Where Love Grows

Where Love Grows
Cynthia Reese

When Becca Reynolds heads for rural Georgia to investigate a suspected crop insurance scam, she's concerned about her career, not her heart.Chief among the suspects is handsome Ryan MacIntosh, who isn't telling everything he knows. Could his involvement possibly be deeper than his devotion to his grandmother and the small farm that's been in the family for generations?Becca can't be sure, even though she knows Ryan intimately–at least online. She's certain he's the charming stranger with whom she's exchanged countless e-mails–and fallen in love. But she can't admit the truth any more than Ryan can–nor predict what it will cost them in the end.

Where Love Grows

Cynthia Reese

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

To the women who have made me who I am. I

treasure you all. And in memory of my Aunt Lou—

the inspiration for Mee-Maw.

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

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

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Acknowledgment

I couldn’t have written this book without help from a great many people—too many local farmers in my area to name individually here, but thank you all. Thanks to Kenny Chesney for the music that helped inspire this story and helped motivate me when the going got tough. A big hug goes to my better half for putting up with life on hold while I was writing. Acknowledgments also go to my critique partners Tawna Fenske, Cindy Miles, Stephanie Bose and Nelsa Roberto, to my agent Miriam Kriss, and to my absolutely wonderful editor Laura Shin, whose revision suggestions really helped me turn the corner.

CHAPTER ONE

CRAIG ANDREWS WAS moving in for the kill.

He’d trapped Becca Reynolds as neatly as any hound would trap a rabbit.

She swallowed hard, her mouth dry. To reach for the tumbler of water in front of her would be a sign of weakness, wouldn’t it?

Yes. Better to have a mouth that felt as if a sandblaster had let loose in it than to have her actions prove it.

“Miss Reynolds…”

Andrews pivoted on his Testoni dress shoes and held up a single sheet of paper. The corners of his mouth lifted, but the expression bore about as much resemblance to a smile as a shark’s chompers did.

“You based your conclusions on weather patterns and the very scientific NASA photographs.”

“Yes. Yes, I did. It is my—”

But before Becca could explain how she knew the hailstorm had been nothing but cocktail ice and a few migrant workers beating plants down in the field, he held up one perfectly manicured hand.