Once
and Again
Return to Briarwood # 1
Return to Briarwood # 1
By:
Elisabeth Barrett
Releasing
July 14, 2015
Loveswept
Once and Again
Return To Briarwood Series
For readers of Shannon Stacey and Susan Mallery, the heartfelt new Briarwood series begins with a tale of forbidden love, broken promises, and second chances.
Growing
up in Eastbridge, Connecticut, Carolyn Rivington was a young
debutante who did whatever her parents asked. So when her father
demanded that she break things off with the boy from the wrong side
of the tracks or else, she did. Now Carolyn’s family is deep in
debt. She’s no longer a member of the Briarwood Golf and Yacht
Club, she’s an employee. And the tanned, tattooed, dangerously
handsome stranger who saunters into her lobby isn’t just her new
boss . . . he’s also her first love.
The
last time he saw Carolyn, Jake Gaffney was in the back of a police
cruiser, handcuffed and humiliated. But seeing her again stirs other
memories: a blanket on the beach, the moon above their heads, and the
most expensive bottle of wine he could afford. Now the tables have
turned. As a real-estate magnate and Briarwood’s new owner, Jake
doesn’t have to answer to anyone. But now that he’s back home,
he’s finding it hard to live down his old reputation.
Before
they can move forward, Jake and Carolyn must face their pasts. But
it’ll take more than sizzling chemistry for them to heal old wounds
and return to the love they once shared.
The
conference room was bustling when she arrived. After grabbing a cup
of coffee from the sideboard, she took a seat at the enormous table
in the center of the room, next to Eric Lefoute, the head chef of
Waves, the club’s restaurant. Unsurprisingly, the handsome
Frenchman was scowling. Eric hated answering to authority and made no
bones about the fact that attending such a meeting was going to take
away from the prep time he needed for this afternoon’s luncheon.
Sinking
back into one of the slightly worn but still functional chairs, she
glanced around and took a bracing sip of black coffee. Everyone was
seated now, impatiently waiting for the new owner to appear. Orwell
Tippett, the athletics director, tapped a pen over and over again on
his notepad. Even Summer Lawrence, the spa manager who’d found a
seat on Carolyn’s other side, looked less-than-Zen as she twisted
her straight, light brown ponytail into a tight corkscrew.
Summer
leaned over to whisper in her ear. “What kind of changes do you
think the new owner will make?”
Carolyn
shrugged. “I’m not sure. We’ll have to wait and see.”
“Do
you think everyone will get fired?”
“God,
I hope not.”
Getting
canned was her biggest worry
right now. Despite the fact that members and staff seemed to like
her—both personally and professionally—her family’s reputation
and the fact that she was the new kid on the block both weighed
against her. Now that the family fortune was decimated and the
Rivington name was mud, it didn’t matter a whit that her maternal
great-grandfather had been one of the club’s original investors.
Just
as everyone’s anxiety was reaching a fever pitch, the door to the
conference room opened. Her heart skipped a beat just before Richard
stepped inside. Beside her, Eric emitted a sharp breath. He was just
as worried as anyone else about the changes that might come.
She’d
almost collected herself before he
stepped in.
Him.
Tattoo
Guy.
Everything
kind of slipped sideways for a minute while she sat there, barely
breathing. He belonged here, didn’t he? And she’d tried to kick
him out! It was impossible for this day to get worse.
And
then it did.
He
removed his sunglasses, and familiar deep-blue eyes swept the room,
sizing up everything and everyone. When his gaze finally met hers,
his lips curled into the merest hint of a smile and his eyes
narrowed.
“Hello,
everyone,” he said in a deep voice. “I’m Jacob Gaffney,
Briarwood’s new owner.”
At
that moment, her heart stopped. Actually stopped, just like her dad’s
had last week when he’d suffered a massive heart attack brought on
by the huge amount of stress he was under. But Carolyn wasn’t
having a heart attack, because her organ kick-started up almost
immediately.
Jake.
It
had been the best summer of her life—until everything had come
crashing down. As she stared at him, trying to morph these new, hard,
masculine features onto the boy she knew, Jake stared back. A
complicated mix of emotion passed over his face—awareness, desire.
Disgust.
Sure
that her cheeks were turning a furious crimson, she looked down at
her fingers, now twisting in her lap. For a long time, she’d put up
a wall to stop the ache, telling herself it was for the best. That
she had been too young. Too inexperienced. But she was just fooling
herself. Regret, sadness, and not for the first time, the intense
desire for a do-over coursed through her in a wave of emotion. But in
life, there were no do-overs, were there?
This
hardened, transformed-to-the-point-of-unrecognizability Jake wasn’t
going to give her one. Why would he, considering what she and her
family had done?
Jake
was now introducing himself and laying out the game plan for the
staff for the next couple of weeks. The words, the room, even the
walls were a blur. She was screwed, utterly and completely.
Because
as soon as Jake got her alone, he was going to fire her ass, and then
she’d be back where she started: a former socialite with crippling
debt and a family on the brink of collapse.
Not
that Jake would care, given that the last time she’d seen him, he’d
been handcuffed in the back of a police car.
And
her father was the one who’d put him there.
Link
to Follow Tour: Here
Elisabeth
Barrett lives
in the San Francisco Bay Area and spends her days teaching, editing,
writing sexy contemporary romance, and enjoying time with her
sometimes-bearded husband and three spirited children. She is
constantly perfecting her home-work-writing juggling act, but in her
free time she loves to hike open-space preserves, grow orchids, bake
sweet things her husband won’t eat, and sing in grand choruses. For
more about Elisabeth, please visit her website.
