Release Day: PLEASANCE'S FIRST LOVE

I'm pleased to announce my contribution to Grandma's Wedding Quilts is now available! Pleasance's First Love is 66% off until midnight tonight. Grab it for kindle before the price goes up!

Colorado, 1879

His worst mistake was letting her go.
His second-worst mistake? Bringing her home.

No one will ever know how badly Pleasance Benton's abandonment threw Jacob Gideon. He landed hard, hard enough he didn't care to find a replacement. Now that he needs a woman, he figures the safest way is to order one from a catalog.

Pleasance is back to reclaim her rightful place at Jacob's side. One way or another she'll remind him theirs is a match made in heaven...once the shock wears off. The teensy-weensy problem? Jacob doesn't know that she--his first love--is his catalog bride.

He didn’t want her.

A tremendous, awful ache burned. Fire chewed at her resolve to see this through, to rebuild a new life with him from the ashes of the former.

Was this how he’d felt when she’d left?

She’d been traveling to something, not away from him. But he’d not understood.

“Give me one good reason,” Jacob challenged, his voice low and menacing, “why I should let you stay.”

The warm summer sun could do nothing to banish the sudden chill.

His love letters had been matter of fact. A business transaction. Well then, she’d let this be a business transaction. “You want one good reason?”

He’d braced his forearms on his knees, effectively blocking her out. He faced the road ahead, turned his head just enough to glare at her through narrowed eyes.

He gave no reply.

“You want one answer.” Love for this man, her man had never left her. He was hers, and it was high time he accepted that. “I’ll give you three.”

He tensed.

“One: every word I wrote was the bald truth and you chose me.” He’d said as much, in his letters. He’d had nearly twenty replies through the matrimonial agency he’d enlisted to find his bride. He’d selected her.

“Second, you must marry to meet the bankers’ stipulations and secure the loan you need.” He’d written all about the ranch, his plans, and the roadblock in his way.

He shook his head, rejecting her reasons.

She wouldn’t let him gain the upper hand. She surged ahead, determined he would hear her reasons. “Most important of all,” she insisted, vehement, “the passion between us has not dimmed.”

Without giving him a moment’s warning, she tossed herself into his arms. She would kiss him with all the longing four tortured years had inspired, and prove nothing had changed.

She landed across his knee. As if by reflex, he caught her close.

She fit in his arms perfectly. The first touch in four anguished years banished the chill. Heat engulfed her.

Breath left his lungs. He moaned.

Or maybe she had.

Either way, one of them started the kiss—the fire and zest and love—all still there. She’d dreamed of him, wanted his kisses, missed him so desperately…

This first reunion kiss was…amazing.

The rasp of his beard awakened her senses. The fullness of his lips reminded her of every kiss, every touch, an entire history of courtship and love binding them together.

He kissed her as if he were starving, and she, his only sustenance.

            She’d come home.

His kiss intensified, deepened, made her forget—almost—they were in the open, in public. Anyone could witness this private, beautiful exchange.

One kiss became five. His hands swept her back, and eventually settled upon her hips. She’d locked her arms about his neck early on, and she wished she’d removed her gloves. She wanted to feel the silk of his hair and heat of his skin.

Gloves were such a nuisance.

Jacob must have remembered they were in his wagon. On the side of the road to Leadville.

He stopped kissing her, holding her, loving her.

Reluctantly, she allowed him to set her aside. She shivered.

Banked fire simmered in his familiar, beautiful eyes. Not blue, not green, not gray. Their own gloriously light-filled shade of wonderful. “I don’t trust you.”

The powerful kisses had burned his anger to ash.

“I know.” He wouldn’t trust her for a long while. She knew that. Just as she knew everything about this dear, wonderful man.

He stared at the road ahead. “I don’t want to marry you.”

She clutched. His kisses, the heat between them had reminded her of everything they’d once had, of the love brimming between them. Of their last fight—

“I know.” She understood. Truly, she didn’t expect better. He’d written to Ann Robbins. He’d proposed marriage to Ann Robbins. He’d built a level of reserved trust, with Ann Robbins.

If Ann weren’t she and she weren’t Ann, Pleasance would have known a fit of jealousy sharper than the day she’d received a letter from dear Mrs. O’Kane, telling her Jacob sought a catalog bride.

She’d known in that moment what she must do.

         “I’m here to stay, Jacob. You sent for me, proposed marriage, and I agreed. I’m here to marry you.”

Copyright © 2017 Kristin Holt LC

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To learn more about Kristin Holt, visit her Sweet Americana Sweethearts author page: CLICK HERE.

Hi! I'm Kristin Holt, USA Today Bestselling Author.

I write frequent articles (or view recent posts easily on my Home Page, scroll down) about the nineteenth century American West–every subject of possible interest to readers, amateur historians, authors…as all of these tidbits surfaced while researching for my books. I also blog monthly at SweetRomance Reads, Sweet AmericanaSweethearts, and Romancing theGenres.

I love to hear from readers! Please drop me a note. Or find me on Facebook.

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