ABOUT THE BOOK:
Title: Texas Homecoming
Series: Night Riders, #1
Author: Leigh Greenwood
Pub Date: April 4, 2017
ISBN: 9781492648796
She’s his last chance to find peace…
Cade,
Captain of the Night Riders, is determined to lead his men home to Texas to
recover from a long and brutal war. But when a fellow Rider betrays the team,
Cade sets aside his hopes for peace and swears he will hunt down the traitor no
matter what it takes…
He has a
foolproof plan to use the feisty Pilar diViere to lure her traitorous brother
out of hiding. And y et when he takes the dark-eyed beauty into his arms, Cade
can’t help but remember the passionate past they shared. He would do anything
for a chance to rekindle that flame…even spare her brother’s life.
EXCERPT
“Let’s go for a walk instead.”
“I don’t want to walk,” she said, angry
he’d forced her to leave the fiesta. “I can do that any time.”
“We can walk along the river. The
moonlight on the water makes it look like a river of silver.”
A walk sounded awfully dull compared to
dancing, but she’d never seen a river in the moonlight. Young ladies of
aristocratic lineage weren’t supposed to be interested in such things. Cade
made it sound very pretty. “Okay, but if I don’t like it, I want to go back to
the fiesta.”
The fruit drinks had undoubtedly
contained more tequila than she suspected. She had never felt so uninhibited,
so unfettered by tradition, so unrestrained by her grandmother’s strictures. It
felt absolutely marvelous.
“Have you walked along rivers in the
moonlight with a lot of girls?” she asked.
Cade chuckled softly. “You should ask
Owen that question.”
“I’m not interested in Owen. I’m
interested in you.” She didn’t mean it quite the way it sounded, but it was too
much trouble to explain.
“No one seemed particularly interested,”
Cade said.
Pilar couldn’t understand that. To her,
Cade seemed like exactly the kind of man a woman would want to walk with in the
moonlight. He was strong, handsome, and dependable, everything a young woman
would look for in a man.
“I can’t believe the young women you knew
were so silly.”
“Young ladies want excitement, clever
words, flattery,” he said.
“They’d want something very different if
they’d been driven out of their home and forced to cook for a living.” She
hadn’t meant to mention that, but what he said seemed so frivolous, she
couldn’t help herself.
“Some lost more than you. They just
wanted to forget.”
She would never forget. “Let’s not talk about the war. Pretend I’m one of
those silly women who pant after Owen. Tell me I’m pretty and you get lost in
my eyes.”
Pilar felt herself flush with
embarrassment. She didn’t know where those words had come from. She’d never
even thought anything so foolish in her entire life.
“You’re not pretty,” Cade said.
That’s what she got for putting words
into a man’s mouth.
“You’re beautiful. Any man would give his
right arm to be able to drown himself in your eyes.”
Pilar didn’t know what more those
Virginia beauties could want. Manuel had never said anything half so poetic.
“Your fiancé should be cut into small
pieces and fe d to the coyotes for leaving you unprotected. If I had been your
fiancé, not even loyalty to my country could have been enough to make me leave
you.”
Pilar was wise enough to know that no man
ever valued his wife above his loyalty to his country; his money or his
children perhaps, but never his wife. But the effect on her was the same as if
it had been the truth. She’d never felt so important in her life, and she liked
it.
“Would you really have stayed in Texas if
I’d been your fiancée?”
“Maybe not, but I’d have made sure you
were safe before I left.”
“Why?”
“A man protects what he values. Nothing
is more valuable than the woman a man loves.”
Pilar had never expected to be loved by
her husband, but when she was alone and faced with the future, she couldn’t
help dreaming about it. Respect and all that stuff about lineage and money
didn’t seem enough in a world that could turn cold and cruel at any moment.
“How would you show a woman you loved
her?” Pilar asked.
“Like this.” Cade took her in his arms
and kissed her.
Pilar knew that some part of her must
have been wanting this, hoping for it, but a part of her was shocked to find herself
in Cade’s embrace. That same part was even more shocked to discover how much
she wanted it, welcomed it, moved forward to meet him. Nor did she back away
from the kiss when it turned from a genteel brushing of lips to an unbridled
expression of pent -up emotions.
She didn’t know what was responsible for
the feeling that her life had suddenly turned in a new direction, had taken on
a different meaning. She didn’t know how to account for the emptiness inside
her, or the conviction that Cade was the only one who could fill it.
She only knew she’d been swept up in
Cade’s powerful embrace, and it was the most wonderful feeling of her whole
life.
She’d never imagined that anything could
feel as wonderful as this kiss. His lips were full, his mouth soft. His tongue
darted between her teeth before she knew what was happening. But even as her
conscious mind started to reject the idea, her body’s response was the opposite—and
enthusiastic. Her own tongue rose to duel with Cade’s, entwining sinuously
around his, plunging deep into his mouth.
Gradually Pilar became aware that other
parts of her body were reacting to Cade’s embrace. Her breasts—pressed hard
against his chest—had become extremely sensitive, h er nipples swollen. A
feeling unlike anything she’d ever experienced uncoiled deep in her belly, then
began to spread through her limbs, causing her muscles to go limp.
Instinctively she clung still more tightly to Cade.
Without warning, Cade broke the kiss,
took her by the shoulders, and thrust her away from him.
The shock was total.
“We have to go back to the hotel before I
forget you’re a lady I’ve promised to protect,” Cade
said.
Pila
r’s brain refused to function. She couldn’t und ersta nd what Cole was
saying. She could only understand that all comfort had suddenly been torn from
her. “What would you do if I weren’t a lady, if we didn’t have to go back to
the hotel?”
GIVEAWAY
Leigh
Greenwood is the USA Today bestselling author of the popular Seven Brides,
Cowboys, and Night Riders series. The proud father of three grown children,
Leigh resides in Charlotte, North Carolina. He never intended to be a writer,
but he found it hard to ignore the people in his head, and the only way to get
them out was to write. Visit him at www.leigh-greenwood.com.
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