treasure each day and the gifts that come with every sunrise. And always remember to make each moment count and hold dear those around you.

      Shirley

      Rescued by Mr. Right

      Shirley Jump

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      MILLS & BOON

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      SHIRLEY JUMP

      Bookseller’s Best Award-winner Shirley Jump didn’t have the willpower to diet, nor the talent to master under-eye concealer, so she bowed out of a career in television and opted instead for a career where she could be paid to eat at her desk—writing. At first, seeking revenge on her children for their grocery-store tantrums, she sold embarrassing essays about them to anthologies. However, it wasn’t enough to feed her growing addiction to writing. So she turned to the world of romance novels, where messes are (usually) cleaned up before “The End” and no one is calling anyone a doodoo head. In the worlds Shirley gets to create and control, the children listen to their parents, the husbands always remember holidays and the housework is magically done by elves. Though she’s thrilled to see her books in stores around the world, Shirley mostly writes because it gives her an excuse to avoid cleaning the toilets and it helps feed her shoe-shopping habit. To learn more, visit her Web site at www.shirleyjump.com

      To my mother, who wasn’t just “Momma,”

      she was one of my best friends, too. I will miss

      your voice, your hugs and most of all, you.

      CONTENTS

       CHAPTER ONE

       CHAPTER TWO

       CHAPTER THREE

       CHAPTER FOUR

       CHAPTER FIVE

       CHAPTER SIX

       CHAPTER SEVEN

       CHAPTER EIGHT

       CHAPTER NINE

       CHAPTER TEN

       CHAPTER ELEVEN

       CHAPTER TWELVE

       CHAPTER THIRTEEN

       CHAPTER FOURTEEN

       CHAPTER FIFTEEN

      CHAPTER ONE

      THE next time he ran away from his life, Noah McCarty vowed to make a better plan—or at least give it more forethought than a six-year-old staging a walkout over the lima beans.

      Normally he wasn’t a man given to impetuous acts. Anyone who knew him would agree—spontaneity definitely wasn’t his strong suit. It wasn’t even a shirt in his closet.

      Through the mud-spotted windshield, steam rose from the radiator in an angry, sputtering cloud. The pickup he’d never had time to bring into the shop had finally quit on him. He cursed several times, feeling his annoyance СКАЧАТЬ