Dare to Love(1).pdf

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Samhain Publishing, Ltd.

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Dare to Love

ISBN: 1-60504-081-9

Edited by Angela James

Cover by Scott Carpenter

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First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: July 2008

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Dare to Love

Jaci Burton

Dedication

To all the ironworkers, the “cowboys of the sky” who risk their lives to construct the

beautiful buildings rising high above the skyline, you have my admiration and my awe.

And especially to my husband, Charlie, who’s one of them.

Dare to Love

Chapter One

How could a man of the twenty-first century think he could arrange a marriage for

his daughter? Was he insane? Then again, it was her father she was talking about, and

Raymond Fairchild was in a league all his own.

“Certifiable, that’s what he is. My father has completely lost it. Thinking he can

marry me off like this is the freakin’ eighteenth century or something.” Lucy Fairchild

stormed the sidewalk with her relentless pace, kicking at the rocks in her path. She knew

she was talking to herself, but didn’t care. Not that anyone could hear her with all the

noisy construction going on.

She ignored the sounds of jackhammers and maneuvering cranes. Coupled with the

daily mix of trolley cars and traffic forever permeating San Francisco’s financial district,

the sounds were just more white noise in an ever-busy city. Besides, her mind still

whirled from the argument she’d just had with her father. Raymond Fairchild may be the

president of one of the city’s most prestigious law firms, but that didn’t give him the right

to control her life.

Right. Like that had ever stopped him from trying to control and otherwise lead her

around as if she were too stupid to make her own decisions. She’d always gone along

with him before. One, because he was her father and she loved him, and two, sometimes

it was easier to do as he asked so he’d quit hounding her. Typically his machinations

were harmless.