A coffee addict and cat lover, Iris Morland writes sexy and funny contemporary romances. If she's not reading or writing, she enjoys binging on Netflix shows and cooking something delicious.Stay in touch!irismorland.comIris Morland’s MermaidsNewsletter Facebook Twitter BookBub Goodreads Instagram
Author’s NoteChapter 1Chapter 2Chapter 3Chapter 4Chapter 5Chapter 6Chapter 7Chapter 8Chapter 9Chapter 10Chapter 11Chapter 12Chapter 13Chapter 14Chapter 15Chapter 16Chapter 17Chapter 18Chapter 19EpilogueEnjoy this exclusive excerptAlso by Iris MorlandAbout the Author
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be constructed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.Make Me Yours (Heron’s Landing Book 3)Published by Blue Violet Press LLCSeattle, WashingtonCopyright © 2016, 2020 by Iris MorlandCover design by Qamber DesignsAll rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.Published 2020.First edition published 2016 under the title Desire Me Dearly (Heron’s Landing Book 3). Second edition 2020.
Dear Readers,Before you begin Gavin and Kat’s story, please know that Make Me Yours was previously published under the title Desire Me Dearly. This second edition has been edited and expanded to include 20% more content than the original.The main storyline remains the same as the first edition, but I always felt Gavin and Kat’s story needed more.All my best,Iris
On the first day of classes, Kat Williamson cursed the humidity rampant in August and hoped her hair hadn’t turned into a ball of frizz before nine AM. Although the school where she taught computer classes to elementary students had AC, it struggled to keep up when the temperatures reached above one hundred, which was pretty common this time of year in Missouri.Kat hustled to the staff room. The copy machine always had a line this close to the bell. Normally Kat arrived earlier, but she’d woken up late and had had to hustle it to get to school on time. Two other teachers were ahead of Kat, and of course one of them ended up getting the copier jammed.Kat sighed inwardly. Today’s going to be a mess, isn’t it? Luckily, she didn’t have to teach until later that morning, but she still needed to finish her lesson plans. Normally she was way more organized, but she’d been distracted last night with messing with closing her grandmother’s cell phone account. Apparently telling someone the a
Gavin Danvers shaded his eyes against the bright September sun. The heat of summer still lingered, and the humidity had crept up since this morning, making the air viscous against his skin. It was better than working inside, though, and after his boss back in Boston had given him an ultimatum—either return or find a new job—he’d decided he’d rather find a new job. He’d worked at a construction company, mostly doing administrative work, but it hadn’t been particularly interesting nor fulfilling. Leaving that job for good hadn’t been much of a sacrifice in the long run.He wiped his forehead and continued hammering at the fence post. After quitting his job, he’d gone straight to Adam to ask for a job at the family vineyard, River’s Bend. Adam had told him he didn’t have any office jobs, but he could help around the vineyard itself if he wanted. Gavin had agreed without protest.The labor allowed him to stop thinking for once. To stop thinking about Emma, about Teagan, about Emma’s pret
After finishing her lunch in the teacher’s lounge, Kat had headed to the restroom before returning to her classroom for the rest of the afternoon. As she passed a supply closet, she noticed that the door was cracked open, but there was no janitor in sight. She knew the cleaning staff never left the door unlocked or open in case kids wandered inside and played with things they shouldn’t, and as she was about to shut the door, she saw movement in the corner.Her heart stuttered. A rat? Maybe a raccoon that had gotten in last night? Or had a kid gotten inside? She walked in, flicking on the light overhead, and scanned the room. She saw a flash of pink in the corner. Kat was about to reprimand whoever had decided playing in the supply closet had been a good idea when she saw that the child in question was huddled on the floor, her head in between her knees, completely still and quiet, even as Kat approached.“Emma,” she breathed, kneeling in front of her. She touched her shoulder gently
After the closet incident, as Gavin had dubbed it, Emma seemed to bounce back to her mostly normal self. She’d admitted to Gavin that she’d been afraid that “the people were coming to get her.” When he’d pressed her to explain, she’d clammed up and refused to say any more. She hadn’t said anything more about what had happened, and although part of him wanted to understand his daughter, another part was hopeful she could get past this and they could somehow make a normal life for themselves in Heron’s Landing.Now, a few weeks after the closet incident, Gavin sat in Emma’s second-grade classroom for the semester’s parent-teacher conference. Emma’s teacher, Mrs. Gentry, was a woman in her late thirties who looked more like she was fifty, mostly because she wore her hair in the tightest bun Gavin had ever seen and wore clothes that were probably older than Gavin himself. Mrs. Gentry had recently divorced, and sometimes Gavin wondered if she hated him on sight for being male.Really, he