Contents
Title
Rights
Alerts
Description
Prologue
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Epilogue
New Releases
Further Reading
The Author
504LOVERS RIDGE
(A Cherry Falls Romance #18)
ADRIANE LEIGH
Copyright © 2021 BY ADRIANE LEIGH
Editing by N. Haydon.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be used or reproduced without express permission by the author unless it is for a book review. All scenarios and characters are fictional and any resemblance to real people or situations is coincidental.
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Alone in the woods, I've made a good life for myself. Living off-grid and being self-reliant has given me everything I could want. I’ve long-buried the emotions from my gritty past, covered the devastating scars, and pushed the haunted memories away until only a robot remained. And then Poppy O’Henry ruined everything.
The moment the growly, ill-mannered mountain man stepped through the doors of my flower shop, my day went from bad to worse. Arrogant and intimidating, his body is barbaric with a vicious cut to his jaw that sends quakes of fear through my veins. Maverick Wright is raw power wrapped in a cocky attitude with an even bigger ego.
Tangling with him promises to leave me broken and bruised, the ghosts that haunt his past reveal the unspeakable pain he’s suffered—is still suffering—but there’s more to his abrasive demeanor than meets the eye. A warmth that he reveals only to me. But how can forever be in the cards for us when the man that’s captivated my heart is also my father’s oldest sworn enemy?
PROLOGUE
Obsession.
The domination of one’s thoughts or ideas or feelings with a persistent image, idea, or desire.
I stood in front of the chair, throwing the old record of violin concertos across the room. It crashed into a table and toppled our wedding photo. I huffed when it fell face down on the floor.
“I know you’re here. Watching.”
I narrowed my eyes on the doorway that usually remained locked. It creaked softly in the wind now, the loose jamb clicking in the breeze before a crack of moonlight shone through. Winchester barked once, eyes on the door along with me.
“A lot of people talk about my obsession, but what about yours?” I glanced down at Winchester. His eyes flicked to me and he wagged his tail once. “I should throw out these old recordings, they only dredge up old ghosts that are better off buried.”
The wind slammed the door to the music room closed, almost in answer to my statement.
I climbed the stairs, annoyance heavying my bootsteps before I reached the door to the music room and yanked the key out of my pocket. I locked it once, checked it twice and then turned to find Winchester pointing at the small violin mounted on the wall.
Her violin.
“Winchester, leave it.” I patted his head but he remained still, eyes intent on the instrument. “Not tonight, please.”
Winchester barked once, then lay down, nose still pointed in the same direction. He did this most nights, especially in the fall and spring when the lightning storms kicked up outside. I thought he was crazy at first, but then I began to feel it too. Some kind of kinetic energy in the air that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand at attention.
“Stay then, I’ll be downstairs with dinner.”
I climbed back down the steps. Before I reached the bottom, the slow strains of violin music started again. The note stirred in my ears most nights, but the nights it stormed made the tone exponentially loud. Like a low grade hum turned to a sharpened pitch, I began to wonder if it was more than just the isolation that drove a person mad up in these mountains.
Winchester hummed once, then began to bark softly as the violin notes reached deafening tones. I turned, stomped up the stairs the way I’d come. The violin sat on the floor, upended from the wall and at Winchester’s feet.
He looked concerned, his big worried eyes holding mine.
“I can feel you,” I grit into the air. “I can feel you everywhere! Why can’t I touch you? Why won’t you let me?” I picked up the violin, smashing it against the wall in a fit of anger.
It splintered against the wall and I regretted it instantly.
Her prized possession, the very thing that’d come to possess me.
Emotion boiled to a fever pitch inside of me before I scooped the wooden pieces and strings into my hands and stomped down the stairs. Winchester followed hot on my heels.
Into the cloudy mist we charged out, around the feathery evergreen boughs that hung over the driveway, down the corner and to the overlook. From this vantage point I could see all of the bay, the marina of Cherry Falls lit with bustling life even in the middle of the night.
I groaned, wondering if my obsession had ruined me. Wetness slid down my cheeks before I launched the broken pieces over the cliff.
But the shattered fragments of my haunted memories remained.
I turned to head back to the house, Winchester trotting ahead of me, before we both stopped dead in our tracks.
Clinging at the edges of the evergreens, almost floating out of the mist, a figure appeared.
“Mav.”
I shook my head, shoved a hand over my face and tried to rub away the vision of her in my mind. Words pounded through my skull, desperate words like duty and loyalty and honor and legacy and death. There’d been so much death.
You can’t ignore this forever. You can’t ignore this forever. You can’t ignore this forever chanted on repeat in my mind, like the chorus to a bad pop song.
“It’s my fault you're dead!” I called into the wilderness. “It’s my fault you're dead...” I repeated as I dropped to my knees, rocks biting at my skin through the worn denim. “I’ll always be your murderer.”
CHAPTER ONE
Maverick
“Maverick Wright, you grouchy bastard, how many times do I
