Authors: Heather Graham
Handful of Dreams (34 page)
“It’s exactly a year since you first accused me of being your father’s mistress!” Susan retorted.
He smiled ruefully. “It wouldn’t have mattered if you had been. I was head over heels in love.” He rolled over, pinning her beneath him, smiling mischievously. “But I am rather glad that you did become my mistress instead.”
“Mistress?”
“Mistress, friend, lover, wife. Mother of Carl Peter or Peter Carl Lane—whichever we decide. Is that better?”
“Much! But there is one problem.”
“What’s that?”
“Carl Peter or Peter Carl just might be a girl!”
“True,” David mused. “Ah hah!”
“What?”
“Carla!”
“But what about Peter?”
“Well, that won’t really matter. Because one way or another, my love …”
“Yes?”
“He or she will be a Lane.”
“Yes,” Susan agreed.
“Well, since that’s settled…”
“Mmm?”
“Think you could handle a little more research?”
“David, one should never, never tire of research.”
Heather Graham (b. 1953) is one of the country’s most prominent authors of romance, suspense, and historical fiction. She has been writing bestselling books for nearly three decades, publishing more than 150 novels and selling more than seventy-five million copies worldwide.
Born in Florida to an Irish mother and a Scottish father, Graham attended college at the University of South Florida, where she majored in theater arts. She spent a few years making a living onstage as a back-up vocalist and dinner theater actor, but after the birth of her third child decided to seek work that would allow her to spend more time with her family.
After early efforts writing romance and horror stories, Graham sold her first novel,
When Next We Love
(1982). She went on to write nearly two dozen contemporary romance novels.
In 1989 Graham published
Sweet Savage Eden
, which initiated the Cameron family saga, an epic six-book series that sets romantic drama amid turbulent periods of American history, such as the Civil War. She revisited the nineteenth century in
Runaway
(1994), a story of passion, deception, and murder in Florida, which spawned five sequels of its own.
In the past decade, Graham has written romantic suspense novels such as
Tall, Dark, and Deadly
(1999),
Long, Lean, and Lethal
(2000), and
Dying to Have Her
(2001), as well as supernatural fiction. In 2003’s
Haunted
she created the Harrison Investigation service, a paranormal detective organization that she spun off into four Krewe of Hunters novels in 2011.
Graham lives in Florida, where she writes, scuba dives, and spends time with her husband and five children.
Graham (left) with her sister.
Graham with her family in New Orleans. Pictured left to right: Dennis Pozzessere; Zhenia Yeretskaya Pozzessere; Derek, Shayne, and Chynna Pozzessere; Heather Graham; Jason and Bryee-Annon Pozzessere; and Jeremy Gonzalez.
Graham at a photo shoot in Key West for the promotion of the Flynn Brothers trilogy.
Graham at the haunted Myrtles plantation, Francisville, Louisiana.
Graham and the Slushpile Band playing the Memnoch the Devil Ball at the Undead Con in New Orleans, 2010.
Graham with dear friend, actor Doug Jones.
Graham (third from left) with F. Paul Wilson, R. L. Stine, Jon Land, and other friends at the seventh annual ThrillerFest, held in New York City, 2011. The authors participated in the “Be Book Smart” campaign organized by Reading Is Fundamental, the nation’s oldest and largest children’s literacy organization.
Graham (seated center) with her local Romance Writers of America group in Broward County, Florida, 2011.
Graham (second from left) with fellow authors Stephen Jay Schwartz, F. Paul Wilson, and Barry Eisler participating in a panel at the Romantic Times Booklovers Convention, Los Angeles, 2011.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1986 by Heather E. Graham
Cover design by Connie Gabbert
978-1-4804-0839-5
This edition published in 2013 by Open Road Integrated Media
345 Hudson Street
New York, NY 10014
