If your weather's been as wild and crazy as mine, you'd love a vacation as much as I would! And if, like me, you're locked into the grid of family life, work, and all, you probably can't take one. So try the next best thing - a virtual vacation with my contemporary romance Heart of the Ozarks. It's set in the vacation resort capital of Branson, Missouri but on the quiet side of the lake.
After St. Louis TV weathercaster Cole Celinksi loses his almost
estranged wife and three children in a car crash, his boss orders him to take a
leave of absence. Against his will, Cole
leaves the city in late May to find the rest and relaxation everyone else
thinks he needs. Without anywhere else to go, Cole heads for Lake Dreams, a
resort on the quiet side of Lake Taneycomo in the Ozarks he visited each summer
as a child with his grandparents. Some
of his best memories were made in the lakeside vacation haven with his summer
friend, Maggie.
Upon his arrival, Cole learns Maggie now runs the place. Twenty years have passed but from the minute
he returns, they reconnect and soon their mutual attraction ignites. He fishes in the lake, takes Maggie to visit
some of the places he remembers and begins to find out who he truly is. Before
he can heal, he must learn to deal with his loss and to see if he can create a
new family with Maggie and her children. It’s a task he’s not sure he can
handle but if he wants to be with Maggie, he must. A near tragedy brings them
all together into a close knit unit and afterward, Cole may be able to make his
dreams reality.
Heart of
the Ozarks – Sweet, Emotional Excerpt
Within a half hour, he fried all the fish, took the fries out of the
oven and put a bowl of salad at each place.
They sat down at the small, rickety dinette table and before she took a
bite, Maggie linked hands with him. She
said a simple grace and they shared the meal, the first one Cole truly enjoyed at
the cabin since he arrived. Supper
evoked past memories of gathering around this table with his grandparents. They’d eaten fish then, too, on many occasions.
Cole recalled old times with a rush of nostalgia and joy, filtered through the
decades.
The remembered sense of family rested easy on his soul and as he
watched Maggie’s expressions shift as she talked and laughed, Cole felt like
she was also family. He’d known her for most of his life and they were
connected in a deep meaningful way. A
flash of guilt threatened to consume him because he’d never thought of Victoria
as family, not in the way he did Maggie.
She’d been his wife but Cole hadn’t felt the same. To prevent
self-reproach, he reasoned it wasn’t disloyal, just the way he felt. He couldn’t change it or help it.
A spectacular sunset commanded
the western sky with a panorama of vivid color.
Most of the earlier clouds and rain moved away to leave behind the
beautiful show. The red, orange and pink streaked sky created a stunning image. Cole saw it through the window and pointed it
out to Maggie. They headed out to the
porch for a better view and stood close, his arm draped across her shoulders.
“It’s gorgeous,” she breathed.
A rapt look of wonder lit her face.
“Oh, yeah,” Cole said. “It’ll be fair tomorrow and sunny. No more storms for now.”
“Red sky at night, sailor’s
delight,” Maggie said and Cole smiled too.
He relished the old weather folklore, the adages and sayings. At the television station, he kept a
collection of them in a special file. Cole
tried to come up with something witty to say back to preserve the moment but
instead he noticed the rainbow, vivid and colorful, off to the far right
horizon.
“Look, Maggie!” he cried. “Do you see the rainbow? God, it’s pretty.”
“Oh, how beautiful,” she said, looking up into his face. “You know a
rainbow is a promise, don’t you?”
Cole lacked words but not
emotion. He turned her to hold her in his
arms and lowered his mouth close to hers.
“So’s this, Maggie.”
He kissed her. Cole tasted her
lips, soft velvet, and relished the taste.
Her mouth yielded to his without protest and her arms curled around his
neck until her wrists rested on his shoulders.
He shifted until her body touched his and tightened his embrace. The shared kiss touched off a fuse and Cole
swore he felt the fire move through his body as it ignited every nerve. Passion roused within but he tempered it with
a care and grace, one shifting lust with tenderness. Cole’s long dormant body revived and revved
like a finely tuned race car engine.
Maggie’s flesh relaxed against him, gave over to his arms with open
surrender. If they stopped, he
realized, it would be his call but Cole didn’t want to quit.
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trailer: http://youtu.be/ODVN6JBH-Xo
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