Return To Rose Cottage: The Laws of Attraction

Return To Rose Cottage: The Laws of Attraction
Sherryl Woods

New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author Sherryl Woods draws you into the world of Rose Cottage, where the D'Angelo sisters reunite with family and find lasting love.The Laws of Attraction High-powered attorney Ashley D'Angelo has finally burned out. After heeding the call of Rose Cottage, she believes she may have found the calm she so desperately needs and perhaps the chance at a happy ending with handsome Josh Madison. But if Josh isn't quite who he seems, is he still the man who can complete Ashley's joy? For the Love of PeteAfter hearing her sisters speak of the emotional healing to be found at Rose Cottage, Jo D'Angelo takes a chance and returns to the beautiful home. Only she knows the cottage is where she once loved and lost Pete Catlett. She's stunned to find Pete back there, as well, dealing with worries about his young son. Can the romantic wonder of the cottage reunite these two wounded souls?

Praise for the novels of New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author Sherryl Woods

“Woods…is noted for appealing character-driven stories that are often infused with the flavor and fragrance of the South.”

—Library Journal

“…a whimsical, sweet scenario… the digressions have their own charm, and Woods never fails to come back to the romantic point.”

—Publishers Weekly on Sweet Tea at Sunrise

“What better way to welcome spring back into our lives than to be able to sit down with a book by a beloved author, a cool drink, and dreams of young love blooming?”

—Romance Review on Home in Carolina

“Woods’ readers will eagerly anticipate her trademark small-town setting, loyal friendships, and honorable mentors as they meet new characters and reconnect with familiar ones in this heartwarming tale.”

—Booklist on Home in Carolina

“Warm, complex, and satisfying.”

—Library Journal on Harbor Lights

“Sparks fly in a lively tale that is overflowing with family conflict and warmth and the possibility of rekindled love.”

—Library Journal on Flowers on Main

“Launching the Chesapeake Shores series, Woods creates an engrossing…family drama.”

—Publishers Weekly on The Inn at Eagle Point

“Woods is a master heartstring puller.”

—Publishers Weekly on Seaview Inn

SHERRYL

WOODS

Return to Rose Cottage

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

The Laws of Attraction

Dear Reader,

I hope you’ve enjoyed the first two entries in the Rose Cottage Sisters series. In this volume, you’ll meet two more D’Angelos—high-powered attorney Ashley and tender-hearted Jo.

Though the thought of the isolation of Rose Cottage practically gives Ashley hives, her sisters convince her it’s the best place to recover as her professional life unravels. Despite the family track record, which is two for two in finding love at Rose Cottage, the last thing Ashley expects to find is the perfect match while she’s nursing her injured pride. Josh Madison is Ashley’s exact opposite. He craves the peace and quiet, and he has a thing or two to teach Ashley about relaxation and the magic of love.

Unlike her three skeptical older sisters, Jo D’Angelo knows firsthand just how powerful a pull this place by the Chesapeake Bay can have when it comes to love. She met her first love there…and had her heart broken. But this is Rose Cottage, after all, and it definitely has enough mystique left to mend one more heart. In its cozy rooms, Jo remembers why she fell in love with Pete Catlett the first time, and he does everything in his power to see that she doesn’t get away a second time.

I hope you’ve enjoyed sharing the enchantment of Rose Cottage and its effect on the D’Angelo sisters. The truth is, wherever we find love will forever be touched with magic in our memories.

All best,

Prologue

The headline said it all: Guilty Man Freed.

Albert “Tiny” Slocum was a charming two-bit punk who’d hoodwinked his lawyer and an entire jury into believing in his innocence. It hadn’t helped that the case presented against him hadn’t been airtight. He walked out of the courtroom a free man with a clean slate, thanks to Ashley D’Angelo, who’d once been dubbed Boston’s “savior of the innocent.”

Of course, Tiny had spoiled his innocent act a bit when he’d had the audacity to turn to the jury in front of the judge and call them all suckers. That moment of pure cockiness had proved just what a psychopath he was. It had also earned him a promise from the prosecutor that he would find a way to put Tiny right back behind bars, maybe not for the crime of killing Letitia Baldwin for which he’d just been acquitted, but for some other heinous act he had already committed. There were bound to be some.

That appalling scene had also been the moment that every criminal defense attorney with a conscience dreaded. Ashley D’Angelo was no exception.

Ashley hadn’t much liked three-hundred-pound Tiny, but she had believed in him. He’d declared his innocence with such passion. He had a clever mind and a sharp wit that he’d used effectively to charm her into thinking he couldn’t possibly be guilty of such a barbaric crime. In the course of what appeared to have started as a botched purse-snatching, elderly, frail Letitia Baldwin had been beaten nearly to death by someone in an obvious rage at finding only a few dollars in her wallet. Tiny had professed to love and respect women. His own mother had backed him up, saying he was the ideal son. Ashley, who’d built her entire reputation on defending the innocent, had been taken in.

She’d also seen all the holes in the prosecution’s case. She’d spent months building a defense, but before she could spend a single second feeling triumphant over the not-guilty verdict, she’d been hit with the gut-wrenching realization that Tiny was indeed responsible for Letitia Baldwin’s massive injuries. The elderly woman had later died in the emergency room, changing the charge from assault to murder.

There wasn’t enough merlot in all the wine cellars in Boston to help Ashley get over that sickening image. The crime scene photos played over and over in her head, like a looping newsreel that never quit.

Later, in the dark of night, when she was lying sleepless in her fancy penthouse apartment, Ashley had finally admitted that on some level she’d known all along that she was defending a murderer—and doing it with the kind of aggressive tactics that were almost guaranteed to win an acquittal. She didn’t know how to defend a client any other way, which was one reason she’d always been very, very careful about whom she chose to represent. Her firm had allowed her that latitude because she’d racked up courtroom victories and a lot of press in the process.

But even as she’d planned Tiny’s defense, she’d suffered pangs of guilt. She’d been assailed by doubts. That’s why she’d run to Rose Cottage before the trial had begun. It had been eating at her even then. Not that she’d wanted to say it aloud or even allow the thought to form. She’d wanted to go right on believing in Tiny, because she had to in order to live with herself. In retrospect, she knew she should have quit the case the moment she’d had that first niggling doubt, but somehow winning had become more important than anything else, and she’d known she could win.

Now that the truth was out, she was sick of the law, sick of her own ability to twist it for her client’s benefit. Her self-respect was in tatters. How had her life come to this? This victory tarnished all the others, all the cases she’d been proud to win, all the cases that had earned her a full partnership at her law firm in record time.

Heartsick, she’d been locked away in her apartment for nearly twenty-four hours now, refusing to answer the phone, refusing to go to the door. She’d given a brief press conference, declaring that she was stunned after the debacle in the courtroom, then gone into hibernation to avoid the inevitable media frenzy over that disturbing courtroom spectacle.

Right now she couldn’t imagine ever showing her face again, but realistically she knew that the desire to hide would eventually pass. She was a fighter by nature. She just wasn’t ready for battle quite yet. She needed time to lick her wounds in private.

Unfortunately her sisters all had keys to her place, and not five minutes ago they’d arrived en masse to offer her comfort and support. Ashley appreciated the gesture, but it was wasted. She’d gotten a murderer off scot-free, and she was going to have to live with that for the rest of her life. It pretty much made a shambles out of the pride she’d always taken in her success.

“It’s not your fault,” her sister Jo said quietly, once they were all seated with coffee that Maggie had brewed from the gourmet beans she’d taught them all to appreciate. “You were doing your job.”

“A helluva job, isn’t it?” Ashley said grimly, lifting her coffee cup in a mocking toast.

“Stop it,” Maggie ordered irritably.

Maggie and Melanie had driven up from Virginia the minute they’d heard what happened in the courtroom the day before. They’d picked up Jo on their way into downtown Boston. Ashley had little doubt that they’d planned this gathering down to the last detail on the ride over.

They were seated in Ashley’s penthouse apartment with its expensive modern art on the walls and its sweeping panorama of the Boston skyline outside. At the moment, none of it meant a thing to Ashley, not even the loyal support of her sisters. Loyalty was a D’Angelo family trait. They would have been here for her, no matter what she’d done.

“Jo’s right. You were doing your job,” Melanie said emphatically. “Not everyone who says they’re innocent is, not everyone who’s accused is guilty, and everyone is guaranteed a right to a complete defense and a fair trial.”