Beyond All Else

His dark eyes bore down upon the infant. She was the reason his beloved wife now lay dead. The hatred that kindled within him suddenly grew with alarming swiftness. Gritting his teeth, he tried to subdue the emotion, to remember that the infant was his own flesh and blood, that he had a responsibility to love her; but God help him, he couldn't. As his loathing intensified, he knew he'd never be able to look upon the child without remembering, without hating, without wishing her dead . . . Jessica Reddington, burdened with her mother's death and left to her own defenses by an uncaring and bitter father, grows up to be a hardhearted and selfish woman who will stop at nothing to get what she wants-and what she wants most is her sister Rachel's fiancé, Matthew. Using her wiles she manages to seduce him, intent on entrapping him in marriage, before he's forever lost to her. Soon finding that she didn't conceive his child, she quickly has an affair with another man. While carrying his baby, she blames Matt for the baby's existence, and he's forced to become her husband. But when she gives birth her treachery is exposed, and Matt leaves her. Shortly after, the baby's real father furiously confronts Jessica, determined to take his son. Frightened and desperate for help, Jessica goes to her sister, but Rachel is unable to forgive her for the betrayal that's left her alone, suffering the loss of the only man she's ever loved. Though it pains her to do so, she turns Jessica away. Jessica soon finds refuge with the dark and mysterious Southerner, Cort Coulter, who has come north to Pennsylvania to claim an inheritance. Cort has lost everything he's ever cared about, due to the Civil War, his wife's incurable mental illness, and the disappearance of his son, born of a brief encounter with a woman of ill repute. The unexpected friendship between Cort and Jessica runs deep, each finding in the other something they have long been missing. But will these two ever end up together? Or will their pasts continuously intrude in their lives, forever preventing the opportunity for them to find true happiness? Beyond All Else is a sweeping saga that deals with the intricacies of the human heart and the awe-inspiring power of true love. The reader will be carried along on the rising tide of conflicting emotions, wondering until the very end what is to become of them all.