Man With A Message

Man With A Message
Muriel Jensen

LIVE WELL.LAUGH OFTEN.LOVE MUCH.Although Mariah Mercer designs and sells plaques with her favorite motto, she's having a hard time following it herself. At least, the LOVE MUCH part. In fact, she's given up on loving at all after a painful divorce. No, her quiet life as a dorm mother at the local boarding school in Maple Hill, Massachusetts, is enough for her. And her relationships with the children there give her all the emotional satisfaction she needs.No stranger to rejection, Cameron Trent has found a haven in the people and town of Maple Hill. He'd rather not take risks in the love department, either.So imagine his surprise–not to mention Mariah's–at what pops out of his mouth during a local spring fair. A message that changes their lives forever.

“Mariah?”

She turned at the sound of her name and focused on…? The children. Of course. The children. She looked at them encircling the bed and remembered that they were not her children but the school’s. The kid fix she sought when she couldn’t have her own.

The euphoria of a moment ago collapsed, and with it came the bitter disappointment that always returned to take hold of her when she allowed herself to think about her marriage, her divorce, all the things she wanted that she’d never have.

She gazed into dark-lashed hazel eyes set in a handsome face crowned with short dark brown hair.

She put her fingertips to her mouth, recalling those nicely shaped lips on hers and the renewal she’d believed he’d brought to her life.

But he wasn’t Ben, her former husband. He was a stranger. And she didn’t care what he was doing here, or why she was in bed with the children gathered around her.

The only thing that mattered was that he’d led her to believe the pain was over and life was going to begin again.

It wasn’t, though. And it was all his fault.

She raised a hand and slapped him as hard as she could.

Dear Reader,

Don’t you love a man who knows what to say? “Honey, that tofu-eggplant-pasta casserole was delicious.” “No, harem pants do not make you look fat.” “I know the children are a handful, but you make motherhood look easy.”

Okay, I’m fantasizing. Most men think honesty is more important than hurt feelings. Many seasoned husbands do catch on eventually, but not before their wives learn to deal with bruised egos. And it’s not as though we don’t know the truth; it’s just that we’re hoping our men love us enough to see the capable, slender, clever image we want to project.

In Man with a Message, Cameron Trent is a hero filled with love and compassion for Mariah Mercer, who wants no part of him. Though she continually puts herself at odds with him, he always seems to know what to say to her, how to support and encourage her, and help her make her dreams come true. Maybe we should have him cloned.

Sit back and put your feet up. And you might want to get some chocolate. Cam and Mariah have a rocky road to romance.

All my best!

Muriel Jensen

P.O. Box 1168

Astoria, Oregon 97103

Man with a Message

Muriel Jensen

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

Man with a Message

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 SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER ONE

CAMERON TRENT WALKED around the Maple Hill Common in the waning light of a late-May evening. Fred, his seven-month-old black Labrador, investigated bushes and wildflowers at the other end of a retractable leash.

The dog looked back at him, eyes bright, tongue lolling; he was out and about after sleeping in the truck for three hours while Cam installed an old ball-and-claw bathtub in a Georgian mansion near the lake.

Life is good, Fred’s expression said.

Cam had to agree.

Moving from San Francisco to Maple Hill, Massachusetts, situated on the edge of the Berkshires, had been an inspired idea. He and his brother and sister had spent a couple of weeks here as children every summer with their grandparents. It was the only time he could pick out of his childhood when he’d felt happy and safe.

As Cam wandered after Fred, he took in the colonial charm of the scene. A bronze Minuteman, his woman at his side, dominated the square. A colonial flag and a fifty-star flag were just being lowered for the night as Cam walked by. During working hours, the shops and businesses built around the green-lawned square bustled with activity, very much as they had two hundred years ago.

Many of the houses in Maple Hill were Classic Georgian, with its heroic columns, or the simpler salt-box style, with its long, sloping roof in the rear. In Yankee tradition, small boats hung from the ceilings of some porches, and many houses bore historic plaques explaining their history. And Amherst, where he was earning his master’s in business administration was a mere hour away.