Playing for Love at Deep Haven (31 page)

Thank you so
much for reading

PLAYING FOR LOVE AT DEEP HAVEN

Enchanted Places – Book One

(Violet Smith & Zach Aubrey)

Katy Regnery
loves to hear from her fans!

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For news on
upcoming Enchanted Places stories, sign up for Katy
Regnery’s
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www.katyregnery.com

Don’t miss
Katy’s
Heart of Montana
books,
published by Boroughs Publishing Group:

BY PROXY (
Heart of Montana
#1—Jenny Lindstrom’s
story)

THE CHRISTMAS
WISH (
Heart of Montana
#1.5—Tess
Branson’s story)

MIDSUMMER
SWEETHEART (
Heart of Montana
#2—Erik
Lindstrom’s story) – Soon!

Amazon link for
BY PROXY, Heart of Montana #1

Turn
the page for a sneak-peek excerpt of:

RESTORING LOVE
AT BOLTON CASTLE

Enchanted Places—Book Two

(Cora Aubrey & James Grace)

COMING FALL 2014

RESTORING LOVE
AT BOLTON CASTLE

Enchanted Places
— Book Two

(Cora Aubrey
& James Grace)

Chapter 1

Hart Island, Thousand Islands, New York

Cora Aubrey had
not worked her ass off for the past eighteen months only to have a developer
come in at the ninth hour, challenging the protected status of Bolton Castle
and getting a turncoat local judge to sign an injunction against the
restoration efforts that she’d painstakingly supervised since October.

“No,
goddammit
,” she huffed to Mitch Sellers, the president of
the Restore Bolton Castle Committee, which had hired her a year and a half ago
as their restoration architect. “It’s about to be listed on the National
Register of Historic Places. This is bullshit, Mitch!”

“Yeah, but it
wasn’t listed yet,” he sighed. “Cora, we know how hard you’ve worked, but we’re
not allowed to start work until they lift the injunction. It’s all tangled up
in arbitration now.”

“But we were
supposed to start tomorrow! Everything’s lined up. The men. The equipment.
Hundreds of thousands of dollars.”

“I know it.
Timing couldn’t be worse.”

“Don’t kid
yourself, Mitch. It can’t be a coincidence! We’re going to lose all the money you
raised! Can’t we call Washington? Get the listing completed faster?”

“I already
called. They said that they were just about to list Bolton Castle when the
injunction came through. Now they can’t do anything. Hands tied.”

Cora just about
felt steam pouring out of her ears. All her planning, all her nights without
sleep so she could finish the plans in time for the crew to break ground on the
restoration on April 1. No, they hadn’t had the official listing yet, but they
all supposed it was a matter of time. They needed the whole spring and summer
to work, or the project wouldn’t be far enough along by the time winter set in
in
the North Country.

Cora stood up
from her desk in the trailer that sat at the southernmost part of the island,
near the granite boathouse. She walked to the door and flung it open, looking
at the ruins of the building that had once been an opulent valentine from George
Bolton to his wife, Diane. Sadly she’d passed away few weeks before the castle
had been completed, and George sent a simple telegram to the workers:

STOP ALL WORK. VACATE
PREMISES IMMEDIATELY. HEART BROKEN.

The castle had
never been lived in, left to the harsh elements of the North Country for over a
hundred years.

Growing up a
forty-five-minute boat ride from Bolton Castle, in Cape Vincent, New York,
meant that Cora and her twin brother, Zach, had spent many afternoons boating
out to the remote castle. They’d tie up their little motorboat by the ancient
boathouse and explore the island. Zach, whom she loved more than anyone in the
world and who was mostly expected to practice his piano and guitar all the
time, had come alive during those magical afternoons. They knew every nook and
cranny of the castle, playhouse, boathouse, and other small outbuildings. It
was as though it had been constructed and left abandoned just to be the place
of their dreams.

Restoring it had
always been on Cora’s radar. Since she was a little girl.

And now someone
was trying to thwart her efforts. Who? Who was standing in the way of restoring
the beautiful old buildings to their former glory?

“Who’s behind
it?” she asked in a tight voice, without looking around, keeping her eyes
trained on the castle ruins before her.

“Hospitality
group called
HotStay
.” Mitch sighed loudly behind
her. “I saw the plans. They want to gut the castle, turn it into a hotel, knock
down the outbuildings, and create a golf resort and spa.”

Cora trembled
with fury.

Over my dead fucking body.

She kept her
voice calm and even. “And who filed the injunction?”

“Um . . .” She
heard the rustle of papers. “Um, a lawyer’s name here. James Grace. James
Grace, Esquire, signed the papers. With a firm called Sterling, Gifford & Grace.”

The wind whipped
up, and a crack of thunder made the little trailer shake, but Cora stood planted
in the doorway with her hands on her hips, wind tossing her dark brown hair
around her face, as the sky turned as gray as her eyes.

“Storm coming
for you, James Grace,” she whispered, nodding her head and making a promise to
the island that had hosted the happiest days of her childhood. “I can promise
you that.”

COMING FALL 2014

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

To all of my
friends on Twitter and
Facebook
, I am so excited to
share
Playing for Love at Deep Haven
with you! Thanks for your daily support and encouragement. I have the best fans
ever!

A special shout
out to Katy’s Ladies, the kindest, most amazing street team an author could ask
for. I am so grateful for all of you.

To Kim and
Jennifer at the Killion Group. Thanks for making me look good, ladies.

To Chris, Jill,
and Michelle at Boroughs Publishing Group for everything you do. I am in awe of
your talent and grateful for your support.

To Laura Becker
Smith, my official heavy metal adviser. Now I know that getting too close to
pyrotechnics, especially in indoor arenas, can burn your eyebrows off.

To my beta
reading group — Carole, Kerry, Peggy, Tricia, and Trieste — you are my miracle
workers. You turned this book around in five days, giving me fantastic notes
and helping my manuscript come into focus.

To Autumn, who
somehow managed to fit in a proofread between Christmas, New Year’s and moving
and wouldn’t accept anything but my thanks in return. I am blessed with your
friendship.

To Chris Belden
and Melissa
DeMeo
, my editors, who swooped in and
saved the day. Literally: SAVED. THE. DAY. Your insight, notes and advice were
pivotal in helping me get this book exactly where I wanted it. Every Indy
author should be lucky enough to work with a team like you.

To my parents,
who never fail to encourage and inspire. You are what true love is all about.

And finally, to
George, Henry, and Callie, my dearly beloved. The
most
important thing is kindness, and I love you all the much.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

KATY
REGNERY, winner of several 2013 regional RWA contests, has always loved telling
a good story and credits her mother with making funny, heartwarming tales come
alive throughout her childhood. A lifelong devotee of all romance writing, from
Edwardian to present-day, it was just a matter of time before Katy tried her
hand at writing a love story of her own. As it turned out, one love story
turned into a series of six
Heart of
Montana
romances, following the love lives of the Yellowstone-based
Lindstrom siblings. When Katy’s fans asked her to turn up the heat, she
cheerfully started her
Enchanted Places
series, which offers steamier romance to her readers. In addition to small-town
contemporary romance, Katy is presently writing a paranormal romance that takes
place in northern New England and the forests north of Quebec. Speaking of
forests, Katy lives in the relative wilds of northern Fairfield County,
Connecticut, where her writing room looks out at the woods, and her husband,
two young children, and two dogs create just enough cheerful chaos to remind
her that the very best love stories of all are the messy and unexpected ones.