For the Love of Pete Read online

  a cognizant v5 release august 27 2010

  You’re obviously willing to play with fire,” Pete said.

  Was she? Ten minutes ago Jo would have sworn that the opposite was true, that she never wanted to take another emotional risk in her life. But that kiss had changed everything.

  “Is that a problem?”

  Pete stared at her for a very long time before a grin spread across his face. “Not for me.”

  “Okay, then, let me get started on dinner.”

  He hesitated then. “This is just about dinner, right?”

  She wanted to throw caution completely to the wind and say no, that it was about seduction, but some lingering shred of common sense crept in. This was the man who’d almost destroyed her, after all.“It’s just about dinner,” she confirmed.

  Pete nodded. “Good to know.”

  Because he looked so sweet trying to hide his disappointment, she couldn’t resist adding, “I’ll let you know about dessert later.”

  SHERRYL WOODS

  For the Love of Pete

  Books by Sherryl Woods

  Silhouette Special Edition

  Vows

  Love #769

  Honor #775

  Cherish #781

  Kate’s Vow #823

  A Daring Vow #855

  A Vow To Love #885

  And Baby Makes Three

  A Christmas Blessing #1001

  Natural Born Daddy #1007

  The Cowboy and His Baby #1009

  The Rancher and His Unexpected Daughter #1016

  The Bridal Path

  A Ranch for Sara #1083

  Ashley’s Rebel #1087

  Danielle’s Daddy Factor #1094

  And Baby Makes Three: The Next Generation

  The Littlest Angel #1142

  Natural Born Trouble #1156

  Unexpected Mommy #1171

  The Cowgirl and the Unexpected Wedding #1208

  Natural Born Lawman #1216

  The Cowboy and His Wayward Bride #1234

  Suddenly, Annie’s Father #1268

  The Calamity Janes

  Do You Take This Rebel? #1394

  Courting the Enemy #1411

  To Catch a Thief #1418

  Wrangling the Redhead #1429

  And Baby Makes Three: The Delacourts of Texas

  The Cowboy and the New Year’s Baby #1291

  Dylan and the Baby Doctor #1309

  The Pint-Sized Secret #1333

  Marrying a Delacourt #1352

  The Delacourt Scandal #1363

  The Devaneys

  Ryan’s Place #1489

  Sean’s Reckoning #1495

  Michael’s Discovery #1513

  Patrick’s Destiny #1549

  Daniel’s Desire #1555

  Million Dollar Destinies

  Isn’t It Rich? #1597

  Priceless #1603

  Treasured #1609

  The Rose Cottage Sisters

  Three Down the Aisle #1663

  What’s Cooking? #1675

  The Laws of Attraction #1681

  For the Love of Pete #1687

  Silhouette Books

  Silhouette Summer Sizzlers 1990

  “A Bridge to Dreams”

  Maternity Leave 1998

  “The Paternity Test”

  So This Is Christmas 2002

  “The Perfect Holiday”

  The Unclaimed Baby

  The Calamity Janes

  SHERRYL WOODS

  has written more than seventy-five novels. She also operates her own bookstore, Potomac Sunrise, in Colonial Beach, Virginia. If you can’t visit Sherryl at her store, then be sure to drop her a note at P.O. Box 490326, Key Biscayne, FL 33149 or check out her Web site at www.sherrylwoods.com.

  Dear Reader,

  Of all the D’Angelo sisters, the youngest—Jo—is by far the most reluctant to run to Rose Cottage when her life falls apart. Jo knows firsthand just how powerful a pull this place by the Chesapeake Bay can have when it comes to love. She met her first love there…and had her heart broken.

  But the D’Angelo women are a force to be reckoned with when they go into protective big-sister mode, and they want Jo where they can look out for her and help her to heal. And then they inadvertently deliver up the one man most likely to remind her of just how devastating love can be.

  But this is Rose Cottage, after all, and it definitely has enough magic left to mend one more heart. In its cozy rooms, Jo remembers why she fell in love with Pete Catlett the first time, and he does everything in his power to see that she doesn’t get away a second time.

  I hope you’ve enjoyed sharing the enchantment of Rose Cottage and its effect on the D’Angelo sisters. The truth is, wherever we find love will forever be touched with magic in our memories.

  All best,

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  “Pack your bags and come to Virginia,” Ashley commanded the morning after Jo’s life had been turned upside down by her lying, cheating ex-fiancé.

  Jo sighed. She’d planned to spend the whole day in bed, licking her wounds in private, maybe eating the entire pint of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream she had stashed in the freezer. Her funk had been interrupted before it could even get going by this call from all three of her sisters. She knew they were all on the line, even though Ashley was the only one who’d spoken so far. She could hear them breathing, while they left the coaxing to their big sister.

  “How did you find out?” She thought she’d made it absolutely clear to their folks that her broken engagement was something she’d wanted to announce to her sisters herself…maybe next June, when the shock had worn off.

  Unfortunately Max and Colleen D’Angelo weren’t great at keeping quiet. They thought families should stick together in times of crisis. Her sisters had learned the lesson well. Until now, Jo had always found that comforting.

  “Nothing stays secret in this family for long,” Ashley responded, stating the obvious. “What I don’t understand is why you didn’t say something yourself. You should have called us the minute you caught James cheating.”

  “Why?” Jo grumbled. “So you could come up here and personally rip his heart out?” The image gave her a certain amount of bloodthirsty satisfaction, which she found deeply troubling. She liked to think of herself as kindhearted.

  “That or some other part of his anatomy,” Ashley said.

  “That’s precisely the reason I didn’t call,” Jo explained, shaking off the chill that had run down her spine at her sister’s words. Ashley was perfectly capable of making good on such a threat. She had the protective big sister thing down pat. “I handled it in my own way. Besides, I didn’t want all this sympathy, and I definitely don’t want to run away. The humiliation of discovering James in bed with another woman was bad enough. I won’t let him chase me off. My life is here in Boston. I’m not budging because of that scumbag.”

  In fact, this whole mess had reminded her of just how determined she was to make a life for herself in Boston. It had brought back way too many memories of another man she’d loved, another man who had cheated on her and forever ruined the love she’d once felt for Rose Cottage, her grandmother’s home in Virginia. Even now, fresh as this was, she was having a hard tim
e deciding which betrayal had been more devastating.

  Worse, even though they’d never known about that earlier disaster, Jo had anticipated exactly how her sisters would react to this one. Though she sometimes thought of herself as the odd man out—the only one whose name wasn’t somehow tied to Gone With the Wind, her Southern mother’s favorite book—she’d known they would rally around her and insist that she come to Virginia, where they could fuss over her. The scene of that heart-breaking first betrayal was the last place on Earth she wanted to be—not that her sisters had any way of knowing that. She’d kept her own counsel back then and dealt with the anguish in private. Only her beloved grandmother had known the details, and she’d honored Jo’s wishes never to discuss what had happened.

  “You may as well give in and do this gracefully,” Maggie chimed in on another extension, dismissing Jo’s protests.

  “Yes,” Melanie added. “Don’t make us come up to Boston to get you.”

  Jo’s chuckle turned into a sob. It was too late to regret her part in insisting that each of her sisters go to Rose Cottage after their lives had fallen apart. How could she explain that it was different for her without divulging the secret she’d kept from them all these years? Then the fussing would really begin in earnest.

  “I can’t,” she whispered. It was one thing for Ashley, Maggie and Melanie to make new lives for themselves in Virginia, but Rose Cottage was where Jo’s heart had been broken the first time. How could she go there to heal now, when there were so many ghosts from the past to be faced in that place? Visiting for a day or two had been difficult enough. Staying any longer, risking a chance encounter with the man she’d once loved so deeply, would be torment.

  “I’d like to know why not,” Ashley demanded. “If you can’t take the time off work, quit.”

  “Work’s not the issue,” Jo said miserably, though it didn’t surprise her that it was the first thing her big sister had thought of. Even now, with her workaholic tendencies held in check by her new husband, Ashley was still driven.

  “Then what is?” Ashley asked.

  “I’m better off here,” Jo said, knowing it was a weak response but unwilling to admit the truth. None of them knew how crazy in love she’d been during that last summer she’d spent at Rose Cottage. They’d all been busy with summer jobs back in Boston that year. She’d spent the entire summer alone with her grandmother…and with Pete.

  She’d been so sure Pete Catlett was the one. She’d believed him when he said he loved her, believed it enough to make love with him, believed it well enough when he’d promised to be waiting when she returned the following year.

  But even before the last of the autumn leaves had fallen, her grandmother had casually mentioned that Pete had gotten married. A few months later, there had been mention of a baby, too. A boy.

  She and her grandmother had both maintained the pretense that Cornelia Lindsay was doing little more than passing along local gossip about an acquaintance, but Jo had heard the compassion underlying the words, the awareness that what she was telling Jo would devastate her.

  Jo had felt utterly betrayed, especially because the young man she’d loved and trusted hadn’t even had the courage to tell her himself. Not that that would have made the pain any easier to bear, but it would have reassured her that she hadn’t misjudged him entirely, that she had mattered to him, at least for a time.

  It had taken her years to find the courage to risk her heart again, and just look what had happened, the same damn thing…or something that felt a whole lot like it.

  No, Virginia was definitely not the place for her. She needed to stay right here in Boston and bury herself in work. She liked her job as a landscape designer. She had her friends, even if none of them were as close as the sisters who were insisting she come to Rose Cottage so they could hover over her.

  “I can’t come to Virginia,” she said again, her tone flat and, she hoped, unequivocal.

  Melanie heaved an exaggerated sigh. “I guess that means we leave in the morning, right, Ash and Maggie?”

  “I can be ready by 5:00 a.m.,” Ashley said. “How about the rest of you?”

  “Absolutely,” Melanie responded.

  “Guys!” Jo protested with what she knew was wasted breath. They weren’t going to be satisfied until they’d seen her for themselves, babied her for a few days or weeks. It was the curse of being the youngest that they thought she needed extra care at a time like this.

  “You can stop us,” Ashley reminded her. “All you have to do is agree to come quietly. Settle in for the winter, Jo. It’ll be peaceful and quiet. We won’t bug you unless you want us to.”

  “That’s a joke. You’re already bugging me,” Jo pointed out.

  “Yes, but with the best intentions,” Melanie said cheerfully.

  “Let me see what I can work out,” Jo said finally. “Maybe I’ll come for the weekend so you can see that I’m not a complete basket case. James isn’t worth falling apart over.”

  She figured she could hide the truth about her aversion to Rose Cottage for a couple of days, then scamper straight back to Boston. In fact, two days seemed safe enough, however she looked at it. After all, she hadn’t run into Pete on any of her previous brief visits. She’d been very careful not to spend too much time in public.

  Though her reluctance to go places had clearly aroused her sisters’ suspicions, they’d never called her on it with more than the most cursory questions. Any hesitation she showed now, they would blame on her broken heart. They’d never guess it had anything at all to do with a long-ago relationship that had ended badly and a panicky fear that she would encounter Pete Catlett again.

  Not that her self-imposed isolation had worked all that well when it came to her own feelings. She’d been aware of Pete every second of every visit. Just driving to Rose Cottage, she’d seen his name on construction jobs all over in the small waterfront towns of White Stone and Irvington. Knowing that he had built a reputation for himself doing what he loved had only stirred mixed emotions. She wished she were a big enough person to be happy for him, but a part of her had seen that success as further evidence of betrayal. She was the one who’d encouraged him to fight for his dream, despite his mother’s insistence that he attend college instead. Now he’d achieved that dream with some other woman by his side.

  “A weekend won’t cut it,” Melanie said firmly. “We made Ashley come for three weeks. If Ms. Workaholic could do that, you ought to be able to commit for at least a month, minimum.”

  “Right,” Ashley agreed. “Besides, you work for a landscape company. How much work do you do in winter, anyway? And if you get the itch to design something, I’ll bet Mike can put you to work. He has more landscaping jobs than he can handle these days.”

  “You worked all of this out before you called, didn’t you?” Jo said, increasingly resigned to her fate. “You even have Mike in on it. Does he know you’re now hiring employees for him, Ashley?”

  “Of course,” Ashley said. “I never go into a courtroom or into an argument with you unprepared. Besides, this was Mike’s idea, right, Melanie?”

  “Absolutely,” Melanie said, speaking for her husband. “He really is swamped, Jo. You’d be doing him—and me—a favor. I’d like to see a whole lot more of my husband than I do. Come on, Jo, say yes.”

  Jo sighed.

  “Call us when you’re a couple of hours away,” Maggie said, obviously convinced that they’d won. “We’ll get a fire going and some dinner on the table. Rose Cottage is a wonderful place for you to be. It certainly did the trick for the rest of us. I can’t think of anything cozier than sitting in front of a fire and letting all your cares drift away while the snow falls outside.”

  “It snows in Boston,” she reminded them, making one last halfhearted attempt to put them off. “I hate snow.”

  “You do not,” Melanie protested. “Besides, it’s common there. It’s so rare here that it’s magical. Just wait. Maybe you’ll follow tradition and meet
the man of your dreams here, too.”

  “Whatever,” Jo said, seeing little sense in trying to shake their faith in the cottage’s magical properties when it came to romance.

  In her current mood, however, she couldn’t imagine that there was enough magic on Earth, much less at Rose Cottage, to make her feel one bit better, not about snow, and definitely not about love.

  The irony, of course, was that she was the first of the D’Angelo sisters to find the right man at Rose Cottage. She wondered what they’d think of the tradition if they knew how badly that had ended.

  Chapter One

  As if to prove her sisters’ point, snow had started falling an hour after Jo’s arrival at Rose Cottage. She stared out the window as the big, wet flakes landed on the ground. With some effort, she bit back an hysterical sob.

  “What?” Ashley asked, coming up to slide a comforting arm around her shoulders.

  Jo turned to her big sister, her eyes stinging with tears. “Do you guys have to be right about everything?” she asked in frustration.

  Ashley grinned. “Pretty much. Why?”

  “The snow’s started right on cue. Surely you don’t actually control the weather.”

  Hearing that, Melanie and Maggie rushed over to join them.

  “It’s going to be beautiful,” Melanie promised, stepping up beside her and circling an arm around Jo’s waist. “You’ll see. By morning it will be like a winter wonderland out there.”

  “And I’ll be trapped in here all by myself,” Jo grumbled, awash in an unbecoming and uncommon sea of self-pity. “I’ll have nothing to do but think.” She shuddered at the prospect. Her thoughts were not all that happy these days. She didn’t want to be alone with them.