Heart of Gold Read online

  “PURE TALENT. IF YOU HAVE NOT READ A BOOK BY JESSICA BIRD, YOU ARE MISSING OUT.”

  —Huntress Book Reviews

  PRAISE FOR THE NOVELS

  OF J. R. WARD

  WRITING AS JESSICA BIRD

  Leaping Hearts

  “Readers who…are fans of Nora Roberts…will savor every well-written page.”

  —Booklist

  “This romantic drama has it all…an emotionally enthralling read.”

  —Romantic Times

  “A fascinating book from beginning to end.”

  —The Best Reviews

  An Irresistible Bachelor

  “Mystery, intrigue, power, passion, and a love story too beautiful for words.”

  —The Best Reviews

  “Irresistible…a well-written, engaging, and intelligent love story.”

  —The Romance Reader

  “[An] emotion-filled romance.”

  —Booklist

  An Unforgettable Lady

  “Sensational romantic suspense.”

  —Romantic Times

  “I anxiously await her next book.”

  —The Romance Readers Connection

  “Exhilarating romantic suspense.”

  —The Best Reviews

  By J. R. Ward

  The Black Dagger Brotherhood Series

  Dark Lover

  Lover Eternal

  Lover Awakened

  Lover Revealed

  Lover Unbound

  Lover Enshrined

  The Black Dagger Brotherhood: An Insider’s Guide

  Lover Avenged

  Lover Mine

  Lover Unleashed

  Lover Reborn

  Novels of the Fallen Angels

  Covet

  Crave

  Envy

  Writing as Jessica Bird

  Heart of Gold

  Leaping Hearts

  An Unforgettable Lady

  An Irresistible Bachelor

  HEART OF

  GOLD

  J. R. WARD

  Writing as Jessica Bird

  A SIGNET BOOK

  SIGNET

  Published by New American Library, a division of

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

  New York, New York 10014, USA

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  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices:

  80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Published by Signet, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Previously published in an Ivy Books edition. Publisher by arrangement with the author.

  First Signet Printing, August 2012

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Copyright © Jessica Bird, 2003

  Excerpt from Leaping Hearts copyright © Jessica Bird, 2002

  Excerpt from Envy copyright © Love Conquers All, Inc., 2011

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  ISBN: 978-1-101-59423-0

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

  Printed in the United States of America

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

  If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  ALWAYS LEARNING

  PEARSON

  To the Ladies of the BIDMC, with highest regard.

  With thanks to J. Mark Waxman, Esq., for his legal direction,

  and

  Richard M. Strum,

  Director, Interpretation and Education,

  Fort Ticonderoga, for all his aid and counsel.

  Dear Reader:

  Heart of Gold is my second published book, and as I think back on it now, I remember making a conscious choice to “go with what you know” when I wrote it.

  It was a good call. The thing is, writing is like all other endeavors—a little bit of God-given talent and an interest will get you started. But man, there’s a long way to go between that and when you actually know what the heck you’re doing. When I started drafting this manuscript, I’d only been professionally edited once, and I was still seat-of-the-pants’ing it (now I’m totally into outlines—for good reason!) Naturally, I felt lost, and decided to create my own safety net by heeding the advice I had heard from so many.…I went with what I knew: a flashy businessman as the hardhearted hero, a heroine who loves the past, and the Adirondack Mountains.

  The hero, Nick Farrell, is an alpha male all the way around, even though, unlike the Black Dagger Brotherhood vampires, he doesn’t wear leathers or carry guns and knives. (No tattoos, either.) He’s the financier type of warrior, and believe me, they can be every bit as brutal as MMA fighters when they get in the boardroom. Also, pin-striped suits can be extremely sexy, if the right pair of shoulders is filling them out! Looking back on it now, I can see how Nick is the start of my fixation on over-the-top dominant males. His life paradigm is totally different from that of the Brothers, but as with them, he’s a real powerhouse who’s, nonetheless, never opened himself to anyone—until he’s crossed with his perfect match.

  On that note, Carter Wessex, the archaeologist heroine, comes directly out of the Indiana Jones in me. Growing up, I was always that kid watching Raiders of the Lost Ark over and over again, wishing that I could be out in the jungles or the desert with a whip on my hip and a pith helmet on my head. When she showed up (as all my characters tend to do—they kind of just walk into my mind, pick a spot and hang out until I write them,) I was all excited because I thought the idea of her going off and looking for buried treasure was AWESOME!

  Annnnnd then I did some research into what archaeologists actually do. My romanticized vision of that professional and scholarly endeavor was not at all based in reality—in fact, it proved to be far more methodical, disciplined and, well, less dramatic than I had pictured. The good news was, though, that archaeologists really do hunt for treasures of all kinds, and they do unearth the past—and, yes, sometimes they actually do strike gold, as it were. The bonus was, that once I had a more accurate vision of what Carter did, she became so much less cartoony and more believable—and better right as Nick’s partner because both of them brought such focus and excellence to their work. />
  Which brings us to the setting: the lovely Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York. Following the theme of “go with what you know,” I have to say that the Adirondacks are so much a part of me that they are my home no matter where I’m living. I spent all my summers as a kid up there, and I’ve just started going again on a regular basis now. At the time when I was drafting Heart of Gold, however, I was working around the clock, and it just wasn’t possible for me to spend good chunks of July and August there. Solution? Write about them. In a lot of ways, as I was putting Nick and Carter on the page, I was taking a mini-vacation, the images and scenes of the lake and the mountains transporting me to where I wanted to be. Also, what a great place to fall in love in the summer! I know for some a sandy white beach is the epitome of the romantic scene, but I’ll take a fragrant pine bough over a palm tree any day.

  A word on the plotting of the story. At this point in my early career, I was still trying to “think” up books. I was very conscious of the conventions of romance novels, and determined to stick with them—I wanted to write something that followed the predictable patterns and colored within the lines because I thought that playing it safe was going to keep me with a job. This is not to say I’m not proud of this book, or that I think it’s lacking—I love Carter and Nick together, and I’m really happy with their story. But I was about three-quarters of the way through the first draft when the side plot of Nick’s nephew really started to take off. I wrote a great scene of this boy and a young girl running away from their parents through the woods—it heightened the tension, keyed up the drama, really changed the feel of the book…and I had to take it out.

  In retrospect, that tangent was my first foray into what I do a lot in my Brotherhood and Angels books. Opening the points of view (POVs) up to other people and their experiences adds a lot to stories, in my opinion—because it’s more like real life. Nobody lives in a vacuum—we’re surrounded by folks going through things similar to or opposite to our own dramas and happiness—and I believe part of the way we assess things is in contrast or comparison with what others go through. For books, and storytelling, I think well-done subplotting gives a texturing that makes everything feel deeper and more realistic.

  That being said, the danger with multilayering is that you run the risk of losing, or burying, the main story under so much stuff that the reader doesn’t know who they’re supposed to be focused on, or, just as bad, the narrative collapses under its own weight. It takes a really accurate, critical eye to tell the difference between additive and obstruction (believe me, I know, because I’ve made some mistakes in this area), and back then, I really didn’t have a clue what I was doing. I had a sense that the running-away bit was a great scene, but because of the way the rest of the book was flowing, ultimately it was an out-in-left-field kind of thing. In the coming years, however, I would get into, and stay in, the habit of doing multiple POVs and story lines—balancing them, for the most part, in an appropriate way. (You know, come to think of it, it’s been really fun to look at my first couple of books and see the directions I was going in—even though I had no clue where I was traveling, as it were.)

  I truly hope you enjoy Nick and Carter as much as I did, and do. They’re a great couple, and they deserve all the happily-ever-after they get—plus this book has one of my favorite ending scenes that I’ve EVER written! Just look for the eighteen-wheeler at the end, s’all I’m sayin’.

  Happy Reading!

  J. R. Ward

  December 2011

  Table of Contents

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  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  Leaping Hearts

  Envy

  1

  “I AM not a gold digger.”

  Carter Wessex cradled the phone against her ear while emptying a duffel bag onto the floor of her laundry room. The clothes that came out were covered in dirt, moss, and some other things that looked like they were moving.

  “I never said you were.” Her oldest friend’s voice was soothing, and Carter recognized the tone. It was the same one that had gotten her into trouble when they were teenage girls.

  “Yeah, well, I’m also not a masochist,” she countered, trying to ward off the attraction she felt toward the opportunity. “The guy who owns Farrell Mountain is a real piece of work. He’s thrown more of my colleagues off that pile of dirt than a starting pitcher.”

  Laughter came over the line. “C.C., I hate sports analogies, and that one barely works.”

  Carter decided to fight harder, hoping her plan for taking the summer off wouldn’t be ruined by a proposition she couldn’t turn down. “Well, from what I’ve heard, Nick Farrell takes misanthropy to a new level, and he’s got a particular distaste for archaeologists. Do you know who he is? The corporate raider whose name was splashed all over the papers because he double-crossed some guy in a business deal?”

  “I know the story and his reputation.”

  “So why are you doing this to me?” The words came out in a groan.

  “Because it’s about time someone solved this mystery. The story’s been left hanging since 1775.”

  “It’s a fairy tale, Woody.”

  “Woody” was more commonly known as Grace Woodward-Hall. The two had first met at a picturesque New England prep school where they’d spent four years specializing in winning field hockey games and smuggling packs of wine coolers into their dorm. They’d been popular thanks to both.

  As adults, they had a personal and a professional relationship. Carter’s specialty as a historian and an archaeologist was the colonial period. Grace’s family ran the Hall Foundation, one of the nation’s largest sources of grants for the discovery and preservation of American history. Carter had received Hall funding for a number of her digs.

  “You’ve read that Brit’s journal, right?” Grace’s Upper East Side background marked her words with perfect intonation, but Carter knew the truth. For all her prim and ladylike exterior, Grace had a raucous sense of humor and an affection for trouble, both of which had cemented their relationship.

  “Farnsworth’s diary? Of course I’ve read it. All colonial historians have a copy. It comes with the bizarre predilection for musket balls and minutemen.”

  Carter glanced down and saw a spider crawling out from under a pair of khakis. She wasn’t prepared to kill the thing but didn’t want it as a housemate, either. Reaching over the washing machine, she picked up a coffee can full of nails, dumped it out on top of the dryer, and covered the arachnid.

  “So you’ve got to wonder what happened,” Grace prompted.

  “I know what happened. An American hero was slaughtered, a fortune in gold disappeared, and the Indian guide was fingered as responsible. End of story.”

  “I find it hard to believe,” Grace said dryly, “that you aren’t struck by all the holes in that narration. Someone needs to go up on Farrell Mountain and find out what happened to the Winship party.”

  “Well, it doesn’t have to be me.” Carter started loading shirts and socks into the washer, careful not to tip over the can. “What they really need is a paranormal investigator to put to rest all that haunting nonsense. Red Hawk’s ghost guarding the gold? Give me a break.”

  “Look, specters aside, this really is the perfect project for you. In your period, up in the wilderness, a prime piece of history ready for the picking.”

  “I just got home from a dig,” Carter moaned. “I’ve got twelve pounds of dirt under my fingernails, I’m in desperate need of sleep, and I have it on good authority there are black flies the size of bats in the Adirondacks this time of year.”


  She knew because they were alive and well in the Green Mountains of Vermont, too. Glancing through a screened window, she saw a cheery June day beckoning on the other side but she wasn’t fooled. She’d been chewed on by them in her garden that very morning.

  “Aren’t you curious about what happened to the gold?”

  “Like I am about the Easter Bunny. You show me some proof that an upright rabbit carrying a basket of chicken eggs exists and maybe I’ll believe there’s a treasure up in those mountains.”

  “Come on, that gold couldn’t have disappeared into thin air. And what happened to the remains of the men who were killed?”

  Carter leaned a hip against the washing machine. “The Americans should never have transported that kind of fortune while they had a captured British madman on their hands. They were bound to get ambushed. The only surprise was that Red Hawk was the one who turned on them. If one of the aggressors didn’t take the gold, someone else probably found it and had the good sense to keep his mouth shut. As for the bodies, they could be anywhere. You know how big the Adirondack Park is? It would be like winning the lottery to find them.”

  She peered over her shoulder into the washer. Hitting that mess with water was going to create some kind of mud bath but there was room to stuff in a little more. She bent down to pick up another pair of khakis.

  “Did I mention we have bones?” Grace drawled. “From a site that’s identical to the one Farnsworth described in the journal.”

  Carter snapped upright. “Bones? What kind of bones? Where were they found?”

  Grace’s satisfaction came through loud and clear over the phone. “Conrad Lyst found them up on Farrell Mountain.”

  At the sound of the man’s name, Carter’s jaw clenched. “That rat. That nasty…”

  She allowed herself a couple of truly raunchy but descriptive adjectives. And followed them up with a doozy of a noun.

  “You finished now?” her friend asked with amusement.

  “Hardly. It’s a wonder that man can find his butt in his own pants. And if by some miracle he did, his next move would be to sell it to the highest bidder.”