Secret Surrender

“A superbly spun tale of love and desire that will capture your heart from the beginning. An emotionally layered and thoroughly engaging story of love lost and found.” —PAPERBACK FORUM

The year is 1879, and Molly Durant has fallen on hard times. When her mother died, Molly was left with a dilapidated boarding house and five siblings, all of whom she was determined to keep together. But with no boarders, thieves stealing her family’s timber, and her banker fiancé set on sending her siblings to foster homes, fate seems against her. Then Molly gets an unexpected knock on her door.

There, standing before her, is the man to whom she once foolishly gave her body, the same man who abandoned her: Rubal Jarrett. Or someone who looks like him? The man claims to be Jubal, twin brother of Molly’s old lover, here to survey a route for a railroad through the timberland.

“Jubal” soon has the boarding house brimming with paying guests, Molly serving meals to the public, and the family of siblings pitching in to help. He plans to help her turn her life around. Only then can he leave without a guilty conscience. He will not run out on her again. But memories of that long-ago night with her race through his head and hum in his ears. He dismisses a fleeting thought: “This time, Jarrett, you might get caught in your own trap.”