home   |   books   |   bio   |   ireland  |   tips   |    blog   |    links   |   Press Info   |  contact

Harlequin Romance

USA & Canada

BUY IT FROM AMAZON

"Her One And Only Valentine"

He's back - for the love he never should have let go...

When Kane Healey had to fight the hardest battle of his life, he decided to do it alone - learning the true meaning of if you love someone you have to let them go...

Young and afraid, Rhiannon discovered she was pregnant, and the man she needed by her side was her one and only. But Kane had gone. Unaware of the precious miracle he'd left behind...

Now they have one last chance to put the past behind them... As the Valentine's Day Ball approaches, will Kane get down on one knee and make his Valentine his bride?

For more books like this one go to my Harlequin Romance page

The nod was very brief, his eyes warming a little as he studied her, before he glanced to one side and Rhiannon was momentarily distracted by the faintest breeze that lifted the finer hair against his forehead.

It was becoming an obsession, that hair of his. Again. She had used to love touching his hair, and it was probably why her fingers had itched that last day in the office. Always, when they had sat in front of a computer screen or watching television, her hand had inevitably ended up at the nape of his neck, her fingertips absentmindedly moving from the shorter, coarser strands that touched his warm skin, to the slightly longer, smoother strands against the back of his head, where they would thread into the thickness.

It had been the simplest of physical contacts really. But when he was tired, he would lean back into that touch, his lips would part as he sighed in relaxed contentment – sometimes his head would turn, and when his firm mouth would move across hers her fingers would thread deeper into his hair, willing him closer.

How had she forgotten that - maybe simply, because she hadn’t wanted to remember?

He took a deep breath, “I still feel like I have ten years worth of presents to make up for - Christmases, Birthdays, all that. A pony and a dog don’t seem to me to be that much in the greater scheme of things. I’m not trying to buy her affection.”

When he turned away, Rhiannon felt a bubble of disappointment grow in the pit of her stomach; it felt like they had just taken a step backwards. And she really didn’t want that to happen.

It left her floundering for a way back to where they had only just tentatively managed to get. And only one question came into her mind; the one that had been causing her the most headaches of late from trying to find an answer on her own.

Because there’d been a catalyst for her reactions all those years ago; that initial action that had driven her to make the choices she had, even though she now knew they hadn’t been the right ones. And the guilt she now carried drove her to want to understand why he had disappeared when he had. The need to know growing exponentially, day by day, to almost consume her as she got to know him all over again.

And there was only one way to find an answer, wasn’t there? So the question jumped out,

“Why did you disappear?”

Kane stopped suddenly. As if an invisible wall had appeared in front of him. Then his head turned and he looked over his shoulder, his eyes focussed on a point on the ground in front of her feet, “When?”

“You know when.”

“It doesn’t really matter now. We’re making an effort to fix things. Let’s just let it go at that.”

She followed him when he stepped away again, her voice low, “I don’t think I can. I can’t go back and change things. But every action has a reaction. Maybe I might have pushed harder to make sure you knew if you’d been remotely in the area of approachable,” She laughed a nervous laugh, fully aware that she was rambling, “But you were some kind of ghost that was there one minute and gone the next. It was like you didn’t even exist anymore until you formed your company and made the announcement to the press with Mattie. Lizzie was almost three then.”

She stopped when he stopped and then took a deep breath, forcing herself to stop rambling long enough to make sense of what she was trying to say,

“So now that I know I made a mistake not finding you to tell you, I need to know. Where did you go in those missing years? What made you drop out of Trinity early?”

Kane looked over his shoulder again. A muscle in his jaw flexed, his gaze shifted from her face to focus on a random point on the stone wall beside him. And in that instant, the minute movements told Rhiannon that whatever it had been, it was something he still wasn’t entirely comfortable with.

Thick, dark lashes flickered slightly as he searched the wall, taking the time to decide whether or not to answer her most likely. So Rhiannon tried again, feeling distinctly like she was walking on eggshells as she braved another step closer to him, to where it would have taken very little effort to reach out and touch him.

Instead her arms hung redundantly at her sides, her cold fingers flexing in and out of her palms while she bit down on her bottom lip, willing him to give her a reason to understand, to complete the picture.

She really needed to know, because, for her, it was the missing part of the puzzle. And it might only have been a moment or two longer while she waited for him to answer, but it felt like an eternity.

And still he seemed to be struggling inwardly. So Rhiannon tried to make it easier, “I need to know.”

His gaze flickered briefly in her direction again, dark brow quirking, possibly in reaction to the somewhat breathless sincerity in her voice,

“It doesn’t really matter anymore, does it? We both made decisions then that we could have had no idea would stretch forward this far.”

The fact that he was trying to share in the responsibility for the mistakes that had been made softened a part of her she’d been protecting since he reappeared in her life. But it also made her need to know even stronger,

“It matters to me,” Rhiannon realized she had barely spoken the words aloud, so she cleared her throat, “The reasons I had for doing the things I did then still matter to you, don’t they? So why should your reasons be less important to me? It’s all part and parcel of the same mess.”

“Maybe,” His voice was equally as soft, held a husky edge that drew her a step closer to him, “But I’ve been thinking some and what I think is that knowing doesn’t change anything. And we’re starting to make some progress I think. Not arguing was a step in the right direction. And we agreed – this isn’t about us – it’s about Lizzie.”

“Yes, it is,” She knew he was right about that, there was too much water under the proverbial bridge, “But I still need to know.”

He turned away, forcing Rhiannon to look at the back of his head. So she sighed, and tried one last time, silently promising herself it would be the last time, she couldn’t keep showing how much it still mattered. Because he was right about that too, it shouldn’t matter anymore,

“I’ve watched you with her Kane, and the way you are reminds me of the way you used to be. You’re right; I didn’t hate you when we were together. And I don’t want to carry around all the hatred I had for you afterwards anymore either. But when you left and I found out I was pregnant, I was scared. And there was no-one for me to talk to about that because the father of my baby was gone. I got through it on my own, but I don’t think I ever forgave you for that.”

One last step, and she was right behind him, her eyes focussed on the short strands of hair against the column of his neck, “I’d really like to understand it all so I can let it go. That’s all.”

“Just like that? I tell you why I left and you put aside ten years of hating me? You have a tight control on your emotions, don’t you Rhiannon?”

She could hear the disbelieving edge of sarcastic humour to his deep voice. It was the last straw. She had tried. And no matter what thoughtful, humorous, warm or even sensual roads he made into her psyche from here on in, she would burn in hell before she’d hold out an olive branch to their past again.

So, she side stepped around his massive frame and mumbled on her way past, “Don’t ever say I didn’t try.”

She was almost through the arch when his voice sounded again, low, deep, rumbling, but with a flat matter-of-fact tone, so that she knew he still wasn’t happy with telling her the truth, “I was sick.”

Back to books

Her One And Only Valentine, is a story that started out with one premise and morphed into another and then another before it finally made it...

Initially I had the idea for linked stories based around a group of college friends, one of whom had died young and left a series of will 'provisos' that would effect the lives of all the others. But at the time I only plotted the one story. It involved a huge great country estate called Brookfield and a couple who had dated in college, but had parted and the guy had never realized the girl was pregnant. But if I'm honest, it was chock full of plot holes...

In it's next incarnation I chatted with two author buddies online about a trilogy of linked books, known as a continuity. We had hours of *fun* passing the 'bible' back and forth as we put together our pitch for the editor we were all with at the time. And all that hard work and varying suggestions from three very different perspectives and voices really tightened the story up... We each took a character from the group of friends, thought up the will proviso for each one and let our imaginations fly! But unfortunately our timing was off, and with so many continuities scheduled our pitch was a no-go...

But I loved this story. So when it was time to pitch a new Romance plot to my editor, I went back and looked at my part of the continuity, had a chat with the gals to make sure it was okay with them to pitch it as a stand-alone rather than wait what might have been years to find slots for three linked books, and thankfully they were fine with it. So pitch it as a stand-alone I did! Third time lucky!!! But it did mean a right wee bit of re-writing, the loss of every hint of linkage to other books, and a real brain-wracking to try and not make it too clichéd...

Cos secret babies are getting to be a harder sell these days I think. A father has as much of a right to access to his child as the mother. So I had to try and find a reason for Rhiannon to have kept Lizzie's father in the dark. And as always it came down to the characters, to emotions, to circumstance and the perceptions they had developed to hide the reality of their own feelings... Character driven. Just as it should be. It made for an emotional read I think. But I'll let you guys be the judge of that...

And all it took was the loss of the will provisos, the renaming of all the characters, a complete change of background for the hero and heroine - oh - and a change in the ownership of the estate. But hey... it's still called Brookfield... I guess sometimes we just have to be flexible with our stories!

Locations in this book:

Remember I talked to you about creating worlds for characters in some of my previous books? Well Her One And Only Valentine is no different...

Everywhere in Ireland there still remain large Country Estates. Some not as large as they used to be, some lying in ruins with the lands run by co-operative groups of farmers, some run by the National Trust and yes, some still under private ownership... and every one of them has a special beauty of it's own and is tied to Ireland's long and often turbulent history.

So with all that history in mind, the one constant that remained through every incarnation of this book, was Brookfield; the country house that Rhiannon inherits from her best friend Mattie. The estate that goes with it, however, now belongs to Kane Healey... And that's what forces them together...

It makes for a lovely setting, especially for the Valentine's Ball at the end! A huge country house like the one in the picture deserves an old fashioned Ball, don't you think? Yes, I thought so too. And the interior and exterior of the house gave me plenty of scope for scenes - the square courtyard at the back where the carriage horses would have been stabled, the lake in front of the house where Kane teaches Rhiannon how to skip stones (an old childhood game of mine that I could never quite get the hang of...), the old servants dormitory in the eaves where Kane sets up an office, and the vaulted ceiling stove room where Kane and Rhiannon argue and eventually 'make up'... Yup, I had tonnes of scope here...

Soundtrack playing: 

For Her One And Only Valentine I had one song in particular that added to the emotion of Kane and Rhiannon as they worked their way through the past and looked to their future... and it came from Take That's album, Beautiful World and was number one in the UK for ages!!!

'Patience' is such a lovely song, and has an 'epic', 'movie soundtrack' feel to it that I love to have when I'm writing!

You can order a copy of the album here and trust me when I tell you for writing inspiration there is more than just the one track! In fact, as we speak, it's playing again while I work on my next Modern Extra...

*All Photographs are used to give a visible rpresentation of the Authors 'view' and are in no way representative of the people or places in real life beyond the realms of the Authors imagination.

home   |   books   |   bio   |   ireland  |   tips   |    blog   |    links   |   Press Info   |  contact