In The Garden

By Anne Calhoun

Forbidden fruit is the most delicious...

A wedding in the bucolic English countryside offers Kelsey ripe temptation in the form of a hot groomsman, Julian. Will the illicit attraction satisfy an old craving or stoke a new desire?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Anne Calhoun
• Release date: Nov 16, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370227228

Anne Calhoun

After doing time at Fortune 500 companies on both coasts, Anne Calhoun left the corporate world and is now the author of more than a dozen novels, novellas, and short stories. Her first novel, Liberating Lacey, won the EPIC Award for Best Contemporary Erotic Romance. She holds a B.A. in English and History and an M.A. in American Studies from Columbia University. Anne lives with her family in the Midwest. 

Book preview

IN THE GARDEN

ANNE CALHOUN

In The Garden

Smashwords Edition

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Copyright © 2016 Anne Calhoun

With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher.

Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without the publisher’s permission. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000. (www.fbi.gov/ipr). Please purchase only authorized electronic or print editions and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted material. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Mr and Mrs John Sewell

request the pleasure of

your company at the marriage

of their daughter

Sophia Helen

to

Mr Martin Fairfax

at Fairfax House, Wiltshire

on Saturday, August 27, 2016

Chapter One

The pub is a solid wall of noise and people by the time I arrive. I shoulder my way into the bar, weaving between tables, past the big screen television broadcasting the rugby, to the patio overlooking the fields rolling down to the river. Sophie’s text says they’ve staked out a big table and two of the dartboards.

Kelsey, Sophie calls. She hugs me and kisses both of my cheeks. Hello, my darling girl.

Hello, my happy girl, I say, laughing. Her cheeks are flushed, her eyes bright, and no wonder. In two days she’s marrying one of the few really good men I’ve ever met.

How was your trip? No baggage? Still holding my shoulders, she checks beside and behind me. Sophie’s a toucher, even more so when she’s a little plastered.

Fine, and I left it with the bartender.

Copenhagen?

Glorious in the summer, as always. I’m technically on a business trip from New York City, efficiently bookending the long weekend of Sophie’s wedding with meetings in Copenhagen, then in London. Fortunately it’s the kind of work trip that involves lots of business dinners at charming restaurants with sidewalk seating, sharing bottles of wine. The Europeans are so…European.

Well, you’ve got a lovely weekend here. The weather looks fabulous. I’ll take you out for a walk tomorrow and show you the estate. In the meantime, come and say hello to everyone. Then we’ll get you a drink.

Everyone includes Martin’s friends from uni, Sophie’s older sister, and miscellaneous family who have descended on the charming little village of Dockery Norton for the wedding. Sophie’s been my best friend since my exchange year in college; when I moved back to the US we started trading summer holidays at my family’s farm in Pennsylvania and her family’s house on Cornwall’s coast. I’m two glasses of wine into the evening and have just started putting names to faces of extended family members when one appears, both familiar and impossible, that makes me stop mid-sentence.

Dirty blond hair, longish and swept back from his face. Brown eyes shot with gold. The build is right, broad through the shoulders, slender through the hips. The stance is right, casual, knowing, confident. The attitude is right, radiating roguish charm.