Run Wild With Me

by Sandra Chastain

Genres: Women's Fiction; Romance; Contemporary Romance

Synopsis

Beloved author Sandra Chastain offers readers a wild ride with the tale of a man who is always on the move—until he meets the one woman who can make him stay put.

Sam Farley grew up hearing stories about his late grandmother’s house in Arcadia, Georgia, but for all his travels, the small town is one place he’s never been. So when he shows up, on foot, in a ferocious storm, he quickly has the locals buzzing: Who is this dark-eyed vagabond, and what does he want with Millie’s old, boarded-up house? Sam never intends to stay long—just long enough to see the house before it’s auctioned off. Then he meets the gorgeous city clerk, Andrea Fleming . . . and gives her a kiss. Now Sam’s torn between his desire for this intoxicating woman and the terrifying prospect of staying in one place.
 
Andrea is undeniably drawn to the brooding journeyman carpenter with his stories of faraway places. But she belongs in Arcadia and is certain that she will be nothing more to Sam than a fling, a way station on the road to all the places he hasn’t yet seen. But despite her deep misgivings—and the warnings of everyone around her—Andrea finds herself falling for the wickedly handsome wanderer . . . come what may.

Includes a special message from the editor, as well as excerpts from these Loveswept titles: Taking Shots, Along Came Trouble, and Hell on Wheels.

Release date: May 13, 2013

Publisher: Loveswept

Print pages: 182

Sample

Prologue
 
A fine spring rain began to fall somewhere outside of Atlanta, Georgia. Sam had been lucky to hitch a ride as far as he had. Now he was walking down a country road in the fading light of a late May afternoon.
 
His worn Stetson channeled rainwater down his collar, and the pack on his back, already sodden from the heavy drizzle, dug uncomfortably into his shoulders. Soon he’d be forced to find some kind of shelter for the night. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d slept in a barn or under a tree.
 
For more than ten years Sam had been on the road, pausing a month here, two months there, depending on the job. There had been times when he’d thought about settling down, times that had come more and more often as the years passed. The problem was that he didn’t belong anywhere. He wasn’t sure that he ever had. And he had no idea what he’d hoped to accomplish by coming to the small Georgia town.
 
Meredith County, the road sign said, Arcadia—ten miles. Arcadia. The name jolted his mind, reached out and caused an ache inside him. It wasn’t for himself that he’d come—he’d come for her.
 
Sam had never been to Arcadia. He hadn’t been sure it was real. Now he admitted to an unexpected longing to see it for himself.
 
The sound of a car engine behind him caught his attention, and he glanced around as a battered pickup truck slowed down.
 
“Where you headed, boy?” The grizzled old farmer leaned his head out the window, letting a stream of brown tobacco juice fly through the air.
 
“Arcadia,” Sam answered. It had been a long time since anybody had called him boy. Not since he was a green recruit in training camp on Parris Island had he allowed anyone to use the term. Except for his mother. For her the word boy had always been preceded by “my darling” or “my precious” and followed more often than not with “I love you.”
 
“Arcadia,” the farmer said matter of factly. “So’m I. Climb in.”
 
The ride was settled with no conversation, and the well-soaked traveler loosened his pack, dropped it into the back of the truck, and climbed in, folding his long legs into the space beneath the dash. “Thanks.”
 
“Not a’tall. Got business in Arcadia, have you?”
 
“Maybe.”
 
“Family there?”
 
“I don’t think so. Not anymore.”
 
“You talk kinda funny.”
 
“So do you.”
 
There was a long silence while the farmer pulled off the sweat-stained baseball cap he was wearing and scratched his head. “Don’t say much, do you?”
 
“Nope.” Sam wasn’t trying to be mysterious. He found it hard to talk to the old man. Too many peculiar emotions were assaulting his senses. He’d never been to Arcadia. But there was a sense of expectation slowly curling over him, the same kind of feeling he got when he held a piece of fine new wood in his hand and visualized the finished product.
 
“Name’s Otis, Otis Parker,” the farmer went on. “Got a tractor broke down. Been over to Cottonboro for a part.”
 
The wipers screeched across the windshield as the rain temporarily tapered off. In the distance house lights began to flick on, making bright smears in the darkness.
 
Otis pumped the brakes and let the truck roll to a stop. “Here’s where I turn off, boy. Never did get your name, but if you’re aiming to find one of them motel rooms, there ain’t one in Arcadia, and the hotel ain’t likely to take in anybody they don’t know.”
 
“Sam Farley, Mr. Parker, and thanks for the lift. Would you by any chance know where Mrs. Mamie Hines lives?”
 
The farmer spit out the window once more and turned to look at Sam with a puzzled expression on his face. “Mamie Hines’s place? That where you’re heading?”
 
“Something wrong with that?” Sam was beginning to shiver under the wet denim jacket he was wearing. Tired, and more than a little light-headed, he was ready to reach the end of his journey before the rain began in earnest.
 
“Well …” The farmer hesitated. “No. Just go straight on into town. When you get to the inter-section, go to your right. Last house on the road, but it’s boarded up tight as a tick now. It may be hard to find in the dark, but anyone you ask will be glad to help you out if you get lost.”
 
“Then it’s real,” Sam half whispered under his breath. He’d carried the promise of that house around in his mind for most of his life. It had been his security blanket through some pretty bad times. He hadn’t been really sure it existed. “And my … Mrs. Hines?”
 
“Old Mamie’s been dead and gone for more’n two years now, buried over in the Methodist cemetery. Who are you, Sam Farley?”
 
“Mamie Hines was my grandmother.” Sam lifted his pack from the back of the truck and slid his arms wearily into the straps. He hadn’t expected Mamie to be there. The tax notice said plainly that the house was being auctioned off. There was nothing he could do about that. Three years of back taxes, even for a house in the south end of nowhere, was more money than he had left. He didn’t know why he’d come.
 
He’d just stay the night. At least the house would provide a roof over his head, and, technically, it was his, at least until the auction. Yeah, just once he’d sit on that front porch, even without the lemonade and cookies his mother had reminisced about. Then he’d be on the road again. The truth was, he didn’t belong in Arcadia anymore than he belonged anywhere else.
 
Above him in the night sky a bird called mourn-fully, dipped silently through the darkness, and flew away into the distance.
 
Arcadia. What kind of name for a town was that anyway? he wondered as he walked off.