Rescuing the Heiress
Valerie Hansen
Indulge your fantasies of delicious Regency Rakes, fierce Viking warriors and rugged Highlanders. Be swept away into a world of intense passion, lavish settings and romance that burns brightly through the centuriesValerie Hansen's basic nature is to see the humorous side of life and enjoy every day to the fullest.She's always loved stories about people who have successfully met life's challenges and gone on to find happiness, so writing joyful love stories is a perfect outlet for her. Her personal life sounds a lot like a romance novel. She married her high school sweetheart and they raised two great kids before leaving California to pursue their dreams of a rural lifestyle in the Arkansas Ozarks.That relocation has also given her work a new, more spiritual focus than ever before. Valerie had gone to Sunday school as a child and attended church off and on as an adult, but didn't really understand what was missing in her spiritual life until daily problems drove her to seek answers from a closer relationship with Jesus Christ. What a surprise! And what a difference in outlook. In the years that followed, she was continually amazed at the extraordinary opportunities that came her way. She still is.Valerie has always loved to write. That, and the strong conviction that this is what she was meant to do, led her to Steeple Hill and the Love Inspired series. Besides extensive research, she has plenty of interesting experiences to draw upon when creating stories: She's been a veterinary assistant, teacher's aide, volunteer fire department dispatcher, Emergency Medical Technician, bank worker, professional artist, store clerk, bookkeeper, 4-H leader, Sunday school teacher, gospel singer/songwriter, winning quiz show contestant, dog trainer, college extension-class instructor, and antique restorer. She's built dulcimers and a psaltery, laid bricks and tile, designed stained-glass windows, roofed a house, decorated store windows for the holidays, helped pour cement, raised fancy guinea pigs and finches, driven a long-haul moving van, and was once the proud owner of 23 Newfoundland dogs at one time. Her advice? Don't try that at home!Valerie and her husband now live on an 80-acre farm in northern Arkansas. She loves to hike the rocky, wooded hills behind the picturesque old house they renovated, watch for the wildlife so abundant in the area and think up new ideas for her books. She's always been a dreamer, a romantic who invented happier endings for books and movies that didn't already end on a lighthearted note. She was an adult before she realized that everybody didn't automatically do the same thing!Valerie Hansen can be reached at: P. O. Box 13, Glencoe, AR 72539-0013. Or via e-mail at: val@valeriehansen. com.
“I don’t believe I have ever seen so many women gathered in one place before. There must be thousands.”
Tess tensed. “Wait. How will you find us again if we go inside without you?”
“I could probably spot you in the crowd by your pr… By your hair,” Michael said.
“You were going to say pretty, weren’t you?” She smiled, amused by the way his cheeks grew more ruddy.
“It would be wrong of me to mention such things, Miss Clark.”
That made her laugh softly. “But I would find it delightful if you did. Does that embarrass you, Michael?”
“Of course not.”
He brought the buggy to a halt, then quickly helped her alight. “I’ll find you.”
She knew that her eyes must be twinkling, because she was keenly amused when she shouted back, “And how will you do that, sir?”
Michael paused just long enough to lean down from his perch. “By your beautiful, dark red hair.” Then he flicked the reins and the horse took off.
VALERIE HANSEN
was thirty when she awoke to the presence of the Lord in her life and turned to Jesus. In the years that followed she worked with young children, both in church and secular environments. She also raised a family of her own and played foster mother to a wide assortment of furred and feathered critters.
Married to her high school sweetheart since age seventeen, she now lives in an old farmhouse she and her husband renovated with their own hands. She loves to hike the wooded hills behind the house and reflect on the marvelous turn her life has taken. Not only is she privileged to reside among the loving, accepting folks in the breathtakingly beautiful Ozark mountains of Arkansas, she also gets to share her personal faith by telling the stories of her heart for all of Steeple Hill’s Love Inspired lines.
Life doesn’t get much better than that!
Rescuing the Heiress
Valerie Hansen
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you preserve my life…with your right hand you save me, Lord.
—Psalms 138:7
My husband was a firefighter, my son still is and my daughter also volunteered before she went into nursing.
The men and women in the fire service put their whole hearts into their work and no amount of praise or thanks for their efforts will ever be enough.
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
Chapter Twenty-One
Epilogue
Letter to Reader
Questions for Discussion
Chapter One
1906, San Francisco