Until Spring

Until Spring

Circles of Love Series

Book One

by

Pamela Browning

Award-winning Author

UNTIL SPRING

Reviews & Accolades

"A well-plotted story, plus characters that charm."

~Romantic Times

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ISBN: 978-1-61417-810-1

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Please Note

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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Copyright © 1989, 2015 by Pamela Browning All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

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Dedication

Dedicated to the memory of Jody, Sugar, Nicholas, Annabel, Lucy, Melissa, Sabby, Phoebe Sue and Skye...

...the beautiful and loving cats who slept on my desk while I wrote all those books.

Author Note

My Circles of Love series celebrates untraditional families, all brought together through the love of the hero and heroine for each other. In these four heartwarming books, each loving couple must decide what makes a family. Is family defined only by blood ties? Or is it what we feel in our hearts?

Jane and Duncan, Martha and Nick, Kate and Morgan, Sage and Adam - four couples whose love stories ultimately bring them to the realization that a family is made up of the very special people that we choose to embrace in our ever-widening Circles of Love.

P.B.

Prologue

The woman dozed west of Rawlins, Wyoming, her head lolling against the back of the seat.

She would be pretty, thought the truck driver, if only her face wasn't so thin. He jammed his foot on the accelerator. When they reached Rock Springs, maybe he'd find out what the rest of her looked like. It was hard to tell if she had much of a build underneath that tacky old coat.

She stirred and mumbled something, and then her eyes jarred open, the pupils widening as she tried to place him. There was something spacey about this chick, no doubt about it. It wasn't anything he could pin down, only a wariness or a wildness or something; he wouldn't know how to describe it. Right now she was retreating into the corner of the truck cab, almost as though she disliked him intensely. Heck, that was crazy. Females usually flocked to him. All he had to do was crook a little finger and they'd come running.

"You hungry?" he asked her, none too gently. She'd riled him by acting so standoffish.

She nodded a cautious yes, but she didn't speak. Her eyes were huge in that tiny face.

"We'll pull into a truck stop outside of Rock Springs," he said.

"I don't have any money for food," she said in a faint voice.

He lifted an eyebrow in her direction. He fancied that this expression gave him a devilish look. "It don't matter," he said. "I'll feed you—if you're nice to me."

His meaning was unmistakable. He'd meant it to be. He watched her, keeping one eye on the road.

"Let me out," she said. Her voice was weary, not feisty. That was too bad, because he liked feisty women.

"I can't put you out here," he said. "It's starting to snow, and there's no place for you to go."

"Stop the truck," she insisted. She drew her tattered garments tightly around her. The cat—he had forgotten about the cat—uttered a faint mew from somewhere inside the voluminous folds of the coat.

"Hey," he said in a jocular tone. "What's wrong with you and me having a little fun? Two strangers keeping each other warm for the night—it could be nice." He touched a placating hand to the knob of her knee, which was barely distinguishable under the coat.

"If you don't stop this truck immediately, I'm going to jump," she said, reaching for the door handle.

"Don't do that," he said, becoming alarmed.

"I mean it." She shot him a look of pure determination.

He slowed the big rig to a stop at the side of the road. "Hey, listen, lady," he began, but before he could say anything more, she had opened the door.

It happened so fast that there wasn't anything he could do to stop her. A mixture of snow and sleet swirled inside, and the woman, no bigger than a bundle of rags, tumbled out into the darkness.

"What the—" he exclaimed, jumping down from the cab. He couldn't see much of anything in this weather, and there wasn't a sign of her. With a muttered curse he walked back along the road, but it was as if she had vanished into thin air.

It confounded him that she'd proved feistier than he'd figured. He felt a grudging admiration for her spunk. He peered down the snow-covered highway embankment, trying to make out footprints or some other evidence, but didn't see anything.