Sunflower Lane Read online

  But as she watched his gaze grow warm, then drift lower, settling on her mouth, her knees went weak.

  Stop being an idiot. Move away from the hunk.

  But she didn’t. She didn’t move an inch—and then it was too late because her hands lifted suddenly and encircled his neck, and at the same instant she leaned toward him, Wes tugged her onto his lap. His strong arms banded around her waist.

  “That’s better. Much better, isn’t it, honey?” With a surprisingly gentle smile, he brushed his mouth against hers.

  Fire shot through her. Instant red-hot fire.

  You’re doomed, she thought.

  And kissed him back.

  They didn’t seem to know how to stop kissing. Annabelle found her senses whirling like a merry-go-round as his warm lips tasted hers slowly, gently, before eventually traveling down her throat to nibble at her collarbone. When she moaned with pleasure, he returned his attention to her mouth, kissing her deeply, and then deeper still, like a starving man who couldn’t get enough.

  Neither could she.

  He wasn’t just tasting her, he was savoring her. And she was savoring him right back. . .

  Praise for the Lonesome Way novels

  Blackbird Lake

  “Gregory weaves a captivating tale that draws her readers in and makes them never want to leave . . . Here is to hoping Gregory keeps gifting us with more Lonesome Way novels.”

  —Fresh Fiction

  “Charming . . . Gregory’s specialty is creating rich characters who breathe life into her warmhearted and so very likable stories.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  Larkspur Road

  “The kind of small town that speaks of deep roots and a caring community. Readers are in for a treat in this story bringing two former lovers back into the same circle, with all the baggage of the past and the desire for a fulfilling future.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  “A great contemporary romance novel and turning into a great, must-read series.”

  —Love to Read for Fun

  “Jill Gregory creates magic . . . A tale of second chances, coming home, and true love that keeps readers on edge from beginning to end.”

  —Fresh Fiction

  Sage Creek

  “Gregory makes a welcome return to contemporary romance with a heartwarming new series set in Lonesome Way, Montana . . . It’s just the ticket for fans of tender and emotional romance!”

  —RT Book Reviews

  “[Montana] was a stunning and perfect backdrop for this story of loss, love, and learning to let go in order to find love again . . . A beautiful tapestry of home and heart.”

  —That’s What I’m Talking About

  Praise for the novels of Jill Gregory

  “Entertaining from the first page to the last, with a romantic relationship that sizzles and touches the heart.”

  —Catherine Anderson, New York Times bestselling author

  “A page-turner extraordinaire.”

  —Douglas Preston, #1 New York Times bestselling coauthor of White Fire

  “A transfixing blend of fiery romance and spine-tingling suspense.”

  —Booklist

  “For tales of romance and adventure that keep you reading into the night, look no further than Jill Gregory.”

  —Nora Roberts, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Collector

  “A first-rate romance. Gregory . . . writes the stuff that romance readers yearn for. If you haven’t yet read her, you’re missing out on a great treat.”

  —Oakland Press

  “Stirring and imaginative. A tense, intelligent, and surprising thrill. Drum-tight in execution, fueled by imagination, the plot is as sharp as a broken shard of glass.”

  —Steve Berry, New York Times bestselling author of The Lincoln Myth

  Berkley Sensation Titles by Jill Gregory

  SAGE CREEK

  LARKSPUR ROAD

  BLACKBIRD LAKE

  SUNFLOWER LANE

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) LLC

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

  USA • Canada • UK • Ireland • Australia • New Zealand • India • South Africa • China

  penguin.com

  A Penguin Random House Company

  SUNFLOWER LANE

  A Berkley Sensation Book / published by arrangement with the author

  Copyright © 2014 by Jill Gregory.

  Excerpt from Blackbird Lake by Jill Gregory copyright © 2013 by Jill Gregory.

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  Berkley Sensation Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group.

  BERKLEY SENSATION® is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) LLC.

  The “B” design is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA) LLC.

  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) LLC,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  eBook ISBN: 978-0-698-14299-2

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  Berkley Sensation mass-market edition / November 2014

  Cover art by Hugh Syme.

  Cover design by Rita Frangie.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Version_1

  For Larry, Rachel, and Jason—with all my love.

  And for Ellen Levine, my extraordinary agent and friend, with deep gratitude for your guidance and friendship.

  Contents

  Excerpt from Sunflower Lane

  Praise for the novels of Jill Gregory

  Berkley Sensation titles by Jill Gregory

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  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 Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Special preview of Blackbird Lake

  Ch
apter One

  LONESOME WAY, MONTANA

  Wes McPhee’s dusty black truck roared off the highway and zoomed past the gas station on the corner of town without slowing even a fraction. Wes was in a hurry. He accelerated down Main Street without looking left or right, not bothering to admire the shimmering gold and lavender sunset gilding the Crazy Mountains in the distance.

  In fact, he didn’t even notice.

  He paid no attention to the neat storefronts of the little town where he’d spent the first miserable eighteen years of his life. Didn’t spare a glance at the profusion of early-summer flowers planted in brightly colored pots lining the streets, or think about the hushed, peaceful quiet tiptoeing through the town as dusk encroached on the peaks of the cottonwoods.

  Wes thought about only one thing. Seeing his grandmother; his mother; his sister, Sophie; and her family all in one quick, painless visit—and then getting the hell out of here.

  Away from this town, hopefully within two or three days.

  Four max.

  He’d returned to Lonesome Way only a handful of times in the past fifteen or so years, and he didn’t miss the place one bit. The pleasant, cheerful streets, the tiny quaintness of it, were still as familiar to him as the knuckles of his right hand, but there were memories here he’d left behind, and he had no desire to get reacquainted with them.

  Hitting the gas pedal harder, he just beat the one streetlight that turned yellow on him. Picking up speed, he bulleted through the intersection, but one block down—ironically in front of his sister Sophie’s bakery—an elderly woman began crossing Main, her steps slow, unhurried, and deliberate. She cut him a look as if to say nothing was going to stop her from crossing and she would take her sweet time about it.

  Swearing under his breath, he had no choice but to slam on the brakes.

  He recognized her, of course.

  Martha Davies.

  Grimly, Wes lifted a hand in a brief, polite salute, though his mouth never softened to a smile.

  Martha, one of his grandmother’s oldest friends, owned the Cuttin’ Loose hair salon, he remembered. Had owned it as far back as he could recall. Gran would be mighty pissed if he ran down her friend, so he waited impatiently as the eighty-something woman in the patterned purple blouse, belted dark trousers, and heavy gold jewelry gleaming at her ears and wrists took her sweet time strolling across the road.

  At this rate it would be dawn before he got to the Good Luck Ranch.

  Finally the old woman reached the curb. She apparently figured out who he was by that time because, turning slightly, she lifted one spider-veined hand in a regal wave, and shouted at him.

  “Is that you, Wes McPhee? If you’re here to see your gran, she’s staying with your mother on Daisy Lane!”

  The few other people still out on the streets all turned and stared at him.

  Remind me not to come back for a dozen more years, he told himself ruefully. But he nodded at Martha. “Thank you, ma’am.”

  It was the exact wrong thing to say. Planting her hands on her hips, she first frowned, then marched back toward him, determination gleaming in her eyes.

  “Now, you wait right there, young man.”

  The light was green but he couldn’t go, because Martha Davies was bearing down on him, apparently hell-bent on bending his ear.

  “‘Ma’am’? Since when do you call me ‘ma’am,’ Wes McPhee? It’s Aunt Martha to you. I’ve been best friends with your gran for well over sixty years and I knew you when you were a tiny little thing sporting diapers.” She waggled a finger at him. “If you’re sticking around Lonesome Way for a while, I don’t want to hear any more of that ma’am stuff.”

  With that, a smile broke across her face and he caught a glint of mischief in her faded eyes as she beamed at him through the truck’s open window.

  “Yes, ma’am—er, Aunt Martha.” Wes couldn’t stop the answering grin that began at the corners of his mouth and spread up to his eyes. Some things never changed.

  Especially in Lonesome Way.

  To Martha and his grandmother—and Gran’s circle of elderly friends—he’d always be a kid. Didn’t matter that he was six foot four, easing toward his late thirties, and that for roughly the past ten years he’d headed up a crack team of the toughest agents in the DEA. That he’d tracked down and rounded up the baddest of the bad guys, investigating, infiltrating, and arresting worldwide drug dealers and heads of cartels—and the terrorists who joined forces with them.

  The past three years alone he’d worked undercover in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Colombia for months at a time, going up against two of the most powerful drug syndicates trying to stream cocaine into the United States. He’d nailed a legendary meth kingpin in the wilds of Colorado several months ago, shortly before leaving the DEA.

  During his years as an agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration, he’d gone head-to-head with thugs in the most dangerous cities of the world, bringing down some of the most ruthless terrorists and criminals of the twenty-first century, and yet, not five minutes back in his hometown, he was being schooled by a lady in her eighties for not addressing her in the manner she preferred.

  Not ma’am. Aunt Martha.

  “So,” Aunt Martha said, as if he weren’t stopped in the middle of an intersection, and she had all the time in the world. “Tell me something. Are you?”

  “Am I what, ma’am—er, Aunt Martha?”

  She smiled. “Sticking around Lonesome Way. You’ve scarcely been back all these years and never for more than forty-eight hours at a time, if I recall correctly. And I’m sure I do.”

  “Not staying long. Only came to visit my grandmother.”

  “Because of her accident.” Martha nodded knowingly. “Well, I’d think you’d spend more than a little bit of time, seeing as you’ve come all this way. I’m sure you’ll want to get to know your niece and nephew a mite better as well, since you’re here. Does Sophie know you’re back?”

  “You’re the first to know, Aunt Martha,” Wes said drily. He heard another car coming up behind him.

  “I’m holding up traffic, Aunt Martha. Better be on my way. And you might want to get home yourself. It’s nearly dark.”

  “Wes, honey, don’t be silly. This is Lonesome Way. It’s perfectly safe after dark,” she informed him affectionately. She headed again toward the sidewalk. “I live just around the corner, you know, so it’s not as if I have very far to go.”

  But as he took his boot off the brake, she suddenly turned back and yelled, “Tell your gran I’ll come by tomorrow morning to discuss the parade route!”

  Wes shot through the intersection, then hung a right on Squirrel Road. He wondered what she meant about a parade route. Suddenly it hit him—the Fourth of July. Less than six weeks off.

  The Fourth was huge in Lonesome Way. When he was a kid, the town had held bake sales, quilt auctions, and a parade every year on the Fourth.

  So. The tradition continues.

  But it was only June. Early June. Wes knew he’d be long gone before the Fourth of July rolled around. His mother had emailed him about his grandmother tumbling off the curb outside of Benson’s Drugstore. How she’d lost her balance, and ended up lying in the street with a concussion and a broken wrist.

  Wes figured it must be gnawing at her to be laid up and waited on.

  Ava Louise Todd was nothing if not independent, active, sharp as a bayonet. She was at once the sweetest and most imperial little woman he’d ever met. She had grace, guts, and instincts—along with a twinkle in her eye that Wes had always loved.

  He missed her. Of course, he missed his mother and sister, too. But he’d carved out a very different life for himself in a world far from Lonesome Way. He couldn’t set foot in this town without all kinds of memories flooding back, and they sure as hell weren’t the warm and cozy kind.

  Mainly be
cause Hoot McPhee was a bastard. A dead one now.

  But Wes always associated stepping into his family home on Daisy Lane with an explosive confrontation with his father.

  That mean, demanding, ultra-critical son of a bitch had made his family’s life a living hell. Nothing anyone in his family did had ever been good enough for Hoot. Especially nothing that Wes did.

  He couldn’t be sorry that Hoot was dead. He’d be hard put to it now to resist the urge to slam a fist into his father’s face if they ever met up again. For his mother’s sake, he’d managed to refrain from doing that—except for once—but it hadn’t been easy.

  Which was why Wes had taken off right after graduating high school. He’d had too much anger to stick around—he and Hoot likely would have come to blows on a daily basis if he’d stayed.

  So he’d made his own way through college and law school, and he’d never looked back. Never asked for a dime. And wouldn’t have taken one.

  When his father died, Wes had been holed up in the jungles of Colombia, but even if he’d been within a hundred miles of Montana at the time, he wouldn’t have gone to Hoot’s funeral.

  Hell, he wouldn’t have crossed the street for Hoot McPhee.

  The man had bullied his children and cheated on his wife. He’d made everyone in his family miserable. The irony was, he’d been well respected in the community—until it came out that he’d had affairs with too many women to count, including Lorelei Hardin, the mayor’s wife. Only then had his mother finally had enough. She’d kicked Hoot out of the house—her house, since the Good Luck Ranch had been in her family for generations—and Hoot had spent the remainder of his days alone in a cabin on Bear Claw Road.

  The sky had darkened to deep twilight blue by the time he turned onto Daisy Lane. In the distance, the Crazies loomed against the sky like ominous craggy giants. Night creatures rustled on either side of him in the brush. A bald eagle took flight from a thicket of trees. Then the Good Luck Ranch house appeared at the end of the dusty road, warm light glowing from its wide windows.

  He felt a strange clutch in his stomach.