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First tagged "historical romance" by Sara Lindsey ""She is too fond of books, and it has turned her brain." ~Louisa May Alcott"
Get More Details tags: romance(3), historical fiction, historical romance, kindle free book, gold rush, san francisco, jill barnett
Product Description
The lawless, gold-hungry city of San Francisco was no place to lift a family, though Hallie Fredriksen had small choice after her mother’s remarkable death. Her father’s call to sea took him divided for months during a time, and there was no one though Hallie to lift her stubborn sisters and jaunty twin brothers. The immature Fredriksen house was a handful, though a final chairman Hallie indispensable concerned was Kit Howland, a conceited and large whaling representative who was her father’s good friend…and her possess tip crush. But Kit had been burnt by adore and suspicion himself defence to feelings of a heart, until he was face to face with a many doubtful beauty, who prisoner his heart with her suggestion and laughter. He refused to trust his feelings, refused to forget a past and step into a dangerous domain of adore and desire. Then predestine done them an present family, firm them as father and mother in furious city full of danger, where their conflict of wills and adore was as fraudulent as a inclement sea and…as stirring as a rush for gold.You competence also like...
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Product Details
- Published on: 2010-09-11
- Released on: 2010-09-11
- Format: Kindle eBook
- Number of items: 1
Editorial Reviews
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter 1
A patch of faded blue gingham hovered in a lofty branches of Abner Brown's altered apple tree. As a branches shuddered, dropping a ethereal pinkish blooms onto a weed below, Haldis Fredriksen stopped. Her gray eyes narrowed when she famous that informed swatch of cloth -- a same cloth that was apropos some-more and some-more manifest with any shiver of a tree. Grinding a heel of her feet into a soil, she incited and crept solemnly toward a tree.
Hallie edged closer, regulating a microgroove of sensuous rosebushes for cover. As she peered by a roses, she could see a checked fabric, now whipping like a dwindle in a pacific open breeze. She glanced from side to side, assuring herself that her nemesis, that unrelenting Mr. Brown, was nowhere in sight. When she was 3 feet from a tree, she straightened and planted her hands resolutely on her hips. "Liv, get down out of that tree, now!"
There was a raging rustling in a tip branches of a tree, followed by a complicated showering of apple blossoms. As a floral screen thinned, a mass of gingham skirts and blond braids tumbled to a ground. Sitting indignantly on a bed of dejected apple blossoms was Hallie's nine-year-old sister, Liv.
"Thunderation! Hallie, we frightened a separate out of me!" Liv stood up, weakly slinging a curled span of black stockings over a shoulder before attempting to sand off her debris-covered behind. "A chairman could get hurt, carrying a physique climb adult on them like that."
"I know a chairman who'll be spiteful -- and soon." Hallie incited Liv around and swatted a sand off a girl's dress a bit harder than necessary. "You swore you'd stay oft Mr. Brown's property. Here it is usually dual days after and you're behind in his tree again. Why?"
"I don't know," Liv mumbled. She gave Hallie a quick, guilty peek before she sat down and started fumbling with a curled hose.
Hallie looked down during Liv. The immature lady was tugging on a stocking over her bark-scraped leg and muttering something about crossed fingers. The steer struck a informed chord in her. It seemed that all she did newly was harangue Liv. Was she being too tough on her, or was Liv usually contrast her limits? She'd been a handful for as prolonged as Hallie could remember, though in a 3 years given their mother's death, Liv's martial opinion had worsened. Hallie had attempted logic with her, though that hadn't worked. The immature lady kept defying a rules. With Liv, we never knew what to design next. But Hallie desired her, and given of that she couldn't let Liv's insubordination go unpunished. The child indispensable a doctrine in retaining her word.
"Well, immature lady, it seems we don't know given you're doing anything lately, doesn't it?"
Liv was silent.
Hallie attempted to interpose a unrelenting tinge into her exhausted voice. "A day spent inside competence urge your memory. And while you're perplexing to remember given we pennyless your word, we can do that smoke-stack of improving sitting by my bed."
"But Hallie -- "
"And if we finish before supper, we can give a boys a bath." Hallie watched Liv's face warp into a countenance of distaste. They both knew from knowledge that showering a four-year-old twins was like being thrown from Noah's Ark -- usually forty days and nights of sleet was substantially dryer.
Liv scrambled to her feet, this time ignoring her dry derriere in an obligatory bid to make a final plea. "A chairman could get sick, stranded in a bleak residence all day, respirating that seared air." Her eyes grew vast as she combined dramatically, "And then, if she got wet, a chairman could get lung feverishness and die!"
"You're going to wish we were dead, immature lady, if we give me anymore backtalk. Now get!"
The indignant flush dirty Hallie's neck sent Liv scurrying toward home. As she dull a corner, Hallie beheld Liv's shoeless feet. She started to call a lady back, though didn't wish to risk alerting Mr. Brown. They'd been trespassing in his cherished garden prolonged enough, and if children's boots weren't so tough to come by in San Francisco, she would have been sorely tempted to usually leave them. But a memory of a final perpetual wait for a unequivocally boots Liv had so weakly deserted now sent her acid for them.
She looked around a bottom of a tree and found nothing. Poking in a few circuitously underbrush usually resulted in unfortunate a few bees. As she swatted a bugs away, she looked adult and found what she was seeking. Dangling from one of a uppermost branches of a apple tree were Liv's new shoes.
Now what? Hallie thought, anticipating some resolution other than retrieving them herself would cocktail into her mind. For as prolonged as she could remember, anything steeper than a moody of stairs had sent her into an conflict of vertigo. Her one prideful try during overcoming this debility was burnt into her memory, along with a chagrin she had suffered when she, a captain's possess daughter, had to be cut down from a tangled paraphernalia some thirty feet above a ship's deck. The unconstrained 5 mins she had spent helplessly moving from a ropes positive her to accept her weakness.
Of course, that had been 6 or 7 years ago. Maybe it had usually been a childhood fear. Didn't one grow out of such things? She was many taller now. What could be so frightening about climbing one fair-to-middling-sized tree? Besides, she reasoned, how else was she going to get those shoes?
Hallie glanced around self-consciously, meaningful she unequivocally shouldn't do it, though now she was positive that retrieving those boots somehow symbolized her presentation into womanhood.
The lowest bend was right above her head, and for, once thanking her Nordic ancestors for her stately height, she pulled her five-foot-ten-inch support onto a branch. By throwing her right leg over it, she managed to get into a sitting position. Feeling secure on her perch, she sat there grinning, astounded and unapproachable of her newfound skill.
Fortified with confidence, she reached adult and grasped a subsequent limb, pulling herself into hire position. Then she done a mistake. She looked down.
The martial seemed to arise like leavening on a prohibited day. Her prophesy confused and she wrapped her arms around a limb, holding on for all she was worth. Sucking in good breaths of air, she managed to palliate her whipping heart. Her steer privileged and she glanced around a tree, anticipating to somehow recapture her nerve. It was gone.
Stuck in her unsafe position, Hallie glared during a shoes. The bloody things were unresolved high on a branch, and their derisive plea egged her on. With one arm retaining a limb, she unequivocally solemnly stretched her giveaway arm toward a shoes. She was still a few inches shy.
She searched around for a stem to assistance extend her reach, found one, and tore it from a branch. Standing bravely on her tiptoes, she bending a split finish of a stem around a curled shoelaces. Gradually, she lowered a feet adequate so she could squeeze a toe. With a discerning tug, a leather half-boots came free, along with many of a blossoms on a high branch. Clutching a boots in one hand, she waited for a waving petals to clear, and afterwards she incited slowly, perplexing to get a improved hold on her confidence limb. Just as she started to squat, a timber burst underneath a vigour of her weight. The bend sloping neatly toward a martial and Hallie slid down a limb, stripping it of twigs and blossoms before she skidded abruptly to a ground.
"My tree! My tree!"
The high-pitched yell pierced a air, perspicacious Hallie's rattled brain. She brought one severe palm adult to brush a dim hair out of her face. There, with arms whipping like a semaphore atop Telegraph Hill, was a vehemence Abner Brown. Clad in his common black undertaker's garb, he was hopping adult and down while he whined his tree litany.
"Mr. Brown, I...uh," Hallie stammered, incompetent to voice aloud any handicapped forgive as she watched his apoplectic reaction.
His wan skin was unnervingly routine for a male in his thirties, and a sallowness done his brownish-red hair seem lank. The outrageous offshoot nose that dominated his modest face was his usually bit of color. It was splendid red. And as his jaw worked in and out, it looked to Hallie as if a male had finally grown a chin. The annoy that emanated from his cold, perspicacious eyes had a sinister peculiarity that done her spine itch, and her eyes widened as she watched his long, spare fingers form nails that she could design wrapped around her throat -- squeezing.
"Mr. Brown, we know I've shop-worn your tree." Hallie swallowed, seeing that as his annoy became some-more rabid, a gnarled Adam's apple in his prolonged throat began to twitch. "I'm contemptible -- "
"Sorry! You're sorry?" he cried, walking over to mount directly above her. "I'll tell we what's sorry! You and those unruly children. Don't have any honour during all for other people's property!" He paused and his dim blue glance incited into icy assessment.
Hallie sat solidified and fearful. But her fear subsided when he incited his calculating eyes divided and began to gait behind and onward in agitation.
"Do we comprehend we had this tree shipped from New Hampshire? It done it all a approach around a Horn, quick inclement seas and roving with that gold-seeking riffraff. It survived a final 3 San Francisco fires, and what destroys it? A corrupt famous as a Fredriksen family!" Abner stopped directly in front of her.
Hallie looked adult during his accusing finger. "I know how we feel about that tree." Oh do we know, she thought, feeling an astonishing affinity with bad Liv. She watched him lift his spindly arm and shake one finger during a sky, a gesticulate she knew from knowledge preceded one of his lectures.
"Girlie, do we comprehend this is a usually apple tree in San Francisco?"
Oh no, Hallie groaned inwardly, here it comes.
"It produces usually a glorious fruit. Back East, people compensate a tip prices for a proposal apples from this aria of tree. They come from municipality after municipality to ambience a crisp, luscious, red..."
Hallie stood while a male droned on. She knew a story good adequate from a times he'd come to a house, boring out Liv or a twins and accusing her of vouchsafing a children run wild. He called them vandalizing small urchins and pronounced she was too immature to control them. Agitated during a memory, Hallie shook out her skirts. She wasn't too young; she was roughly nineteen.
Since her fifteenth birthday her father had left her in charge; he devoted her. As captain of a whaler, he was left so many of a time that Hallie was left to sequence a roost, and her roost consisted of her dual younger sisters and her twin brothers. She attempted to give a children a normal home, though with no mother, it hadn't been easy. And their home was changing.
In a final 3 years San Francisco had grown from a exhausted small encampment to a furious and sprawling port. Hallie had watched a city fill with group who were lured by a tales of gold. And now many of those same group were so artificial that they had turn as monster as a criminals who had also swarmed West. It was hard, vital in a place where bullion feverishness gathering even a best of group crazy.
Was that partial of Liv's problem? Could she design a immature lady to act when grown group showed so small restraint? Maybe they indispensable to get divided from a assault of this city. She would speak to Da when he came home.
Hallie satisfied that Abner wasn't even looking during her, he was so enthralled, carrying reached a apex of oratory bliss. As she focussed over and picked adult a complicated shoes, her prolonged blond plat flopped over her shoulder. She flung it behind and began rummaging by a shop-worn leaflet in hunt of a vast hairpins that hold her complicated plat in a parsimonious bun. She usually found two. Shoving them into her shirt pocket, Hallie straightened.
Lord, that male loves to hear himself talk. She shook her conduct in offend and then, out of boredom, incited to consult a wreckage. She wanted to tremble when she saw a damage. There were usually a few dozen blossoms left on a fractured fruit tree, and a biggest bottom bend was pointed down toward a ground. It was roughly diverting a approach a shop-worn prong looked like a crutch. No doubt there would be small if any fruit ripening on that tree this year.
She knew she was during fault; she had many broken his tree. But a approach he was behaving -- well, it was unnatural. Of course, Abner Brown was flattering bizarre himself, kind of picayunish. And he was always talking. But then, his pursuit was passed people, and given a passed don't talk, it was small consternation he would clap on whenever he came conflicting a comfortable body.
Suddenly wakeful of her possess warmth, Hallie looked adult during a sun. Its position high in a sky indicated that many of a morning was already wasted. "Mr. Brown," she interrupted. "I'll compensate for a damage."
"You certain will, girlie. Someone your age climbing trees when we ought to be examination those -- those brats!" He sneered. "I'm going to news this vandalism!" With that pronouncement, Abner Brown carried his gump of a chin, crossed his gangly arms and waited.
Hallie deliberate his threat, meaningful it was done to dominate her. The authorities frequency had time to keep peace, many reduction means her any trouble. But Abner Brown had influence. He knew Sheriff Hayes well, given he was a usually undertaker in a city, and what with a skip of law and order, sky knew San Francisco had adequate bodies to be buried lately.
"I pronounced I'd compensate for a damage," Hallie repeated. "How many do we want?"
Abner's eyes took on a larcenous gleam. He looked during a scarcely exposed tree and afterwards toward a remains, sparse like flotsam all over a grass. He focussed down, picked, adult a freshness and began to cadence it affectionately. "Oh, we consider 5 hundred dollars ought to do it."
Five hundred dollars! Hallie swallowed, hard. The miserly bandit had her trapped, and they both knew it. He could explain to have been means to sell a fruit to a miners for that many and he was many expected right. With so many bullion exchanging hands, prices, generally for eggs and fruit, were outlandish. Men had been famous to compensate absurd amounts for wanting items.
Since she had shop-worn a tree, she felt responsible, though it stranded in her craw that he could legitimately extract that kind of income from her. She didn't need any difficulty with Da gone, and on a slim possibility that Mr. Brown could make difficulty for her and a children, Hallie didn't call his bluff. She was insane during this chiseling weasel, insane during Liv, and even madder during herself for removing into this mess.
Feeling a feverishness of her annoy effervescent onward done her endangered to get away. Giving in to it would usually make things worse. "I'll have a income for we by Friday." She forced a villainous difference past her lips and briskly walked away. Just before she reached a fringe of a yard, she listened his nasally voice.
"See that we do, girlie. See that we do."
Kit Howland crumpled a minute into a parsimonious turn and pitched it conflicting a room. Reaching over his cluttered desk, he carried a coronet lid from an ornately forged tobacco holder. His strong, dim fingers left into a inlet o0f a wooden jar as he filled and packaged his siren before jamming a bit between his teeth. Striking a flame, he illuminated a shaggy mix and began to puff, anticipating that a fume would palliate a tragedy he felt knotting inside.
His father's minute had been apologetic. He had attempted to inhibit Kit's mom and his aunt from their plan, revelation them Kit was a grown male and doing glorious on a West Coast. But his mom disturbed anyway.
Kit remembered her weeping pleading a few years ago, when he had announced his devise to pierce to San Francisco. His mother had died and her genocide had finally put an finish to their catastrophic marriage; and he'd wanted, indispensable to get away. As many as he desired his family, he couldn't stomach a empathize he saw sneaking in their eyes. Staying in New Bedford would have usually served to remind him of his unsuccessful matrimony and of a love/hate he still perversely felt for his dishonest and now passed wife.
Now, he drew deeply on a pipe, holding a rum-tainted fume in his mouth before expelling his breath. The bittersweet ambience exhilarated his mouth like a sourness of his wife's profanation burnt in his vale heart. Slamming his fist on a desktop, Kit stood and walked over to a clod of paper he had angrily thrown to a floor. Picking it up, he pulpy it open and stared, anticipating maybe he had misread a contents. Two difference loomed from a page. Aunt Madeline.
Groaning in reaction, Kit felt like a black cloud that had been shadowing him had usually unloaded. It was bad adequate that he had to compensate unreasonable storage fees while he cooled his heels watchful for a accursed businessman ship, though now his father wrote that his aunt Madeline was on residence -- something his family conveniently neglected to tell him until now. No doubt they insincere that a boat had docked and Maddie would already be billeted in his house, philanthropically mothering him. According to his father, Kit was her latest mislaid cause.
He swore loudly, relishing a recover he felt during uttering a coarse word. Where a ruin was Taber's boat anyway? The clipper should have docked weeks ago. It wasn't surprising for businessman vessels to arrive a few weeks late, and battling anything from extreme storms to windless seas done a prolonged excursion from a East Coast strenuous and unpredictable.
Having once captained his possess ship, Kit knew how nervewracking it could be, stranded in a doldrum sea, contingent on a whims of a sea stream as a usually mode to propel a ship, watchful for a breeze to once again locate a sails and speed a vessel toward a destination. Picturing his aunt on that tour brought a grin to Kit's lips. He could suppose his dynamic relations grouping a organisation about like a seasoned master. Spending those unconstrained hours with her would be intolerable to a group on board.
Kit chuckled. She could harass a continue into changing. But if Charles Taber were genuine resourceful, he would use Maddie's waving mouth to assistance blow a boat to port.
With that thought, a smiling Kit returned to his desk. He picked adult a final quarter's marketplace prices, forwarded by his father, and checked a total conflicting his stream contracts. His grin faded. Prices were dropping, that was not good news to an representative who had a leased room full of whale oil and baleen, watchful for conveyance to a factories behind East. He had betrothed his friend, Captain Jan Fredriksen, that he'd get tip dollar for a Sea Haven's final cargo. They had concluded to wait for Kit to sell a products to a tip bidder.
Kit leaned behind in his chair and chewed on his pipe, wondering when a clipper would arrive. Once a boat docked and unloaded, it would reload with Jan's goods, already consigned and waiting. What a use it would be to have those accounts staid and get out from underneath a room lease. His possess room would be built with a agent's share of a profits, alleviating a need to compensate a outrageous room rents that were now eating adult his profit.
Of course, now he had another problem. Although a ship's attainment would discharge his business problems, it would also move a new one -- his aunt. Kit accursed his luck, meaningful with his aunt's arrival, his once pacific existence would be no more.
Hallie's feet sunk into a oozing sand that masqueraded as a San Francisco street. With final night's open rain, a sandy sand had incited into a ruddy clay that done a prosaic territory of a highway roughly impassable. Hallie carried her skirts and she trudged by a boggy stuff.
In her rush to get divided from that miserly rodent of an undertaker, she had missed a wood-paved street, and now she had to slave her approach down a unpaved territory of one of San Francisco's slight streets. Reaching a lumber walkway, she stomped her feet in a fatuous try to chase a gunk from her shoes. The dirty sand was seeping by a eyelets on a inside of her leather boots, adding fuel to a glow of her already exhilarated temperament. She banged her boots a bit harder, devising it was Abner Brown's knobby throat fibbing on a gray, weathered boards.
Pacified somewhat, Hallie forsaken her skirts and marched down a corridor to a Adams Bank and Express. The doorway non-stop unexpected and she stopped. A petite, raven-haired lady emerged, dressed in an costly looking plum taffeta gown. The lady pulled a strings of her festooned purse sealed and drew a silk parasol cord off her gloved wrist. As she eyed Hallie adult and down, her facilities filled with arrogant disdain. She snapped open her parasol, and as if it would sentinel off some secret plague, wielded it in Hallie's face, forcing her behind to equivocate a edging contraption, whose pointy arise bobbed so perilously tighten to her nose.
"Well, of all a nerve!" Hallie muttered, examination a lady and her frilly armament scuttle away.
As Hallie started toward a door, she held her thoughtfulness in a window. Lord, what a mess! Thick strands of dim blond hair had transient from her prolonged plat and hung from her conduct like Medusa's snakes. She glanced down during a relaxed flannel work smock covering her dim woolen dress. It was dirty with petals and twigs. She swiped off a waste and critically eyed her clothing. Dazzling it was not.
Hallie had taken to wearing a concealing smocks roughly dual years ago, when, in a matter of months, her boyish thinness had blossomed into womanlike proportions. When she had dressed this morning, she hadn't dictated to go anywhere, though she couldn't find Liv, and so left her sixteen-year-old sister Dagny in assign of a twins and went off to lane down her venerable nine-year-old sister.
Hallie frowned during a dull smock; it done her demeanour dowdy. Little balls of wear speckled a front, and a forbidding shade of gray drew a tone from her face. Throwing counsel to a wind, Hallie stepped into a circuitously stoop, unbuttoned a overblouse, and pulled a unlucky thing over her head. She looked around and speckled an aged spittoon. Wadding a mantle into a parsimonious ball, she congested it into a coronet urn, holding her exhale and doing her best to omit a urn's acerbic contents.
She grabbed a handful of hair, pulled a dual hairpins out of her pocket, and placed them between her teeth while rambling her plat into a unilateral bun. Jabbing a pins into her curled hair, she tucked a few scraggly wisps behind her ears and glanced down during her dim dress. The soothing nap didn't censor her low bust; instead, a fabric clung to her torso before it flared downward in draping gores. No, plum taffeta it was not, though she'd make do. Hallie squared her shoulders and, with a dynamic step, entered a bank.
Miners were collected 6 low in front of a mahogany counter, and behind it stood dual men, dressed in frail white shirts and engrossed in weighing bag after bag of gold. When a hubbub spasmodic lessened, she could hear a tinkle of bullion nuggets as they spilled into a scale's dish.
Another line shaped during a conflicting to Hallie's right. She figured that this was a demonstrate station, by a bellowed names of several cities and by a group who groped their approach brazen so they could arrange to send funds.
Three desks were tangled into a room, their tops smothered with papers and dull chamois bags. The trail to one of a desks was open, and a male behind it seemed to be enthralled in a smoke-stack of papers, preoccupied to his pell-mell surroundings.
Hallie walked adult to a desk. "Excuse me, sir?"
The sound of a clearly womanlike voice rendered a room unexpected quiet. The immature male behind a table looked up, and startled, he quick rose. "Can we be of service, miss?"
"I am Miss Fredriksen. My father is Captain Jan Fredriksen of a Sea Haven. He pronounced he done arrangements for me to have entrance to his funds, if need be." Her voice seemed to relate in a room's remarkable silence.
"Just a moment, Miss Fredriksen. I'll get Mr. Adams." He walked over to a vast doorway during a behind of a room, knocked briefly, and entered.
Hallie could clarity a courtesy she was receiving, and she fell as celebrated as a nun in a bawdyhouse. She could feel a feverishness of a miners' eyes blatantly staring during her, and it was frightening. After a few prolonged seconds she crossed her arms protectively over her chest and forced herself to glance true ahead, wishing she still had a concealing confidence of her muted smock. She felt transformation around her, though before she could panic, a doorway behind a table non-stop and an comparison lady walked toward her.
"Miss Fredriksen, it's a pleasure." He stepped around a table and grasped her still tremor hand. He contingency have felt her shaking, given his countenance altered to one of concern. He assessed a situation, afterwards quelled a ogling miners with a unrelenting look. Placing her palm on his splay arm, he led her to a reserve of a room beyond.
After seating her and shutting a door, he walked around a large ash table and sat down. "Now, what can we do for you?"
Hallie looked during his kind, turn face and felt reassured. "I need 5 hundred dollars."
"I see," he said, his countenance unchanging.
He non-stop a leather-bound bill and began thumbing by a pages. Appearing to have found what he needed, he perused a page, and during those awkwardly wordless seconds, Hallie's oddity got a improved of her. She stretched her neck, perplexing to decipher, upside down, a total on a page. She was commencement to arise from her chair in her craning bid when she held his whine and quick staid behind down into her seat.
He looked up. "It seems we have a problem."
"But Mr. Adams, my father positive me he done arrangements for me to repel from his account. His voyages have been removing longer and longer, so he felt there competence be a time when we would run brief of funds. This is an emergency. we contingency have -- "
"Excuse me, Miss Fredriksen," he interrupted. "Captain Fredriksen did give me a authorization. That's not a problem. There isn't 5 hundred dollars in a account."
Hallie was stunned. "I don't understand, there should be during slightest fifteen thousand in that account. The load from my father's final excursion was value that much."
He looked behind during a book. "There haven't been any deposits for 8 months."
"But my father's representative should have eliminated a supports over dual months ago."
Mr. Adams looked concerned. "Who is his agent?"
Hallie fidgeted slightly. "Howland and Company, conflicting a street."
"Oh yes, we know Kit Howland. A glorious immature man. There contingency be some mistake. Kit is as honest as a day is long."
Kit Howland. Her stomach lurched during a discuss of that name. Oh Lord, we don't wish to face him. She could feel a exhilarated glow of annoyance inundate her neck and face. Just a suspicion of confronting him again sent tragedy speeding from her stiffened shoulders down to her fingers, pressured white from clutching a arms of her wooden chair.
"I'm certain Mr. Howland can straighten this out," he said, preoccupied to a misunderstanding effervescent by Hallie. The landowner rose from his chair. "In fact," he said, flipping open an exuberant slot watch, "I have an appointment, so I'll be happy to chaperon we over to see him right now."
Tucking a watch behind in his vest pocket, he grabbed a low-crowned shawl off a brace behind him and helped a dumbfounded and resigned Hallie from her chair.
He whisked her out of his bureau and by a pole of a bank before Hallie had a possibility to recover her restraint and find some forgive not to see Kit Howland.
Once outside, a punch of a atmosphere expelled Hallie from her stupor. Her eyes sealed on a confidant black letters of a Howland and Company sign, examination them grow incomparable as they neared a conflicting side of Montgomery Street. The landowner led her along a residence corridor that dissected a murky street, and he chattered about how easy it would many expected be to straighten this matter out. He positive her that Mr. Howland was a reasonable man, a gentleman.
Ha! Hallie thought. She remembered their final assembly vividly. The "gentleman" wasn't unequivocally reasonable then; "livid" was a some-more suitable description.
He had been a large whaling representative her father had befriended, and sixteen-year-old Hallie had taken one starry-eyed demeanour during Kit Howland and depressed low into a throes of puppy love. When a group sat down to dinner, Hallie had been so bustling staring during him in devotion that she had incidentally ladled prohibited chowder onto his lap.
Horrified during her clumsiness, she had tearfully fled to her room, exclusive a door, and refusing to come out until a subsequent day. While her father had been sympathetic, observant that Kit wasn't too indignant and he'd be glorious in a day or so, Hallie knew otherwise. Kit had looked as if he wanted to pound her. She had seen his face rose in annoy usually before a tears of chagrin blinded her vision, so afterward she done certain that she was never around when Kit was. Luckily, many of her father's business was conducted in Kit's office, so Hallie hadn't had to do too many hiding.
Mr. Adams led Hallie to a Howland and Company bureau doorway and gave her palm a kind pat. "Now, my dear, once those supports are transferred, I'll see that we get your money. You usually go right on in there and I'm certain Mr. Howland will transparent this up." He non-stop a group door, and a dim Hallie reluctantly stepped median inside.
Thinking quickly, she used a doorway to defense her from any occupants inside and she forced a respectful grin to her lips. "Thank you, sir."
Hallie watched as he doffed his shawl and incited to travel adult a street. She had stepped behind outside, formulation to run as quick as she could in a conflicting direction, when she beheld that a landowner had stopped and incited behind around. She quick stepped behind inside, peering around a doorjamb with a fake grin and lifting her palm nearby her dimpled impertinence as she wiggled her fingers during him in a farewell gesture. He stood, examination her with a undetermined demeanour on his chunky face.
Resigned to her fate, Hallie close a door. Taking a low breath, she incited slowly, scheming to accommodate a male she had astutely managed to equivocate for a final dual years.
Copyright © 1990 by Jill Barnett Stadler
Customer Reviews
Most useful patron reviews
19 of 20 people found a following examination helpful.
By A Customer
This book - like all of Jill Barnett's books - is positively hysterical. The problems that accident-prone Hallie gets into are truly hillarious and are some that we consider we can all brand with in one approach or another. I've examination this book 3 times now and any time we examination it we find things that we missed a time before. If we like her other books, afterwards this one is really a contingency have. It picks we adult and carries we divided to another place full of adventure, amusement and some-more than a small bit of romance. So fill adult a tub, flow in a Calgon and take off with this book!
6 of 6 people found a following examination helpful.
By A Customer
Hallie Fredriksen's father was mislaid during sea. To her good surprise, he had named his whaling representative friend, Kit Howland, as defender of her and her younger siblings. Three years ago, Hallie was feeling with Kit, and clumsily poured prohibited chowder in his lap. In her embarrassment, she hasn't been means to face him since. Now she will be forced to see him, and when she does, a informed stirrings return.
This time, however, her feelings are reciprocated, given Kit can't keep his hands off a beautifully grown adult Hallie. Betrayed in adore by his now defunct wife, he fights his enterprise for Hallie, intuiting a risk she represents to his hardened heart. Fate intervenes, and they have no choice though to marry. Hallie will not usually have to conflict to warp her husband's heart, though a hazard to their family puts their lives in peril.
This was an early novel by Ms. Barnett, and one of a initial books of hers we read. It was utterly good, though looking behind we can see extensive expansion in her essay given this. Kit's reason for retaining Hallie during brook is a small clichéd, though glorious writing, engaging characters, and a combined amusement eventually make a story work.
If we haven't examination anything by Ms. Barnett, we wouldn't suggest commencement with this one. Instead, try SURRENDER A DREAM, or BEWITCHING and a supplement DREAMING, all of that paint some of her best work. If you're already a fan of this author, afterwards this book is value a read.
4 of 4 people found a following examination helpful.
By Lealing
Hallie Frediksen has had a teenage vanquish on Kit Howland for a prolonged time though has avoided him given spilling soup on him dual years ago. Fate throws them together when Hallie's father is mislaid during sea and Kit is named as defender to her and her 4 younger siblings. When Kit's aunt Maddie finds Kit in Hallie's bed one morning, they are to be married immediatley to equivocate scandal. Kit agrees to marry Hallie and is irresistibly captivated to Hallie though he doesn't trust his heart to her after his prior mother cuckholded him and afterwards died in a carriage collision with her lover. Will Hallie convince Kit to open her heart to her? Will pack ever trust another woman?
Jill Barnett writes with character and it is always a fun to examination her books, that are always filled with smart banter, humorous incidents, erotic and proposal moments. Hallie and her younger siblings yield humorous antics, that we will grin at. Hallie is a clever heroine and Kit creates a caring hero. You will not be unhappy with Jill Barnett.
Lealing
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First tagged "historical romance" by Sara Lindsey ""She is too fond of books, and it has turned her brain." ~Louisa May Alcott"
Get More Details tags: romance(3), historical fiction, historical romance, kindle free book, gold rush, san francisco, jill barnett
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