FIRST PAGE: Romantic Short Stories, Harlequin 10th Birthday Celebration, 1980.

Harlequin's Romantic Short Stories 10th Birthday Celebration 1980 Vint – Monster Books and Items

SYNOPSIS:

The stories in this book represent the best short romance fiction available anywhere and have been specially selected for you, the Harlequin reader. This memento is one we hope you will keep and cherish.

11 Stories by 10 Authors: Barbara Bennett, Suzanne Ebel, Thea Ride, Patricia Condon, Catherine Shaw, Audrie Manley-Tucker, Susan Craig, Pat Lacey, Janice Gray, Frances Melvin

PAGE 1:

Return to Meronfield by Barbara Bennett

Meronfield was a place to be avoided at all costs, but when the dashboard warning light showed Debbie that her car was overheating, she crawled off the highway at the nearest exit and with a sense of inevitability came back to the village she had last seen eight years ago.

Sam Thorley's garage hadn't changed -- the windows of his little office still displayed a collage of ancient, sun-bleached posters, it still sold paraffin, firewood and fresh-laid eggs. Only now it was Sam's son who came out, raising his eyebrows inquiringly. He didn't recognize her, but then, she thought, why should he? Unlike places, peolple do change, especially eighteen-year-old girls.

"I'll take it around to the back," Jack Thorley said when she explained the trouble, "but there could be a number of things wrong. I'm rather busy and can't promise anything before tomorrow afternoon."

Debbie bit her lip. Tomorrow afternoon -- so no date with Miles tonight after all. She didn't know whether to be pleased or sorry.

During the two years she'd known him he had often said such things as, "Have you ever thought how much traveling time, not to mention gas, we'd save if we were together?" Or, "We're both responsible adults and we love each other. Isn't that enough?" Once, when she'd stood by the window of his apartment window admiring the view over the park, he had come to stand behind her. "Why not share it with me?" he had said, but gently, a suggestion rather than a proposition, as if making it easy for her to refuse without embarrassment. 

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Harlequin's Romantic Short Stories 10th Birthday Celebration 1980 Vint – Monster Books and Items