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I met my husband Rick at UC Berkeley when I was 21, so I really do believe in True Love and Happily Ever After—which helps a lot in writing about them! We renewed our vows a few years ago with the help of our two grown sons. Our home base when we’re not having our own adventures is in Berkeley, California, where the summers are foggy and the food shopping is the greatest.
WHY NEW ZEALAND: My husband’s job as an engineer, and mine as a marketing consultant, have given us the opportunity to live in many different wonderful places in the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand. During the latest stint, 15 months living and working in Auckland, I fell in love with New Zealand: the beauty and diversity of the landscape (not to mention the seascapes), the Maori culture and its integration into the country’s life, and, perhaps more than anything, the people: modest, good-humored, unfailingly polite and hospitable, and so very funny. I wanted to share what I loved so much about the country with everyone I knew—and didn’t know!
THE BOOKS: We had traveled to Wellington to watch the final of the Rugby World Cup in a pub as the start of a North Island holiday. I was absolutely overwhelmed by the intensity of All Black fever that gripped the entire nation during the World Cup, and the stature of the players themselves at all times. I had never seen anything remotely like it. I started wondering what it would be like to be so intensely admired and instantly recognizable in a country that has zero tolerance for bad behavior—and how hard it would be to find the right partner in that kind of spotlight. And that is where JUST THIS ONCE was born—walking through the rhododendron gardens of Mt. Taranaki, two days after the World Cup final. Writing that first page was terrifying, but within weeks, I knew that I’d finally figured out what I wanted to be when I grew up.
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Billionaire and the Beast
DARYNDA JONES
Chapter One
The abandoned territorial sat in a valley surrounded by the muted colors of sage and mesquite, exactly like Bronson remembered. A sprinkling of outbuildings shouldered the main house, each showing the neglect and the constant abuse from the New Mexico sun they’d endured. But none of them had anything on the main dwelling. Crumbling plaster, splintered wood, and broken glass formed an intimidating two-story. A sign that read Home of the Bosque School for Boys offered the only hint that it had once been a school. Of sorts. The swirls of razor wire that topped a foreboding chain link fence would suggest otherwise.
The state had long since built a bigger, more modern facility thirty miles south of Albuquerque. Apparently, a school for troubled teens that sat just outside the city limits was still too close for Albuquerque’s elite, so a new detention center was built near Belen. The fact that a guard and two students had been attacked at the school by an animal—so the story went—hadn’t helped matters. The guard died, the two students were never the same, and Bronson was one of the few people on Earth who knew what really happened that night.
The school was closed soon after, the boys scattered all over the state until a new facility could be built. That was the last time he saw him. But today would change all of that. He’d waited two decades for this day and the slickness glistening over his palms proved how nervous he was about that fact.
His assistant’s lyrical voice wafted into his thoughts. “The gate is open, Mr. Montgomery.”
Bronson turned to the thirty-something who sat across from him in the limo, every dark hair smoothed into place, every crease on her business suit ironed to crisp military perfection. She wore red-rimmed glasses that sat on her nose just so as she peered out the window.
“We can follow the sheriff in,” she continued, leaning closer and crinkling her nose in distaste. “If you think we need to.”
Bronson hid a grin. He knew Mrs. Acosta—who’d never been married—would shrivel under the cold presence of the detention center. Either that or Bronson was projecting. “We probably should have a peek since I just bought the place.”
Mrs. Acosta’s gaze snapped back to his and she gaped at him. For a really long time. Making him question his choice of eye apparel, but the slate gray frames matched his Brioni impeccably well.
Bronson let the uncomfortable silence stretch as he considered her reaction. Mrs. Acosta had never questioned his intuition before. Not when it came to business. Her blatant shock at his statement would have been comical if the butterflies in his stomach hadn’t become tangled enough to form knots as sharp as the razor wire overhead. He knew she’d be against it, thus his hesitance in telling her, but he’d waited years for this day, and Mrs. Acosta didn’t know him nearly as well as she thought she did. Her next statement would prove that.
“I don’t understand, Mr. Montgomery.” She shifted her line of sight to watch the sheriff pull up to the main house, blocking the state-hired demolition crew. Concern drew her shapely brows together. “This isn’t your usual… style.”
He couldn’t agree more. He bought real estate for two reasons: to make money very quickly or to make money very slowly. This property sat on the wrong side of town and had little potential of doing either.
“Are you going to flip it?” She turned back to him, a hint of hope sparkling in her eyes. “I mean, the land is beautiful but the location isn’t exactly, well—”
“My style?” he asked, arching a brow.
She pursed her lips prettily, hugged her notebook to her chest, and sat back. The brow thing did it to her every time. “I’m sorry, sir. I’m just surprised.”
He made eye contact with their driver courtesy of the rearview and nodded, spurring him to follow the sheriff before answering his lovely assistant. It was no wonder she called herself Mrs. Acosta. Every deterrent helped when a woman looked like she did. She even wore a wedding band to drive the point home. He admired her conviction. “Don’t apologize. I should’ve told you I’ve been trying to acquire the property. It’s taken years to get the state to agree to sell me this land.”
“So, it is the land,” she said as though relieved.
He studied the building through the front windshield. It seemed so much smaller than he remembered. And far more dilapidated, but that was to be expected. He tilted his head to look at the row of second-story windows where the dorms were. Where the beds were. Where his bed was. The springs used to creak. He remembered the sound like it was yesterday. And he remembered the wood underneath the bed. The wood scarred with claw marks.
“Are you going to let them finish demolishing it then?” she asked.
He shook out of his thoughts and refocused on the sheriff who stood talking to the foreman of the demolition team. The man seemed none too happy about the cease-and-desist order in the sheriff’s hands. “Not just yet.”
“Oh.” She opened her notebook. “Do I need to get a team scheduled?”
“I’ll let you know,” he said before reaching for the door handle.
He opened it and hopped out before the car had come to a complete stop. Two things brought him back to the school: the night his life changed forever and the beast who changed it.
“But the state hired me,” the foreman said, opening the order from the sheriff to read it for himself. A soft breeze bent the paper and tussled the foreman’s blond hair as he took the injunction into both hands to hold it steady. He scanned the text, his lips moving softly as he read.
