If I Stay Read online

  If I Stay

  By Tamara Morgan

  Ryan Lucas would rather be anywhere but Ransom Creek, Connecticut. After losing his high-adrenaline career as a Hollywood stunt driver, he’s had to tuck his tail between his legs and take up employment as a chauffeur for the Montgomerys, a wealthy hotelier family.

  Amy Sanders has returned home to Ransom Creek to take over her mother’s former position as nanny to the Montgomerys—bringing her close to dashing Jake Montgomery once again. She grew up with a major crush on Jake, and it’s not easy to leave those feelings behind, even though her friendship with the hard-edged family chauffeur, Ryan, has a sizzling undercurrent of undeniable attraction.

  Amy’s determined to prove to Ryan that life at Montgomery Manor isn’t all bad, but each time they draw closer Jake swoops in. Amy is torn between two men—and two worlds. And Ryan is rapidly coming to learn that if he wants to make Amy his, he’ll have to prove to her that life downstairs can be everything they both want.

  90,000 words

  Dear Reader,

  If there’s one thing that’s sure to tickle me every time, it’s when I ask for book recommendations via social media, and readers come back to recommend books I’ve edited or published. Most recently, readers have given me recommendations for Saved by the Bride by Fiona Lowe, Wild Ones by Kristine Wyllys and Goddess with a Blade by Lauren Dane. I’m always pleased when this happens and I think our batch of May books will be next on readers’ recommendation lists!

  We’re thrilled to welcome fan favorite Josh Lanyon back to Carina Press with Stranger on the Shore. Journalist Griffin Hadley shrugs off lawyer Pierce Mather’s objections to his investigation of a decades-old kidnapping, but it might not be so easy to shrug off the objections of someone willing to do anything to keep the past buried.

  Bestselling author Stephanie Tyler returns with another sexy, unique story set not too far into our possible post-apocalyptic future. In Salvation, when Luna leaves Defiance to rescue Bish from a rival gang, she doesn’t realize she’s the one who will end up needing saving—both from the gang and from Bish, the man who can’t wait any longer to claim her and make her his. Though this book can be read as a standalone, be sure to check out both Defiance and Redemption as well!

  There’s No Accounting for Cowboys in Leah Braemel’s sexy contemporary cowboy romance. Jake Grady relies on family accountant Paige Reynolds to bring order to his life, when family secrets throw it into chaos. Check out our new reduced-price bundle of Leah’s erotic romance duology, Texas Tangle and Tangled Past, available now.

  And speaking of sexy contemporary romance, the only woman Grand Duke Armand ever desired is her, but not every girl dreams of marrying a prince. Anna doesn’t want prince charming, she loved the man behind the crown. Can they overcome their mistakes and reclaim a love neither forgot? Don’t miss this Going Royal book by Heather Long, Some Like It Scandalous.

  Tamara Morgan joins us with the start to a new contemporary romance series in If I Stay. In this kickoff to a modern-day Downton Abbey series, the nanny to a rich hotelier family must choose between the hard-edged chauffeur who gets her pulse racing and the profligate playboy she’s loved her whole life.

  Another author kicking off a new series is Sheryl Nantus. If you’ve been looking for a unique futuristic romance series to enjoy, In the Black is being described as Firefly meets Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. What’s more unique than a heroine who’s captain of a bordello spaceship?

  Male/male author KC Burn also offers up a futuristic romance this month. Falling in love with an alien exotic dancer forces a prejudiced fleet captain to reevaluate who he is and what he believes in Voodoo ’n’ Vice.

  May is a month packed full of science fiction, fantasy and futuristic books. Cindy Spencer Pape is back with a new book in her Gaslight Chronicles, Dragons & Dirigibles (I love this title!). Airship engineer Melody MacKay is exactly the kind of emancipated woman Victor Arrington wants to keep away from his impressionable niece—that is, until smugglers start trying to kill the girl. Then Victor turns to Melody for help. If you’re new to the Gaslight Chronicles, you can start the series now with a new, reduced-price bundle of the first three books in the series. Available wherever ebooks are sold.

  Author T.D. Wilson returns to Carina Press with book two in his space opera series. In The Epherium Chronicles: Crucible, only one more jump to the new colony in the Cygni star system, but what will Captain James Hood find when he arrives—a thriving colony, dangerous enemies, or will it be in ruins?

  We’re pleased to welcome four authors to Carina Press this month. Debut author April Taylor brings us a tale of fantasy and alternate history. In Court of Conspiracy, book one of The Tudor Enigma, ordered by Anne Boleyn to protect her son, can apothecary and elemancer Luke Ballard overcome the evil sunderer who seeks to kill Henry IX at Hampton Court Palace?

  Also with a debut novel this month is historical paranormal romance author Kari Edgren. Selah Kilbrid would sacrifice everything for her birthright, except the one kiss that could destroy her in Goddess Born.

  For our mystery offering this month, debut author Rosie Claverton brings together an agoraphobic hacker and a streetwise ex-con to hunt down a serial killer in Cardiff. Don’t miss Binary Witness, the first in a new mystery series.

  Last, we’re thrilled to have author Vanessa North join us with her new male/male romance High and Tight. Deeply closeted Navy pilot Adam returns home, planning to convince his longtime lover he’s ready to commit at last, only to find Harris has moved on without him.

  Coming in June: novels from Lynda Aicher, Ava March, Christi Barth, Dana Marie Bell and more, along with a fabulous male/male contemporary romance anthology from three talented authors.

  Here’s wishing you a wonderful month of books you love, remember and recommend.

  Happy reading!

  ~Angela James

  Executive Editor, Carina Press

  Dedication

  For April, my friend and my sanity

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  “You can’t hide it from me anymore, Ryan.” A low feminine voice broke through the underlying buzz of the garage radio, which was set to play an unending stream of ’80s butt rock. “I know what’s going on here.”

  Ryan looked up from under the hood of the Giulietta Spider he was working on, his body tense. Even though there was no malice in that voice—or in the tall, sunny woman attached to it—he couldn’t help a feeling of alarm from tingling through him. How much did she know? And what had he done to give himself away?

  “Is that a fact?” he asked, forcing his lips into the semblance of a smile. When in doubt, choose reticence. It was a motto that had gotten him through many a tense situation.

  “Oh, yes. I’ve penetrated the mysteries of your deep, dark automotive secrets at last.”

  This time, his smil
e came more naturally. “I doubt that. Remember what you said when I tried explaining how the twin camshafts work?”

  “That you had a better chance of getting me to speak Greek. Backwards. After having my tongue surgically removed.” Amy Sanders peeked inside the engine and wrinkled her nose, seemingly unimpressed, as she always was, with what lay underneath the hood. If she had any idea what she was looking at, it would have impressed her—it sure impressed the hell out of him. This particular Alfa Romeo boasted an engine made for zipping along cobbled Italian roadways, all but begged for its owner to put down the top and let go.

  Sadly, all Ryan planned to do was change the oil and then take it for a sedate, low-impact journey on a fully paved side road with little traffic and no challenge. The thrills of his job never ceased to bore him.

  “I’ll never understand the concept of multiple car ownership.” Amy cast a look over the three cars parked in a row—worth a combined half of a million dollars—and shrugged. The contents of the garage represented just a fraction of the vehicles Ryan was paid to take care of, his daily share of the Montgomery collection that rotated out of the showroom behind the house, each model more impressive than the last. “If it runs, I’m happy. If it doesn’t backfire while it’s running, I’m a giant bowl of ecstatic Jell-O.”

  Ryan wiped his hands on a rag already stained with grease and gently lowered the hood, his alarm all but forgotten. The sole threat this woman posed to him right now was on his ability to focus on work—and that was a threat he was happy to face. “The only reason your car doesn’t backfire anymore is because I fixed your timing alignment last week.”

  “I know. I’m still appropriately gelatin-like over it.” Her face broke into a wide-lipped smile, bearing testament to that statement. With bright, sparkling hazel eyes and a smattering of freckles across her nose, Amy was every inch the girl next door. The annoyingly pert, always cheerful, undeniably attractive girl next door—the one he’d never, in his almost thirty years of existence, ever actually had living nearby.

  He’d had the fantasies, though. Who hadn’t?

  She hooked a thumb on the belt loop of her snugly fit jeans and swept an exaggerated appraisal over him. “You know, my mother always told me to marry a mechanic. Or, if I couldn’t manage one of those, a plumber. She said I’d save a fortune in repair bills.”

  “Your mother’s a wise woman. Does this mean you’re finally proposing?”

  “It would, but you’re technically not a mechanic.”

  His smile faltered. “I might as well be.”

  Either she didn’t notice the sudden shift in his mood, or she ignored it. “There you go again, turning me down and breaking my heart. But don’t think that lets you off the hook. I really have been watching you—and I’ve got you figured out.”

  If only it were that easy. He’d had plenty of time for self-reflection in the past two years, and even he couldn’t understand the motivation behind half the things he’d done. Stupidity, most of the time. Recklessness was pretty high up there too. In fact, the only decent thing he could have been accused of doing any time recently was maintaining a friendly distance from the woman standing opposite him.

  She shifted from one foot to another, her hip jutting out in a way that made him long to run his hands all over the curve of her ass.

  Forget decent. He was being downright fucking virtuous over here.

  “You’re ashamed of my Rabbit.” Unaware of the internal battle being waged just a few feet away, Amy gave a triumphant toss of her head, her straw-colored ponytail flipping over one shoulder. “Every time I come down to the parking lot to find it, you’ve got me buried behind at least three town cars and a limo. I see how it is. You’re putting my poor, neglected baby in a corner.”

  He was forced into a laugh, his hands up in mock surrender. “It’s not that. I swear.”

  “I bring shame to your pristine garage.”

  “It’s not my garage.”

  “I bring shame to your pristine reputation.”

  “I don’t have one of those either.”

  “There’s shame in here somewhere. I can practically taste it.”

  She wanted shame, did she? It wasn’t that hard to find—at least not when Ryan was in the vicinity. “What if I told you I blockade your car on purpose?” The tips of his ears grew only slightly warm at the confession. “That I bury it deep in automobiles so you have to come find me whenever you want to drive somewhere?”

  She broke into another of her wide smiles, offering it up as if her happiness was such a palpable, physical thing she had no choice but to share. This woman had been working at Montgomery Manor for only four months, and he’d already become addicted to the sight of that grin. He wanted to bask in it, roll in it, run his lips all over it.

  He didn’t, of course. Amy wasn’t the sort of girl you kissed behind the garage and forgot about the next day. She was the sort who required staying power.

  Hence the virtue. And his alarm at being found out in the middle of what could only be called his puppy-like adoration.

  “Now you’re just making me blush,” she teased. “Can I unbury it myself today, or is this where I bat my eyes and ask you to do it for me?”

  “Nah. You’re still parked on the far end of the lot. I got bored, so I washed all the staff cars this afternoon.”

  She stopped in the middle of pulling her keys from her purse. “All of them?”

  “I got really bored.”

  “Oh, man—you should come up to the nursery for a change. I’m still praying for the day Lily and Evan nap at the same time. It’s like they collaborate to create a timetable of mass destruction.” Her tone belied the sense that she held the Montgomery twins in anything but affection. “Naturally, since it’s my half day off, I left them as sweet and docile as lambs. They’ll probably coo and simper and charm their mother into believing I have the easiest job on the face of the planet. They’re wily, those two.”

  “I don’t think I even know where the nursery is.”

  “It’s easy. Start moving up the main stairwell. Turn right. Follow the sounds of screaming.”

  “Your screams, or the twins’?”

  Amy decided she liked that question. “All three of us, naturally. We’re thinking about starting a band. What do you think about the name Diaper Genies? It’s got the right amount of sass.”

  Ryan shook his head. “I think you need to get out more.”

  That, sadly, was truer than she cared to admit. And from the sounds of the terrible music playing on Ryan’s radio, she wasn’t alone in that regard. “That reminds me—are you coming out with the rest of the staff tonight? Holly said she has a table reserved for us at O’Twohy’s. We plan to drink and gossip and maybe, if the mood strikes, sing a few karaoke duets.”

  “Me? Nah.” Ryan shook his head at her request and turned back to his work. As his work consisted of maintaining, cleaning and occasionally driving the five dozen cars and motorcycles that were Mr. Montgomery’s pride and joy—not including his children, of course—Ryan presented a nice picture. A very nice picture.

  Growing up, Amy had always remembered the Montgomery chauffeur as a stern, austere man who wore a dark suit when he drove and mechanic coveralls for all of life’s other important moments. Ryan never wore anything but jeans and a white T-shirt, both clinging to his stocky frame and speckled with grease—and she meant that in the best way possible. The only way possible on a guy who looked like this one. His short blondish hair offset a pair of ears that had the tendency to protrude boyishly from the sides of his face; his nose—broken several times over—kinked at an angle that somehow managed to look rakish instead of menacing. And what she’d seen of his arms showcased crisscrossed scars and burn marks. Nothing catastrophic, mind you. Just enough to give him an edge.

  Few people in their cozy town of Ransom Cre
ek could claim such an edge. It was a place of rounded corners and cushioned falls.

  “You’re not much of a one for socializing, are you?” she asked.

  “I like socializing just fine. But I’m not much of a one for bars.” He paused, neither smiling nor frowning, his serious intensity making her feel a bit squirmy around the edges. “Enjoy your afternoon off, Amy. You deserve it.”

  She watched him for a moment, wondering if there was more to that statement than met her ears, but enlightenment didn’t come. The truth was—squirmy feelings and declarations of figuring this man out aside—she really didn’t know Ryan very well. Not like she knew the other members of the staff, whose birthdays and love lives and secret wishes had been untangled in a matter of weeks. Most of them were born in November. Most of them had no love lives. And most of them wished desperately that they did.

  But Ryan maintained a firm personal distance that made it difficult for her to worm her way in. He rarely joined the rest of them at lunchtime and lived in the town center instead of taking the previous chauffeur’s above-garage apartment. He never came out with them when they asked. But whenever she stopped by to chat, he always set his work aside and gave her his full attention.

  It was an odd mixture, to say the least.

  “Thanks. I intend to.” She stopped herself before she made the mistake of saying more. There was a time and a place for being a pushy busybody. The trick to being a successfully pushy busybody was discovering where that time and place collided. “I guess I’ll see you around.”

  As promised, her car sat, gleaming and polished, at the edge of the parking lot. It seemed like overkill, washing a car whose body was more covered with rust than paint, but she appreciated the sentiment all the same. She might not be fast. She might not be flashy. She might be surrounded by better built models with flawless designs and heartier engines. But this was what Amy had to work with, so work with it she did.

  She turned the keys in the ignition, enjoying the smooth start of an engine that, until recently, had creaked and groaned with overuse. Whatever secret mechanical tricks Ryan had performed to fix her car last week, she was pretty sure it included a lot more than a timing alignment.