"A sensual sizzler full of scalding sex and an exciting mystery."
Reviewed by Kay Quintin
Posted May 13, 2010
Romance Contemporary | Romance Series
Jillian Brightman, with her sisters Naomi and Reese , now
own Haworth House, a supposedly haunted tower house in
Belle Bay. After much renovation, they have pooled their
talents to open a B&B with beautiful antiques, terrific
food and a fantastic view of the enormous cliffs along the
Atlantic Ocean. The ghost, Hattie Haworth, was a silent
movie star and recluse who died in the house. The tower
room houses a large antique beveled mirror and a hidden
room hiding a hatbox filled with sexual fantasies belonging
to the deceased Hattie. Jillian's fantasy, pulled from the
hatbox, involves "sensory delights when swept away by a
stranger." Several mysterious incidents occur that has hunky Ian
MacFarland, a former analyst for the CIA, called in to pose
incognito as Jack Ryan, a writer doing research on the
historic tower house. At first eye contact, Jillian knows
this is her fantasy. Hired by her friend, Jillian knows
nothing of Ian's true reason for being there. They are
almost immediately involved in hot, erotic sex in risky
public places. Ian's cover is revealed to Jillian and they
join forces to solve the mystery of an old murder, while
trying to prevent their own deaths from vicious attacks at
every corner. Cara Summers has written a sizzler full of scalding
sex and exciting mystery. The culprit in the story will
certainly be a surprise when revealed. As you delve into
the clues given, your imagination conjures all sorts of
scenarios about the killer and the motive. Definitely
a "keep- you-guessing" mystery.
SUMMARY
Jillian Brightman has a forbidden fantasy. She's always
dreamed of being swept away and seduced by a mysterious
stranger. But the resort she owns with her sisters keeps
her too busy to indulge in any kind of fantasy, let alone
a forbidden one. At least, until Ian MacFarland comes to Belle Island. And
once she sees him, Jillian knows he's the perfect man for
a onetime indulgence…no strings attached. Only Ian wants a lot more. And each moment Jillian spends
moaning under his touch, she realizes one night won't be
enough. Ian is fulfilling cravings she never dreamed she
had. Could this be more than a fling? It might be — if Ian was actually the man he said he was….
ExcerptFourteen months earlierThe moment Jillian stepped into the tower room, she knew she
wasn't alone. It wasn't just the steady dip in the
temperature as she'd climbed the circular iron
staircase. Although that was a big clue. According to the
research she'd done, haunted houses were known for those
cold spots. Another big clue was she suddenly had goose bumps and the
hairs on the back of her neck were snapping to attention
like soldiers at the first sound of reveille. Jillian peered into the gloom. The grime on the windows that
circled the outer wall cut down on the amount of sunlight.
But there was definitely someone else here. "Hello?" The only answer was the muted sound of the Atlantic sweeping
into the rocks below. "I'm not a trespasser," she said. "The real
estate agent gave me the key." No response. "She gave it to me because I'm one of the new
owners. My sisters and I put in a purchase offer and it was
accepted today." The air shimmered. She was certain of it. Encouraged, she
took another tentative step. Sensing the presence of an incorporeal being was a first for
Jillian. And it kicked up her heartbeat considerably. A
ghost-buster she wasn't. Or at least she never had been. What she had been was an avid reader of the Nancy Drew
mysteries when she was a child. She'd always admired
Nancy's fearlessness and her ability to take on
challenges. At one point in her life, she'd wanted to
be Nancy Drew. Right now, she'd settle for a
little of the teenage sleuth's luck. Because there was a ghost in Haworth House, and Jillian was
sure she was here in the tower. Hattie Haworth was her name.
Belle Island's top real estate agent Vivian Thorley had
told her the story when she'd given her a tour of the
property and Jillian had asked why the door to the tower
levels was boarded up. Vivian's tone had been prim and proper. "I'm
bound by full disclosure to let you know that the second
owners of Haworth House believed that the place was
haunted." The original owner, Hattie, was a successful silent-film
star who'd been dropped by her studio and her husband
when she'd failed to make the transition to talkies.
According to Vivian, Hattie had sought refuge at Belle
Island and had lived in seclusion at Haworth House before
she'd passed away. "And ever since the tower room was boarded up, there
haven't been any complaints," Vivian had assured
her. And she'd quickly steered Jillian back into the
sunny open courtyard at the center of the old stone
mansion—where the view of the Atlantic could work its magic. Drawing in a deep breath, Jillian moved a little farther
into the tower room. When the agent had told her the story,
she'd felt an instant empathy for the silent-film star.
"I think it's awful that they've kept you
boarded up all of these years." Of course, she hadn't mentioned the ghost in her phone
calls to her sisters. Why muddy the waters? The important
thing had been to sell them on the idea that Haworth House
was the perfect spot for their business venture. And she had. Nerves danced in her stomach as she glanced around the room
again. She'd taken risks before, but never one this big,
and never one that had involved anyone but herself. Still, she'd known from the first instant she'd seen
the stone tower rising into the sky that this was the
perfect place for them. Now, all she had to do was convince Hattie Haworth. Taking a
deep breath, she said, "I wanted to give you a little
heads-up. My sisters and I plan on turning Haworth into a
luxury hotel." No response. "We've had this dream of going into business with
one another since we were in our teens. In fact we took a
vow to do just that." And turning Haworth House into a
hotel would allow the Brightman sisters to fulfill that vow. Naomi had been a senior in high school, applying to
colleges, when she'd come up with the idea that they
should go into business together one day. Her older sister
had been four, she'd been two and Reese had been a baby
when their father had left them with the nuns who ran the
boarding school. It was supposed to be a temporary arrangement. He was still
recovering from their mother's death, and he needed some
time. He'd been on his way to collect them when his car
had gone off a cliff near Monte Carlo. The nuns had kept
them, and she and her sisters had grown up inseparable. But
Naomi, always practical, had foreseen that their career
paths were going to separate them. She'd chosen business
and law, Reese had already known she wanted to be a chef,
and Jillian's heart had been set a little more vaguely
on travel and art. "This hotel idea is not some kind of harebrained
scheme," she continued as she strolled around the room.
Up close, she could see that the toile in the faded silk
draperies could only have been imported from France.
Delighted, she moved on to inspect some of the furniture,
continuing to talk as she went. Keeping up the one-sided
conversation was easing her nerves. "Naomi works at this law firm in Boston and she's
handling the business side. Reese, my younger sister, is a
five-star chef. Amazing. She'll handle the kitchen. And
I'm going to handle the interior design." She might
not have been as focused as early on as her sisters had
been, but she knew what she wanted now. And Haworth House
would be the perfect place to launch her career. Pausing, she ran her hand over what she was sure was a Queen
Anne desk. "Some of the pieces you have here are
lovely." There was another little shimmer in the air. She moved even farther into the room and discovered that
what had appeared to be only a dark shadow was a huge,
four-poster bed in hand-carved mahogany. "This was your bedroom. No, your boudoir. The word
bedroom is way too pedestrian." This time there was more than a shiver. Jillian could have
sworn she heard something. A laugh? It was only as she turned in the direction of the sound that
she saw the beveled mirror, gilded in gold. "Oh, my." Hurrying toward it, Jillian reached out to
run her fingers gently down part of the frame. "This is
beautiful." Then she stepped back two paces. Had there been a tiny flash
in the mirror? Or had she imagined it? This time the flash was brighter and an image of a woman
appeared. She was beautiful—tall and willowy. Her red-blond
hair tumbled in loose waves below her shoulders and a filmy
white dress billowed around her. Jillian's heart skipped a beat, and for the first time
since she'd stepped into the tower, she couldn't
think of a thing to say. Not that she would have been able
to make a sound around the hard ball of fear lodged in her
throat. There wasn't a doubt in her mind that she was
looking at Hattie Haworth. Sensing the presence of a ghost was one thing. Seeing one
was quite another. But just as she was getting used to it,
the image began to fade. "No. Wait," she managed as she placed a hand on the
mirror. Then Hattie was gone. All that remained was her own image in
the glass. As Jillian stared, willing Hattie to reappear,
she saw something move in the wall beyond her reflection.
Whirling around, she watched a panel slide open. Drawing out her flashlight, she approached the opened space
and discovered what every Nancy Drew enthusiast dreamed of—a
secret room. A small one—no larger than five by seven. And
the only thing inside was a hatbox. It was covered in faded
linen and there was a parchment label on the top. Picking it up, Jillian carried it back to the mirror and sat
down cross-legged on the floor to study it. The label read
Fantasy Box: Choose carefully. The one you draw out will
come true. Jillian glanced into the mirror. "What have we here,
Hattie?" For a few seconds, she hesitated, weighing her options. The
label was a clear warning. And maybe she should wait until
her sisters could come and they could look inside together?
But patience had never been her strong suit. Very carefully, she lifted the cover off the box. Inside,
there was a pile of envelopes. She didn't hesitate as
long this time. But she didn't choose the top one.
Instead, she dug deep and drew out one near the bottom of
the box. After all, what could be the harm? In her life experience,
fantasies were nice, but they didn't come true all that
often. Opening it, she read it and her head spun. As fast as she
could, she stuffed the parchment back into the envelope,
returned it to the box and closed the lid. Jumping up, she
walked on legs she couldn't feel to return the hatbox to
the secret room. Then she pushed the lever that slid the
panel back into place. Because she still had a bad case of
jelly knees, she leaned against the wall. It had to have been a coincidence. Who could possibly have
known about the fantasy that had fueled several of her
adolescent dreams? Perhaps all the envelopes held the same fantasy. But she
didn't have the courage left to reopen the hatbox to
find out. And it was ridiculous to feel so…unsettled by a silly
parchment. What she'd read, after all, was just words
pure and simple. Lifting her chin, she turned and strode to the mirror. All
she saw was her own reflection. "What were you doing with that box, Hattie? And why is
it the only thing in your secret room?" No answer. Except for the words that flashed as bright as a
neon sign in her mind. The one you draw out will come
true. Heart pounding, she whirled and barely kept herself from
running down the iron staircase. As her car hit the oil slick and went into a spin, Jillian
kept her foot steady on the brake and gripped the steering
wheel for dear life. It badly wanted to jerk out of her
hands, but she fought it just as one of her ex-boyfriends
had taught her. The hairpin curve she'd been negotiating had blocked the
oil slick from view until she was nearly on it. Still, she
might have sailed through it without incident if only the
SUV hadn't appeared out of nowhere.… Sounds assaulted her ears—the squeal of tires, the whir and
rat-a-tat-tat of gravel as it struck the car. Her heart
thundered like a freight train speeding its way through a
tunnel. In a distant part of her mind, she waited for her life to
flash before her eyes. Nada. All she saw was a rotation of freeze-framed images—the ditch
at the side of the turn, the tall tower of Ha-worth House
shooting into a cloudless blue sky, a row of tall pines,
followed by the large vehicle blocking the road ahead. And
all the while the pavement beneath her screamed. With one final shudder, her car stopped spinning and the
noises stopped. She drew in a deep breath, felt it burn her
lungs, and then finally focused on the view through her
windshield. Only then did her heart shoot to her throat.
Even through a haze of dust, she could see the front of the
large, silver-toned SUV only inches away. Inches. She pried her hands from the steering wheel and noted they
were trembling. Beyond them she saw a figure unfold himself
from the driver's seat of the SUV and move toward her. Because of the glare of the sun on her windshield and the
fact that her sunglasses had flown off while she was in
ditch-and-tree-avoidance mode, she got only a dim impression
of a tall, lanky figure. A man? "Are you all right?" Definitely a man. The deep
voice clinched it. "I'm fine." She glanced down at herself just to
make sure. But she had to be fine. There was no time for
Jillian Brightman to be otherwise. To emphasize the point,
she scrambled out from behind the wheel of her Beetle. Her
knees only threatened to buckle. Good news. "How about
you?" "I'm okay, but I didn't just bring my car out of
a tailspin that racecar fans would have applauded. Nice
driving." "I didn't expect that oil slick, and I was in a big
hurry. I usually am." It seemed she hadn't had time
to breathe in the fourteen months since she and her sisters
had bought Haworth House and begun work on opening their hotel. When she used her hand to brush the dust off her jacket, she
saw that it was no longer trembling. Good. "It was a close call." "Yeah." When she glanced up, a wide, solid-looking
chest filled her vision. She hadn't heard his approach.
Now they stood toe to toe, only inches separating them. Move back. The warning flashed into her mind as
awareness rippled through her and her heart gave a little thud. He was big. At five foot two, she was used to men being
taller. But as she tilted her head way back, she figured he
had to be six-three or -four. Since he hadn't
lost his sunglasses, she couldn't see his eyes but she
noted the shaggy straw-colored hair, the very male face with
a slash of cheekbones, the trace of stubble on his jawline.
When her gaze lingered on his mouth, her heart gave another
thud. This time when the warning flashed, she drew back and
slammed into the side of her car. He grabbed her arms to steady her. One of his feet had moved
between her legs and for a moment, she felt the long hard
length of his thigh pressed against hers. Heat arrowed out
from the contact point and pooled in her center. A mist
settled over her brain, and her throat went dry. "Are you all right?" She was still coming down from the adrenaline rush of nearly
hitting him. That had to be it. Her senses were still in
overdrive. That was why she felt the pressure of each one of
his fingers on her arms. That was why she was having trouble
finding her voice.
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