Four Weeks to Forever Read online

  “I’m starting to feel like I can trust you.”

  “You can.”

  Colin stepped closer to Corryna, drawn to her in a way that he felt on a molecular level. “I hope you know that you can trust me, too.”

  “I think I know that.”

  “I want you, Corryna. One hundred times more than I wanted you that night, and I really, really wanted you.”

  Pink colored her cheeks, making her even more impossibly beautiful. “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want you, too, but this wouldn’t be like that night. Neither of us had anything to lose then. Now we’re working together on a wedding that is immensely important to our businesses. Sex will make everything more complicated.”

  He reached for a lock of her hair and twisted it in his fingers. “It’s just you and me. Together in my bed isn’t complicated. It sounds perfect.”

  Four Weeks to Forever by Karen Booth is part of the Texas Cattleman's Club: The Wedding series.

  Dear Reader,

  Welcome back to Royal, Texas! I’m so excited for you to read my contribution to the Texas Cattleman’s Club: The Wedding series!

  I found so much to love in this book as I was writing it. First off, I love writing florists, and Corryna, my heroine, owns a little flower shop right in the heart of downtown Royal. I so admire her determination and persistence as a small business owner and as a woman who’s had to overcome a divorce. Then there’s Colin, the Irish chef. I have quite the weakness for a rich Irish accent, especially when it’s wrapped up in a package like Colin—tall and strong, brilliant, and more than a little sure of himself.

  The conflict between these two is white-hot from the start, but I could see them together from that very first chapter. Some books are just like that—it feels like the characters are meant for each other. I hope you see some of that when you read it!

  Drop me a line anytime at [email protected] and let me know if you enjoyed Four Weeks to Forever. I love hearing from readers!

  Karen

  Four Weeks to Forever

  Karen Booth

  Karen Booth is a Midwestern girl transplanted in the South, raised on ’80s music and repeated readings of Forever… by Judy Blume. When she takes a break from the art of romance, she’s listening to music with her college-age kids or sweet-talking her husband into making her a cocktail. Learn more about Karen at karenbooth.net.

  Books by Karen Booth

  Harlequin Desire

  Texas Cattleman’s Club

  Blue Collar Billionaire

  Rancher After Midnight

  Four Weeks to Forever

  Little Black Book of Secrets

  The Problem with Playboys

  Black Tie Bachelor Bid

  How to Fake a Wedding Date

  The Sterling Wives

  Once Forbidden, Twice Tempted

  High Society Secrets

  All He Wants for Christmas

  Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com for more titles.

  You can also find Karen Booth on Facebook, along with other Harlequin Desire authors, at Facebook.com/HarlequinDesireAuthors!

  For Angela Anderson.

  Thank you for being such a stellar ambassador for romance!

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Excerpt from After Hours Agenda by Kianna Alexander

  One

  Corryna Lawson was placing a perfect peony in a bouquet when everything around her went black. The music she was listening to abruptly cut out. The light from the decades-old overhead fixtures in her floral shop disappeared. “What the hell?” she asked no one, speaking into the dark cavern that was now the back room of Royal Blooms. Hannah Waters, her main counter clerk, had gone home hours ago. Corryna liked to stay and work late, listening to music and getting lost in her designs. Her love for flowers and the artistry of arranging them were not only the reasons she’d started this business, they were also the parts of her job she never questioned. Plus, it wasn’t like she had anyone to go home to. Not anymore. Not since her divorce.

  She grabbed her phone from the worktable and switched on the flashlight function, then wound her way past the buckets of blooms and into the front of her shop. The large picture windows facing downtown Royal were black as night. By the looks of it, the businesses across the street had also lost power. She unlocked the front door and stepped outside, momentarily blinded by the headlights of passing cars. Down the block, patrons were filtering out of The Royal Diner and onto the sidewalk, seemingly just as surprised as she was. In every direction, all she saw was darkness.

  This was not good. Corryna had thousands of dollars of floral inventory sitting in the refrigerators in the back of her shop. She not only needed the blooms to fill upcoming orders, she needed them to work out the floral designs for the June nuptials of acclaimed bestselling author Xavier Noble and Hollywood actress/producer Ariana Ramos. Corryna had lived in Royal for nearly eight years, and the Nobles were long-standing pillars of the community. The wedding was more than three months away, but it was going to be the social event of the year, and Corryna was damn lucky to have such a prestigious job.

  Morgan Grandin from The Rancher’s Daughter, the upscale women’s clothing boutique next door, stepped outside. “Oh, hey, Corryna.” Morgan used a small flashlight in order to see while inserting a key into the dead bolt on her shop’s front door. “This is a real pain in the butt, isn’t it? I hate having to close early, but it was pretty slow.”

  Corryna flipped off the flashlight on her phone to save the battery. Luckily, there was enough ambient light from the moon to help her see some things, like Morgan’s fair-complected face and striking red hair. “Any idea how long the power is going to be out?” Corryna asked.

  Morgan shrugged and hooked her handbag in the crook of her elbow. “I just talked to my sister Chelsea. Her husband, Nolan, said the whole town is out. Who knows when it will be back on. I hope it’s not days.”

  “Days? But...but... I don’t have days.” Corryna couldn’t disguise the panic in her voice. She didn’t have thousands of dollars to lose. Her shop was just barely breaking even, after she paid herself her pittance of a salary. She could not let her flowers go to waste. It would be a setback that would take months to recover from. “I have to save my flowers. They’re all in my fridge which already doesn’t work that well. It’ll be a matter of hours before they start deteriorating. I have weddings this weekend. What do I do?”

  Morgan stepped closer and eyed the front of Royal Blooms. “Well, shoot. I never thought about that.”

  “Seriously. I need you to help me think. Any ideas?”

  “Uh... So you need another fridge, right?”

  “Yes. A massive one.” She so appreciated that Morgan was calm because Corryna’s anxiety was making her shoulders bind up and her stomach sour.

  “Except the power is out everywhere. So you also need a place that has a generator.”

  Dammit. Corryna blew out an exasperated breath. “Yes. Of course.”

  “They have both of those at the TCC.” Morgan was referring to the Texas Cattleman’s Club, which was the hub of social life in Royal. “But I know for a fact that their generator isn’t working. I guess they got a new one and it’s faulty.”

 
This mission was sounding more doomed at every turn. “Do you have any other ideas? I’m desperate.”

  “Who else has a fridge that big and a generator? It would have to be a restaurant.”

  As soon as Morgan said that, Corryna had her answer. The problem was she didn’t like it. In fact, she hated it. What was that old saying about desperate times calling for desperate measures? She had a feeling she was about to put that to the test. “What about Sheen?”

  Morgan reached out and grasped Corryna’s arm. “Oh, my God. Yes. They have both.”

  Morgan had so much sheer enthusiasm in her voice that it broke Corryna’s heart to think about what she was about to say. “The only problem is Colin Reynolds.” She could hardly spit out his name, she disliked him so much. The owner and head chef of Sheen was an arrogant, bristly, penny-pinching jerk. “He doesn’t like me. And the feeling is mutual.”

  “No. How is that possible? Everyone loves you.”

  “Not Colin.” Corryna knocked her head to the side. “We had two unpleasant run-ins. This was a while ago, but they were both bad.”

  “Oh, really?” Morgan did like a bit of gossip, and there was always plenty to go around in Royal.

  “Yes. The first was when he hit on me in The Silver Saddle at The Bellamy.” She’d been sitting at the bar of the tapas restaurant at the luxury resort, trying to gain some intel on who Ariana and Xavier were hiring to do their wedding flowers. “I told him that I was a lost cause and he should go chat up someone else. I thought I was being self-deprecating, but by the look on his face, he took it as a massive insult.”

  “So you’re not dating at all?”

  “Not really. I mean, I’d like to, but it has to be the right situation. I definitely don’t need a guy like Colin. Whenever he’s romantically linked to someone, it doesn’t last long.”

  “I hear he’s quite the playboy.”

  Corryna had heard the same. Colin’s reputation in Royal was notorious. Women fawned over him. They swooned. It was part of the reason it was impossible to get a reservation at Sheen. Frankly, it was embarrassing. Sure, he was far better than “good looking”—six foot five with messy, shaggy light brown hair, a square jaw and penetrating green eyes. But who wanted the arrogance that went along with the handsome exterior? “Two days later, he canceled Sheen’s contract with my shop. I took a massive hit to my bottom line. Plus, he was such an ass about it.” My customers care about my food, not your flowers. Even now, she could hear echoes of his annoyingly sexy Irish brogue. Corryna had a real weakness for a man with an accent. “He was just being vindictive. I think he figured out who I was and decided to get back at me. I don’t think his ego could handle it.”

  “I wish I could come up with another option, but I can’t. No one else has a big enough fridge for all your flowers.”

  Corryna grumbled under her breath. “Yeah. Okay. I guess I gotta do it, huh?”

  “Are you going to call him first?”

  Corryna shook her head emphatically. She was certain Colin would tell her no straight away. “I need the element of surprise. Plus, I figure if I show up with a truck full of flowers, it’ll be that much harder for him to say no.”

  “What if he isn’t there?”

  “Oh, he’ll be there. He’s a total workaholic.” Sort of like me.

  “It seems like you know a lot about this guy you supposedly hate.”

  Corryna had done some research online the night he’d canceled his account with her. She wanted to know his weak spots. Unfortunately, she couldn’t find a single one. He’d had a meteoric rise in the restaurant industry. Everyone thought he was brilliant. He made piles of money, to put on top of the fortune he’d been born into. End of story. “People talk. I listen.”

  “Well, if you want, I can help you load up your flowers,” Morgan said.

  “Really? You’d do that for me?”

  “Yeah. Of course. Let’s do it.”

  Corryna led Morgan into her shop and grabbed the keys for the delivery truck, then they started ferrying buckets of flowers out into the back alley where the vehicle was parked. Twenty minutes later, the truck was full and Corryna needed to get on her way.

  “Thank you so much, Morgan.”

  “Yeah. Of course. Good luck with Colin.”

  “Thanks. I don’t just have a feeling I’m going to need it. I know I will.” Corryna hopped in and started up the engine, then embarked on her trek to Sheen. With every traffic light in town out of commission, she had to drive with caution. Creeping down these familiar streets and roads at a snail’s pace while everything was dark left her feeling like she’d landed on another planet. Once she got closer to Sheen, even that looked peculiar. The restaurant was built entirely of glass, so it was usually brightly lit and looking like a jewel box. Not tonight. A small soft glow from the center of the building was the only indication that Colin Reynolds’s generator was indeed working.

  She pulled into the parking lot and parked right next to Colin’s ridiculously expensive show-off of a car—a black Jaguar SUV. One of the things she’d learned about Colin during her online sleuthing was that he came from incredible wealth and power. In his life, making a fortune from being a restaurateur was a family affair. As if he wasn’t already intimidating enough.

  This would have been an excellent time to chicken out, but she wasn’t about to lose her business because of a blackout. She’d just have to face the handsome jerk, do her best to hold her own, then make a swift exit. Colin Reynolds was not the sort of man she needed to spend any time at all with.

  * * *

  With his feet on his desk, Colin Reynolds was savoring another sip of his Redbreast 27-year-old Irish whiskey when headlights beamed into his office from the parking lot of his restaurant, Sheen. He immediately dropped his feet to the floor. He wasn’t expecting anyone in the middle of a blackout. Peering through the window, he saw a white delivery truck and immediately recognized the colorful Royal Blooms logo emblazoned on the side. The headlights switched off, and for a split second as the light faded, he saw Corryna Lawson climbing out of the vehicle. Was he seeing things? He was on his second glass of whiskey, and at forty-two, his eyesight wasn’t what it once was. She was wearing a white top, which made it easier to study her as she ambled toward the entrance to the restaurant. How life was full of surprises.

  He immediately headed to the front door and unlocked it. “If you’re here for dinner, we’re closed.” Even through the darkness, Corryna’s flawless complexion seemed to glow. Her sexy, radiant beauty had been the reason he’d asked her out at The Silver Saddle the first time he’d seen her. To his shock and dismay, she shot him down. He’d been turned down once or twice in his life, but Corryna’s rejection had really stung. She’d given him some line about how she was a lost cause. Any man could take one look at her and know that couldn’t be further from the truth.

  “Not here to eat. I need your help.” Her voice was icy and defensive, as if she was expecting him to say no.

  He prided himself on being at least a little unpredictable. Plus, he needed to extend an olive branch. The last time he’d seen Corryna, he’d said a few unkind things about her business. He wasn’t proud of it, but his ego was bruised and he’d lashed out. “Sure. Of course. What can I do?”

  Corryna stepped closer and narrowed her eyes. She was wearing a pair of jeans that smartly followed every sumptuous curve of her body, and the white blouse he’d noticed moments ago skimmed the contours of her breasts perfectly. Her wavy brown hair went from dark to light in a sexy tumble. He’d seen countless gorgeous women in his life, and he’d taken more than a few of them to bed. But Corryna was an exceptional beauty, in part because she seemed oblivious to it. “What’s the catch?” she asked.

  “None. You said you need help. With what?”

  “As you know, the power is out. Unlike you, I don’t have a generator. And I had thousands of
dollars of floral inventory in my cooler that I was about to lose.”

  “And you’d like to use my walk-in.”

  “If you don’t mind. Yes.”

  “Sure. Absolutely.”

  “Really?” She still didn’t seem convinced.

  “Yes. Come on now. Get on with it.” He marched past her to the rear of her truck and opened the doors. The interior light flickered on, revealing the volume of flowers she’d brought along. It was going to be tight in his fridge, but this was no time to go back on his promise.

  Corryna joined him, standing at his side. “I’m begging you to be careful. I have two weddings this weekend. Many of these flowers are for that.”

  “What makes you think I’m not going to be careful?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I seem to remember you telling me something about not caring about flowers.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that.” He grabbed several buckets and led the way into the restaurant. He trailed through the dining room then into the kitchen and back to the massive walk-in refrigerator. He set down the buckets and opened the door. A rush of frigid air hit his face. “Quickly. Can’t keep the door open long. The generator can only do so much.”

  “Got it.” She hustled into the cold room ahead of him.

  “At the back, please. Just be careful of the beef. It’s dry aging. A lot of money on those shelves.” He followed her, stealing a glimpse of her ass as she bent over to set down several buckets. It was a real shame she’d turned him down. He knew for a fact they could have a whole lot of fun together.

  “Of course I’ll be careful,” she snapped as she turned back to him.

  “No need to be angry. It’s only a suggestion.”

  She sighed and looked him in the eye. “I’m sorry. I’m a little stressed, okay?”

  He felt bad. Of course she was under strain. Until a few minutes ago, she’d thought she was going to lose the most precious thing her business could have—her inventory. “You don’t need to apologize. I’m sorry if I’m being an ass. Let’s get on with it and save your flowers.”