The Cure for Love

By Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy

He’s dark, handsome, Irish, and he values his privacy.

She’s half his age, a would-be writer seeking an interview to boost her career.

When Corrie Delaney knocks on the door of the bestselling author’s private castle, she’s surprised when Finn Teague himself opens the door. And she’s stunned to find he’s not reclusive or ancient but a vital and sexy man. She brought her notebook, camera, and tape recorder but instead of an interview, he kissed her, proving the attraction was mutual.

Corrie is willing to see where this passion may lead until he asks her to marry him—a fast step she’s not quite ready to consider, even after he tells her why. Is the cure for love marriage or should she run while she still can?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Evernight
• Release date: Jun 8, 2021
• ISBN: 9780369503725

Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy

Growing up in historic St. Joseph, Missouri, Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy scribbled her stories from an early age. Her first publication – a poem on the children’s page of the local newspaper – seems to have set her fate. As a full time author, she has more than twenty full length novels published along with assorted novellas and short fiction. A contributor to more than two dozen anthologies, her credits include Chicken Soup For The Soul among many collections of short fiction. She is a member of Romance Writers of America, Missouri Writers Guild, and the Ozark Writers League. Lee Ann earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Missouri Southern State University as well as an Associate Degree from Crowder College. She has worked in broadcasting, retail, and other fields including education. She is currently a substitute school teacher. As a wife and mother of three, she spends her days penning stories, cooking, reading, and other daily duties. She currently makes her home in the Missouri Ozarks, living in what passes for suburbs in a small town.

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Published by EVERNIGHT PUBLISHING ® at Smashwords

www.evernightpublishing.com

Copyright© 2021 Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy

ISBN: 978-0-3695-0372-5

Cover Artist: Jay Aheer

Editor: CA Clauson

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

DEDICATION

For each story I write, there is a cast of many behind the scenes who uplift and encourage me, too many to list by name but they are my team and they know it well. Without them I couldn’t do what I do so thank you, to all, those who are still here and those who have gone into that unknown country from which none return. I love you all and always will.

THE CURE FOR LOVE

Romance on the Go ®

Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy

Copyright © 2021

Chapter One

Like a pedigreed bloodhound, Corrie Delaney could sniff out a good story and Finn Teague, mysterious and reclusive, would make one hell of a feature. Teague, the bestselling author of more historical novels than she could count, also offered mystery and intrigue because he was seldom seen. And, if she could swing it, Corrie would be the writer to deliver the coup no one else had managed. Such a story could provide the break she needed to move past covering school board and city council meetings as a stringer to write features as a staff writer, her longtime dream.

Avid readers around the globe waited for Teague’s latest with the unbridled anticipation of a six-year-old on Christmas Eve. To add to his legend, the man lived in a three-story castle, seldom ventured outside his ornate door, and hadn’t delivered a new novel in more than a year. Some gossip columnists vowed his career was over, that he had aged and possibly suffered from dementia. A few even speculated that he’d died, and his trusted staff refused to let anyone know. Alive or dead, infirm, or active, Corrie needed the story.

Since college, she’d made a living, often sparse, as a freelance writer. A few times, she’d flirted with the big time with bylines in top magazines, but too often her work appeared in smaller publications or even the dreaded tabloids that graced every supermarket checkout in America. Corrie’s true love was writing fiction, romance flavored stories that were more fantasy than reality. Her view had become jaded after several dead-end relationships, but somewhere under her tough exterior, a tiny little piece of her heart wanted to believe in love.

So, you don’t think he’s dead? Tabitha, her BFF and roommate, asked, sprawled across Corrie’s battered secondhand couch in her second-floor apartment in a complex whose glory days had died around the time Elvis did.

I doubt it, Corrie said, reaching for another handful of buttered popcorn from the bowl they were sharing. I mean, his staff couldn’t cover it up forever. Someone would have found out and if he is, then I want to be the one to break the story.

Need fueled that desire almost as much as want. The rent was past due and so was the payment on her ancient beater, a Honda Civic as ugly as it was reliable. They were eating popcorn instead of a meal because the cupboards were bare, and it made a filling snack. Corrie needed the story—and payment for it soon.

So why did he stop making public appearances?

That’s a damn good question, Corrie said, washing down a fistful of popcorn with cold Pepsi. And I intend to get the answer.

That’s if you get the chance for an interview.

I will, Corrie replied with more certainty than she had. She would because she didn’t have another option. Normally, she wasn’t much of a risk taker, but this time, she’d put everything on this one chance, so it had to happen.

Tabitha stretched and pushed away the remains of the popcorn. So, spill—just how do you intend to get the interview?

Now, she had no clue, but Corrie smiled. I’m working on it.

She had to come up with a plan, one that would work and soon, but how?

That question niggled and jiggled in her head for several days, in the wolf hour of the night when she should be asleep, while drinking coffee, and as she penned trite articles like Ten things to cook for less than $5 and How to find treasures in the attic for profit. She schemed and dreamed, fantasizing ways to make contact, even considered marching up to his front door and asking for an interview.

Corrie began going out of her way to go past his palatial home, a stone structure that resembled a castle. It sat on a busy thoroughfare, across from the beach, in the historical district. When it was built, it would have been far outside of the city with nothing to mar the ocean view. Now, however, a five-lane busy road and highway traveled past the massive structure and the once extensive grounds had shrunk to a small area around the house, most of it in the rear.

After a week of drive-by stalking, Corrie tossed common sense aside in