Raeleen Randall dumps her boyfriend after discovering he's married. Then she's kidnapped and taken to a remote lighthouse on the island of Anguilla. With a hurricane fast approaching, Raeleen needs a miracle to save her. And that miracle shows up in the strapping form of Travis Todd—the irresistibly handsome Secret Soldier who rescues her.
Excerpt
One of the heavy wooden double doors slid shut as Raeleen Randall stepped out of the restaurant in a daze. Incredulous. Humiliated. Appalled. Mad as hell. All did a good job of summing up how she felt right now. Strangely missing from that mix was…hurt. Grappling with why had her in a tailspin. Why wasn't her heart breaking into pieces? Numbly, she started toward her rental car, vaguely aware of the scattering of clouds gathering amidst a mid-September Caribbean day.
Dietrich Artz was married. Deet. The man she'd been traveling to Anguilla to see every month for the past year had seemed perfect for her. Never crowding her. Never bossing her around. He didn't remind her of her father. He was a nice guy. Accommodating…or so she'd thought. Oh, he'd been accommodating, all right—to meet his own selfish needs. The man she'd thought might work out enough to actually marry was…already married.
Why wasn't her chest constricting with the emotional wreckage of pain that surely ought to accompany such a betrayal? Was it her busy schedule? As the host of a popular Dining Network show, she was very busy. The long-distance relationship suited her hectic life. Or had it? Deet had been undemanding, a quality that had drawn her to him and kept her coming back. Had her preoccupation with Pop's Place dulled the intensity of her emotional investment? After finding out he was married, she wasn't going to miss him. Was that because he'd lied to her, or was it just that she didn't feel enough for him to care?
Seeing that she'd passed her car and was almost to the end of the empty parking lot now, Raeleen stopped and turned around, a slight breeze ruffling her shoulder-length blond hair. The restaurant was closed, but Deet was going to make her breakfast before her flight home. Instead, she'd met his wife.
Where had she gone wrong? When had she lost sight of her needs? When had her needs taken a backseat to her fun, fast-paced career with Pop's Place? And above all, why did she think she had to settle for undemanding? Her show was demanding. Why shouldn't her needs from a man be equally demanding?
She could argue that maintaining a long-distance relationship with someone who lived on an island was demanding enough, but it was his distance that she'd liked. And that's what bothered her. Was she afraid of commitment? Her? Dining Network star. Cheeseburger addict. Daughter of the almighty Colonel Roth. It baffled her to consider the possibility.
Walking between her car and the minivan parked one space over, she dug into her purse for the keys.
If there were any lesson to be learned here, it was that things had to change. She had to change. No more men until she knew what she wanted. Really knew. Because clearly she didn't.
Where were those blasted keys!
Digging harder, she finally pulled them from her purse, just as the side door of the minivan slid open. Who would be at Artz Eatery on a day that it was closed? Too distracted to ponder that for long, she fumbled for the key fob and pressed the button to unlock the door. Just as she did that, a man appeared next to her. The person who'd just gotten out of the minivan. He was average in height, with light brown hair and brown eyes that seemed full of crazed energy.
Angela Calminetti, mother of five, New Age practitioner and gifted psychic and telepath, is proud of her family ties and does everything she can to make sure that all of her younger siblings are as happy in love and marriage as she is…whether they wa
