Abigail Garsson feels trapped in her safe, boring, conventional life. Desperate to escape, she signs up for an adventure vacation on the Portuguese island of São Miguel.
Santos Carregado enjoys introducing tourists to his tiny island in the middle of the Atlantic. At first he barely notices the unassuming Abigail. He soon finds her meek exterior hides a vibrant woman who teases his senses and ignites his passion.
Abigail is stunned to discover the handsome, confident Santos is attracted to her, but his fiery kisses and searing caresses convince her to accept a sensuous invitation.
Will the realities of life shatter Abigail's holiday daydream? Or can the shifting sands of a short-term fling become the rock on which a life-long relationship is built?
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Her fingers bumped gently across the globe. The surface was irregular, as if it truly was a miniature world―Everest shrunk to the height of a fingernail, the waves of the oceans smoothed to an infinitesimal roughness. Its high gloss finish glared where the light from the floor lamp struck it. "Abigail?" Martin’s shoes clicked briskly across the hardwood floor.
"Your guests are wondering where you are." She kept her gaze on the globe. Guests? It was her mother’s funeral, for God’s sake, not a party. She wondered vaguely who had thought to put a globe in the serenity room of a funeral parlour. "We’re already behind schedule." His voice was firm, no-nonsense. Usually his confident control made her feel safe. Today, it grated down her spine like claws on a granite cliff. "It’s time you took your seat." She gripped the globe with the tips of her fingers and gave it a whirl. She couldn't blame her dizziness on the blurring world before her. The last few days she'd been lightheaded, disconnected, out of touch. Not that anyone would have noticed. She'd been careful to act her normal sedate, organized, earnest self. But inside she was screaming. Screaming so hard she couldn't hear herself think. "Abigail."
Impatience coloured Martin's voice. She turned her head. He stood at her shoulder, his well-cut, dark grey suit masking a desk-job belly, appropriately sober tie, his thinning blond hair brushed straight back from a high forehead. "In a minute. I need another minute." What a lie. She needed more than a minute. She needed…she wasn’t sure. But she knew she had to figure it out. And soon. "I’ve always wanted to travel. Just once, somewhere exotic, unusual." She swallowed a sob, guilt and grief rolling together. "But I couldn’t leave Mom. She hated being alone."
It had been more than a simple preference. It had been an illness, one her mother had struggled with for years. Abigail closed her eyes and stopped the globe with a finger. Squinting through her lashes, she was disappointed to see her finger well below the tip of Greenland, lost in the nothingness of the Atlantic. She spun the globe again. "Tobias is out there alone. He needs you." She hunched her shoulders, the stiff taffeta collar of her black dress scratching her neck. Martin knew her weakness. She’d do anything for her younger brother. "Tell him I’m coming." The coloured sphere revolved on its tilted axis, too fast for her eyes to follow. "In one minute." "Fine." Martin’s disapproving huff fanned her cheek.
"One minute, Abigail, and that’s all." His footsteps faded away. The globe circled, slower and slower. She closed her eyes once more, held out her finger. Taking a deep breath, she pushed forward, and stopped it. When she opened her eyes, her shoulders slumped in despair. Again she'd stopped the spin in the middle of the Atlantic. She'd been looking for a sign, and she had it. She was going nowhere. Tiny printing on the shiny surface caught her eye and she leaned forward.
There, right next to her neatly rounded fingernail with its modest clear coat of polish, was the word "Azores" surrounded by small black blobs. She paused, considering the nine tiny specs in the vast blueness, then straightened her shoulders and headed for the door. There'd be time to think in the weeks ahead. Too much time. Right now, she had to go to her mother's funeral.
They set off single file, and Santos found his eyes drawn to Abigail's trim hips, snug in her black shorts. She was the exact opposite of the bold, curvaceous, confident women he normally flirted with, but the way she attacked the hill with grit and determination struck a chord in him. And he was fascinated with her voice, the rasp of it, the way it seeped into his blood. She raised herself on the pedals for more leverage. Santos swallowed a groan at the tight, wiggly little ass directly in his line of vision.
A bike was not the most comfortable place to have an erection. He swung to the outside and pulled up next to her, away from the distraction. "Are you sure you don't want to walk for a bit?" "I can do this." She leaned over the handlebars, wobbling slightly with each determined push on the pedals, but kept her balance. "I'm going to do this." He dropped back again, keeping his eyes scrupulously on the road.
A few moments later she careened to the left, well into the lane of traffic, over corrected, and teetered back to the right. Before he could react, her handlebars caught on the high earthen berm through which the road ran and she stumbled to a stop, almost tumbling to the ground. He braked behind her. She panted with effort, head bent, chest heaving, and he watched with rising frustration. Stubborn woman. "That's enough." He swung his leg over his seat.
"We're walking." She dismounted slowly and he could see the tremors in the muscles of her thighs. "Damn it," she rasped as she pushed the bike up the hill. "Damn it, I wanted to ride it, ride it all the way." She was silent except for the hiss of her breath, and defeat dragged at her shoulders, but her eyes were dry. "Get back on," he said abruptly. She looked at him in surprise and he softened his tone. "Get back on, and I'll help you." She settled back in the saddle and he placed his hand in the small of her back. Moist heat seeped through the thin material of her shirt into his palm.
"One, two, three, go." They pushed off together and he could feel her muscles flexing with effort. "That's it, keep going." Her foot bobbled off the pedal but she quickly recovered. He concentrated grimly on pushing her up the hill. The sooner they reached the top, the sooner he could stop touching her, and the sooner he could forget his odd, irritating reaction to this wisp of a woman.
But it wouldn't be right. "We must stop. This isn't the time, or the place." "It is. It is." Her hands moved restlessly over his body, leaving a lava-like trail of need. "No, minha querida." He caught her hands, clamped them at her sides, and waited. The hectic pace of his blood cooled agonizingly slowly. Abigail's breathing steadied, and her tense muscles gradually relaxed. He loosened his grip. He couldn't see much in the dim light sneaking in the narrow window, but he thought he might have bruised her alabaster skin. "I hurt you." He skimmed a fingertip delicately along her inner thigh. "I'm sorry." "I won't break."
An oddly triumphant note in her voice drew his eyes to her face. She slouched languorously against the wall of the hut, her dress about her waist, her torso and breasts bared to his gaze. "I don't want you to treat me gently. You make me feel fierce, wild, uncontrolled." She licked her lips, swollen from his kisses. "I like it."
Brenda Margriet write contemporary romances with heroes you'd meet at the grocery store. And by that she means real-life men – sexy, smart and looking for the love of their life. Her heroines are bold, savvy and determined to accept nothing less than the man they deserve. A voracious reader since she was old enough to hold a book, Brenda's idea of the perfect holiday involves a comfortable chair near the water (ocean, lake or pool will do), a glass of wine, and a full-loaded e-reader. She lives in Northern British Columbia with her husband (as well as various finny and furry pets) and has three adult children.
www.brendamargriet.com www.facebook.com/brendamargriet @brendamargriet https://www.goodreads.com/bmargriet Amazon Author Page: amazon.com/author/brendamargriet
