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  RAVE REVIEWS FOR

  DEBORAH MacGILLIVRAY’S

  THE INVASION OF FALGANNON ISLE!

  “What makes MacGillivray’s romance so special are the eccentric characters, right down to the cat, and Desmond and B.A.’s growing relationship.”

  —Booklist

  “This is an entertaining, humorous and heartwarming tale of love, friendship and a bit of magic. The hero’s struggle to make peace with his past and the heroine’s determination to help him are nicely depicted. The secondary characters are great fun, especially The Cat Dudley, and the peek into the lives of the main character’s siblings whets the appetite for their stories.”

  —RT BOOKreviews

  “In a word, ‘Perfection!’”

  —Huntress Reviews

  “The Invasion of Falgannon Isle is a masterful tale woven by an incredibly talented author. The juxtaposition of the modern day intrusions with the timelessness of Falgannon Isle creates a world readers will want to visit, over and over again.”

  —CK’s Kwips & Kritiques

  “Ms. MacGillivray creates characters that seemed so alive that I almost believed Falgannon Isle really exists. If it did, I would really love to move there! The Invasion of Falgannon Isle is one of my best reads for 2006—it has many laugh-out-loud moments, wonderful characters, a hint of the paranormal, and a great romance.”

  —Mystique Books

  THE COMING STORM

  The soft breeze ruffled his wavy black hair and caused his silk shirt to ripple. He’d unbuttoned it half-way down his chest and had no T-shirt underneath. One long leg was stretched out before him; the other was cocked against the low creek-stone wall for bal-ance. Jago Fitzgerald was waiting—waiting with that stillness inherent to all of nature’s nocturnal hunters. Men like this were quite treacherous to females. They sensed small changes in a woman’s body, reaction to the lethal peril they posed. The pounding of her heart, the rapid short breaths. And—damn it—the tightening of her breasts.

  Fortunately, Asha’s black sweater hid that reaction from this arrogant man in the darkness. It was her little secret. A woman needed every advantage in dealing with a male like Jago Fitzgerald, for she had the unshakable sense Netta was right.

  He was waiting for her.

  Other Love Spell books by Deborah MacGillivray:

  THE INVASION OF FALGANNON ISLE

  Riding The Thunder

  DEBORAH

  MACGILLIVRAY

  Dorchester

  Publishing

  Contents

  Prologue

  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

  DORCHESTER PUBLISHING

  Published by

  Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.

  200 Madison Avenue

  New York, NY 10016

  Copyright © 2007 by Deborah MacGillivray

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Trade ISBN: 978-1-4285-1769-1

  E-book ISBN: 978-1-4285-0394-6

  First Dorchester Publishing, Co., Inc. edition: October 2007

  The “DP” logo is the property of Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.

  Printed in the United States of America.

  Visit us online at www.dorchesterpub.com.

  For Monika Wolmarans, Leanne Burroughs,

  Dawn Thompson, Diane White, Carol Ann Applegate

  Sandi

  and

  Bobby “Boris” Pickett

  Riding The Thunder

  PROLOGUE

  June 1964, Kentucky

  “I don’t believe you want to marry me!” Laura cried.

  Not crocodile tears either, Tommy Grant knew. Laura Valmont felt things more deeply than most people, one of the special traits that first attracted him to her.

  She had just moved to the small Southern town of Leesburg, Kentucky, when he first laid eyes on Laura. Not there one day, she’d taken on three bullies cruelly tormenting a stray cat. Fifteen, womanhood blooming on her body, she failed to recognize the peril she’d stepped into on that hot summer afternoon. With singular determination, and wearing the aura of a warrior princess, she had placed herself between the mangy cat and the older thugs—Monty, Reed and Ewen.

  They were dangerous, not typical bullies, but out-of-control, budding psychos—especially Monty. There was something seriously wrong with Montague Faulkner. Raging hormones saw the situation as combustible as tossing a lit match into gasoline. Tommy doubted Laura noticed all three had serious hard-ons as they watched her, almost licking their lips. It wouldn’t have slowed her down. Her sole focus was on rescuing that piteous cat.

  At nineteen, Tommy was a shade taller than the younger Reed and Ewen, but not Monty. Monty had three inches and a few pounds on him. Nevertheless, the punk stepped back when Tommy moved before Laura, shielding her. Monty was a bully, and like all bullies a coward at his core. Once you crossed him, there would be trouble down the road. Tommy would have to watch his back. There’d be hell to pay—one didn’t clash with Montague Faulkner and not expect to find his tires slashed or his windshield shot out. Or worse.

  Tommy had asked drolly, “Is there a problem here?” The steel of his words had instantly diffused the volatile situation.

  It never occurred to Tommy until much later that with her act of rescuing the cat, and his rescuing her, their lives had changed in a single heartbeat. He might’ve as well gone down on his knee and proposed then and there. The die was cast, as the old-timers loved to say.

  During the following two years, she’d made his life hell. In the small town of Leesburg there was no escaping Laura. Anytime she caught him on a date, she’d stared until he had this strange fear his balls would shrivel and drop off. She’d buzzed around his home, brought flowers for his widowed mother, and aided in planning tea parties and summer barbecues. His mother wore a knowing female smile saying, bide your time, son, you’re already hers.

  At first, he’d fought the inevitability. What red-blooded, twenty-year-old male wanted a wide-eyed teenager mooning around him, even if that sweet seventeen-year-old had a pair of world-class breasts and an ass that made him swallow his tongue? Heaven to look at, she was
a severe pain in the groin and numerous cold showers to get over. Seventeen still had that sign: Look but don’t touch. Sane males ran for their lives. He ran. Only, Laura had made up her mind. He never stood a chance.

  Last summer when she turned eighteen, she’d come at him, no-holds-barred. In short order, everyone in the jerkwater town knew they were a couple and would marry soon. It was only a matter of setting a date.

  Precisely what now had Laura in a tizzy. She had graduated Leesburg High back in the spring. With no intention of going to college, she wanted to get married, and next week wouldn’t be soon enough. A year seemed a lifetime away to her.

  “Damn it, Laura, I want to get married, too. I have one more year of law school—which you know well. What? You want to marry and move in with my mother and uncle? That’d be fun. I can’t swing it, honey. Let me graduate. My uncle will take me into his practice then.” He explained the facts—as he had weekly since her graduation. “My part-time clerking isn’t enough for us to live on.”

  “Maybe your uncle would help us if we got married—”

  Tommy gritted his teeth. This broken record of explanations was getting him nowhere. Sighing, he repeated it all once more, hoping he would finally get through to her. “My uncle barely has enough to keep his law practice going. Leesburg isn’t the richest place for an attorney. Poor man has spent his life taking care of my mother and me after dad died. He just doesn’t have the money, Laura. I can’t ask him.”

  “But he gave you this new car for your birthday, Tommy.”

  She referred to his fire-engine red Ford Mustang. One of the first made, Ford was so high on the car that they jumped the gun and released it weeks ago instead of waiting for the mid-September rollout of new ’65 year cars, calling it the ’64½ model.

  “My Chevy was falling apart. He was ticked he had to cancel appointments three times to come pick me up because of it breaking down.” Tommy pleaded quietly, “Please, be reasonable. You know we’ll marry this time next year. You can be a June bride. A beautiful June bride.” He squeezed her hand and glanced over at her, love filling his heart.

  “Oh, Tommy, my dad is being transferred out of state. They’re moving next month. Mom broke the news to me last night,” she choked out.

  “What?” Tommy took his eyes off the road, unable to believe she was serious. He had to swerve the steering wheel back when the car accidentally crossed the centerline. Traffic on Leesburg Pike was dangerous. They promised the newly opened I-64 would someday help the situation; however, since construction remained mostly in unconnected pieces, heavy trucking traffic still came flying down the pike at a breakneck speed. An oncoming trucker gave Tommy a blast of his horn and then held up his middle finger.

  “They said if we don’t get married . . . I have to go with them.” Laura sat stiff and pale in her seat. “To Texas.”

  Rattled, Tommy failed to notice the black pickup bearing down on them—until it banged the rear bumper. Damn! His Mustang was only weeks old and already a dent in the rear end. Tommy could see his insurance rates going sky-high. What he didn’t need—another expense. He was saving for an engagement ring—Laura’s Christmas present.

  “What the hell?” Tommy looked in the rearview mirror, trying to see who was driving. The harsh glare from the evening sun bounced off the windshield, nearly rendering it a mirror. Another slam to the rear said the first hadn’t been an accident. Someone was clearly ramming the heavy truck into them.

  “Tommy, are they nuts?” Her head whipped around trying to see.

  The DJ on the car radio announced, “This is Coyote Calhoun on WAKY dedicating this Golden Oldie to all the Lauras out there, Ray Peterson’s mournful ballad about star-crossed lovers, ‘Tell Laura I Love Her’.”

  Ordinarily, Laura would turn the song up. Their song. Four years ago, the tune had made it to number one on the Hit Parade and it was still in the jukebox at The Windmill Restaurant where everyone hung out. Slot H-13. Since the lovers in the song were named Laura and Tommy, the song had become theirs.

  The truck sped up and slammed against the rear of the Mustang again. Both Laura and he jerked from the impact, which nearly pushed the car into the back of the cement truck ahead of them.

  “Tommy, I’m scared. What are they doing? That driver is stark-raving mad!”

  Tommy glanced in the rearview mirror again. In slow motion, Tommy saw it all happen, too damn fast to prevent it. The driver revved the truck’s engine and smashed into the car once more. Hard. The cement truck started to slow to make a left turn onto Richmond Pike.

  The cliffs were coming up. Tommy dared not let this madness drag on as there was a likelihood they could be forced off one of the sharp S-turns. He hit the gas, hoping to swing around the truck before it halted to turn. As he did, the Ford truck slammed into the car, jarring them forward. Too late, Tommy saw the Peterbilt, which had been blocked from view by the cement truck, barreling down on them from the other direction. The driver never had a chance to hit the brakes.

  Tommy swerved back into the right lane, but the truck crashed into the Mustang again, pushing them forward. Tommy cut the wheel hard at the last instant, trying to go into the small creek running parallel to the road’s far side. He couldn’t do it fast enough. Crying tires, busting glass, grinding metal . . . a painful scream Tommy heard as the semi plowed into the side of the Mustang.

  Laura.

  They say life passes in front of your eyes just before you die. They lied. It wasn’t the past that flashed through Tommy’s mind as he lay there trying to move, trying to breathe. It was all the things in life that would never be. The wedding he’d hoped to share with Laura in a year’s time, her so beautiful in a white gown. Images of him coming home to her, a small black-headed baby boy in her arms. Christmases, New Year’s Eves, birthdays. Making love in the rain. Everything that Laura and he would never have.

  Tommy sensed he was bleeding from his mouth and nose. Blood was in his eyes and streaming down his chest. He hurt. Bad. Yet, all he could think of was Laura. Beautiful Laura with her auburn hair and laughing brown eyes. The woman he loved more than life.

  He reached for her hand. “Laura!” he choked through tears and blood. The instant he touched her he knew she was dead. He laced his fingers with hers and held on, knowing there was no life without her. “Laura!” He screamed in madness.

  His body felt on fire. He couldn’t breathe. Obscenely, Ray Peterson crooned, “‘Tell Laura not to cry, my love for her will never die.’”

  “Tommy, wake up! Tommy!”

  Tommy jerked up, then looked around, wondering if the collision had been merely a bad dream. The world was in sepia, a strange, gold shimmering twilight. Laura glistened with faery dust. She laughed and tugged on his hand, and for an instant he glanced back at the wreck. Cars were stopping along the road, and people ran to the smashed Mustang.

  Not a dream. A nightmare.

  “Tommy, this way.” Laura smiled, pulling his hand.

  “Laura, wait. I love you.” He yanked her into his arms, squeezing her so tightly she’d have a hard time breathing. Tears filled his eyes and streamed down his cheeks. “Oh, Laura . . .”

  She kissed him. “Shhhh! We must hurry before someone gets our booth at The Windmill. I want a Cherry Coke and then to slow dance to our song.”

  “But Laura . . .” He hesitated, looking back at the wreck, confused.

  She reached up and gently pulled his face around toward hers. “It doesn’t matter, Tommy. Nothing matters but that we’re together. We’ll always be together. Just like the song, Tommy, our love will never die.”

  CHAPTER ONE

  Present Day Kentucky

  Lifting the icy-cold bottle of Coors to his mouth, Jago Mershan froze in midmotion, then groaned as if he’d received a stiff blow to his solar plexus. His whole body tensed as everything about him receded to gray. Nothing could’ve prepared him for the impact of Asha Montgomerie on his senses.

  Jago’s eyes tracked the woman who’d slid
out of the black Jaguar and strode across the parking lot, the image of warm honey suddenly foremost in his mind. Only, his sweet tooth wasn’t throbbing. His pain centered lower—much lower. The jukebox switched to Bob Seger’s pulsing “Come to Papa,” causing the right side of his mouth to twitch into a hungry predator’s smile. Low laughter rumbled in his chest as his eyes never left Asha.

  He whispered, “Yeah, come to papa.”

  She was tall, around five-seven, the height increased a shade by the heels of her brown leather Wellies. Her black jeans fit snugger than his English racing gloves and lovingly displayed the long, sleek limbs that could wrap around him—ah, a man—and never let go. Being a lowly male, he thoroughly appreciated how those firm breasts filled a 34D to perfection, no Miracle Bra needed, no Pamela Lee implants. Bodies like hers were a throwback to the heyday of Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell. Placing her hand on the porch rail, Asha followed the spiral up the creek-stone stairs, her body undulating in a quiet, feline grace. Those superb breasts swayed perceptibly with each step, the black scoop-necked sweater revealing tempting cleavage.

  As she moved alongside the row of plate glass windows, Jago was treated to her profile, the derrière promising a male could enjoy watching her walk away nearly as much as seeing her coming toward him. Well, almost. Observing those mobile curves approach, a man would tingle with the anticipation of getting his hands on that firm flesh.

  Sunlight caught and was refracted through the full glass door as Asha opened it, blinding him for an instant. Then she rematerialized, born from the brilliant shafts. The setting sun’s aura followed her with an arcane sentience, greedily clinging to her to form a red-gold halo about her, a breath-stealing shard of time that burned deep into his soul. When he was old and gray, he’d recall this instant as if yesterday and remember its power, how it moved him.

  Not a classic beauty, Asha’s face was arresting, feline. Her jawline hinted at the Montgomerie stubbornness, though the faint cleft in her chin softened the effect. Jago’s body bucked as he imagined running the side of his thumb over that shadowy dip, seeing those cat eyes watching him, spellbound by his action. A flicker of arrogance flashed in those amber eyes, but the haughtiness was understated, carried off with a regal self-assurance few women ever truly achieved.