Money is tight while Liberty Jones is growing up in Welcome, Texas, but somehow she and her mother Diana manage. Having good friends like Miss Marva, Lucy Reyes, and especially Hardy Cates, on whom Liberty has a crush, helps. Then tragedy strikes and Liberty must take care of her younger sister and find a way to support them. Hard work and determination get Liberty through cosmetology school, then, while working in a Houston salon, she meets wealthy older businessman Churchill Travis, who offers her a job as his personal assistant. At first Liberty is reluctant to accept, especially since Churchill's son, Gage, seems to think she's a gold digger. Then, just as Liberty is settling into her new life and her initially frosty relationship with Gage is heating up and turning romantic, Hardy Cates, her first unrequited love, reappears. New York Times best-seller and RITA Award winner Kleypas moves from historical romance into contemporary women's fiction with an emotionally compelling and superbly satisfying tale of family, friendship, hope, and love. Writing with wit, wisdom, and warmth, Kleypas has created a book to treasure. John Charles
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter 1
When I was four, my father died in an oil-rig accident. Daddy didn’t even work for the drilling outfit. He was a company man who wore a suit and tie when he went to inspect the production and drilling platforms. But one day he stumbled on an opening in the rig floor before setup was completed. He fell sixty feet to the platform below and died instantly, his neck broken.
It took me a long time to understand Daddy was never coming back. I waited for him for months, sitting at the front window of our house in Katy, just west of Houston.
Some days I stood at the end of the driveway to watch every car that passed. No matter how often Mama told me to quit looking for him, I couldn’t give up. I guess I thought the strength of my wanting would be enough to make him appear.
I have only a handful of memories of my father, more like impressions. He must have carried me on his shoulders a time or two—I remember the hard plane of his chest beneath my calves, the sensation of swaying high in the air, anchored by the strong pressure of his fingers around my ankles. And the coarse drifts of his hair in my hands, shiny black hair cut in layers. I can almost hear his voice singing “Arriba del Cielo,” a Mexican lullaby that always gave me sweet dreams.
There is a framed photograph of Daddy on my dresser, the only one I have. He’s wearing a Western dress shirt and jeans with creases pressed down the front, and a tooled leather belt with a silver and turquoise buckle the size of a breakfast plate. A little smile lingers in one corner of his mouth, and a dimple punctuates the smoothness of his swarthy cheek. By all accounts he was a smart man, a romantic, a hard worker with high-carat ambitions. I believe he would have accomplished great things in his life if he’d been given the gift of more years. I know so little about my father, but I’m certain he loved me. I can feel it even in those little wisps of memory.
Mama never found another man to replace Daddy. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say she found a lot of men to replace him. But hardly any of them stayed around for long. She was a beautiful woman, if not a happy one, and attracting a man was never a problem. Keeping one, however, was a different matter. By the time I was thirteen, Mama had gone through more boyfriends than I could keep track of. It was sort of a relief when she found one she decided she could stick with for a while.
They agreed they would move in together, in the east Texas town of Welcome, not far from where he’d grown up. As it turned out, Welcome was where I lost everything, and gained everything. Welcome was the place where my life was guided from one track to another, sending me to places I’d never thought of going.
On my first day at the trailer park, I wandered along a dead-end road that cut between rows of trailers lined up like piano keys. The park was a dusty grid of dead-end streets, with a newly built loop that circled around the left side. Each home sat on its own concrete pad, dressed in a skirt made of aluminum or wooden latticework. A few trailers were fronted by patches of yard, some featuring crape myrtle with blossoms crisped a pale brown and the bark shredded from the heat.
The late afternoon sun was as round and white as a paper plate tacked to the sky. Heat seemed to come equally from below as above, uncurling in visible waves from the cracked ground. Time moved at a crawl in Welcome, where people considered anything needing to be done in a hurry wasn’t worth doing. Dogs and cats spent most of the day sleeping in the hot shade, rousing only to lap a few tepid drops from the water hookups. Even the flies were slow.
An envelope containing a check crackled in the pocket of my denim cutoffs. Mama had told me to take it to the manager of Bluebonnet Ranch, Mr. Louis Sadlek, who lived at the redbrick house near the entrance of the trailer park.
My feet felt like they’d been steamed inside my shoes as I shuffled along the broken edges of asphalt. I saw a pair of older boys standing with a teenage girl, their postures relaxed and loose-limbed. The girl had a long blond ponytail with a ball of hair-sprayed bangs in the front. Her deep tan was exposed by short shorts and a tiny purple bikini top, which explained why the boys were so absorbed in conversation with her.
One of the boys was dressed in shorts and a tank top, while the other, dark-haired one wore a weathered pair of Wranglers and dirt-caked Roper boots. He stood with his weight shifted to one leg, one thumb hooked in a denim pocket, his free hand gesturing as he talked. There was something striking about his slim, rawboned form, the hard edge of his profile. His vitality was almost jarring in those heat-drowsed surroundings.
Although Texans of all ages are naturally sociable and call out to strangers without hesitation, it was obvious I was going to walk by this trio unnoticed. That was just fine with me.
But as I walked quietly along the other side of the lane, I was startled by an explosion of noise and movement. Rearing back, I was set upon by what appeared to be a pair of rabid pit bulls. They barked and snarled and peeled their lips back to reveal jagged yellow teeth. I had never been scared of dogs, but these two were obviously out for the kill.
My instincts took over, and I spun to escape. The bald soles of my old sneakers slipped on a scattering of pebbles, my feet went out from under me, and I hit the ground on my hands and knees. I let out a scream and covered my head with my arms, fully expecting to be torn to pieces. But there was the sound of an angry voice over the blood rush in my ears, and instead of teeth closing over my flesh, I felt a pair of strong hands take hold of me.
I yelped as I was turned over to look up into the face of the dark-haired boy. He gave me a swift assessing glance and turned to yell some more at the pit bulls. The dogs had retreated a few yards, their barking fading to peevish snarls.
“Go on, damn it,” the boy snapped at them. “Get your hindquarters back home and stop scaring people, you sorry pair of sh—” He checked himself and darted a quick glance at me.
The pit bulls quieted and slunk backward in a startling change of mood, pink tongues dangling like the half-curled ribbons of party balloons.
My rescuer viewed them with disgust and spoke to the boy in the tank top. “Pete, take the dogs back to Miss Marva’s.”
“They’ll git home by theirselves,” the boy protested, reluctant to part company with the blond girl in the bikini top.
“Take ’em back,” came the authoritative reply, “and tell Marva to stop leaving the damn gate open.”
While this conversation was taking place, I glanced down at my knees and saw they were oozing and peppered with gravel dust. My descent into the pit of soul-shriveling embarrassment was complete as the shock wore off and I started to cry. The harder I gulped against the tightness of my throat, the worse it became. Tears runneled from beneath my big plastic-framed glasses.
“For God’s sake . . .” I heard the boy in the tank top mutter. Heaving a sigh, he went to the dogs and grabbed them by the collars. “Come on, troublemakers.” They went with him willingly, trotting smartly on either side as if they were auditioning for the 4H state dog show.
The dark-haired boy’s attention returned to me, and his voice gentled. “Here, now . . . you’re okay. No need to cry, honey.” He plucked a red handkerchief from his back pocket and began to mop at my face. Deftly he wiped my eyes and nose and told me to blow. The handkerchief held the sharp bite of male sweat as it clamped firmly over my nose. Back then men of every age had a red handkerchief tucked in the back pocket of their jeans. I’d seen kerchiefs used as a sieve, a coffee filter, a dust mask, and once as a makeshift baby diaper.
“Don’t ever run from dogs like that.” The boy tucked the kerchief in his back pocket. “No matter how scared you are. You just look to the side and walk away real slow, understand? And shout ‘No’ in a loud voice like you mean it.”
I sniffled and nodded, staring into his shadowed face. His wide mouth held the curve of a smile that sent a quiver down to the pit of my stomach and knotted my toes inside my sneakers.
True handsomeness had escaped him by millimeters. His features were too blunt and bold, and his nose had a crook near the bridge from having been broken once. But he had a slow burn of a smile, and blue-on-blue eyes that seemed even brighter against the sun-glazed color of his skin, and a tumble of dark brown hair as shiny as mink fur.
“You got nothing to fear from those dogs,” he said. “They’re full of mischief, but as far as I know they’ve never bitten anyone. Here, take my hand.”
As he pulled me up and set me on my feet, my knees felt like they’d been set on fire. I hardly noticed the pain, I was so occupied with the fury of my heartbeat. The grip of his hand was strong around mine, his fingers dry and warm.
“Where do you live?” the boy asked. “Are you moving into the new trailer on the loop?”
“Uh-huh.” I wiped a stray tear off my chin.
“Hardy . . .” The blond girl’s voice was sweetly cajoling. “She’s all right now. Come walk me back. I got somethin’ in my room to show you.”
Hardy. So that was his name. He remained facing me, his vivid gaze shifting to the ground. It was probably just as well the girl couldn’t see the... --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition. About the Author
Lisa Kleypas is the RITA Award-winning author of many contemporary and historical romance novels, including A Wallflower Christmas, Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor, and Love in the Afternoon. Her books are published in fourteen languages and are bestsellers all over the world. Kleypas graduated from Wellesley College and published her first novel at the age of 21. In 1985, she was named Miss Massachusetts in the Miss America competition. She lives in Washington with her husband and two children. --This text refers to the mass_market edition. From the Back Cover
Lisa Kleypas has enthralled millions of readers with her powerfully seductive novels. Now she delivers a story featuring her most unforgettable characters yet....
SHE'S FROM THE WRONG SIDE OF THE TRACKS
Liberty Jones has dreams and determination that will take her far away from Welcome, Texas―if she can keep her wild heart from ruling her mind. Hardy Cates sees Liberty as completely off-limits. His own ambitions are bigger than Welcome, and Liberty is a complication he doesn't need. But something magical and potent draws them to each other, in a dangerous attraction that is stronger than both of them.
HE'S THE ONE MAN SHE CAN'T HAVE
When Hardy leaves town to pursue his plans, Liberty finds herself alone with a young sister to raise. Soon Liberty is under the spell of a billionaire tycoon―a Sugar Daddy, one might say. But the relationship goes deeper than people think, and Liberty begins to discover secrets about her own family's past.
Will they find their hearts' desires―
or will HEARTBREAK tear them apart?
Two men. One woman. A choice that can make her or break her. A woman you'll root for every step of the way. A love story you'll never forget.
"Kleypas shines." ―Romantic Times BOOKreviews (Top Pick!)
--This text refers to the mass_market edition. Review
“Kleypas shines.” ―Romantic Times BOOKreviews (Top Pick!)
“An entertaining chronicle of Liberty Jones's rise from the trailer park to life in a Texas mansion….Kleypas's many readers will root for Liberty, a fiery and likable underdog.” ―Publishers Weekly
“Lisa Kleypas's move from historical to contemporary romance is a rousing success!” ―Romance Junkies
“Kleypas's passion for the people and culture of the Lone Star State takes the reader on a highly enjoyable ride.” ―BookPage
“Sinfully pleasurable.” ―Kirkus Reviews
“A first effort as enjoyable and unusual as this one needs to be followed by many, many sequels.” ―Wordcandy.net
“An emotionally compelling and superbly satisfying tale of family, friendship, hope, and love. Writing with wit, wisdom, and warmth, Kleypas has created a book to treasure.” ―Booklist
“Kleypas is a New York Times bestselling author for a reason. As a beloved historical romance writer, she's mastered her craft, and it shows in this novel, her first work of contemporary romance and her hardcover debut. The well-rendered characters, fluid narration and skillfully composed dialogue shine, and the plot remains compelling even as it spans more than a decade of change.” ―Romantic Times BOOKreviews (Top Pick!)
--This text refers to the mass_market edition. 
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