by Sharon Sala
Don’t miss the chance to read the novels that launched New York Times bestselling author Sharon Sala’s career.
WAS SHE RIGHT TO TRUST THIS STRANGER?
For Honor O’Brien, home had always been Charlie’s All-Night Truck Stop, where weary drivers were sure to find the best barbecue in West Texas. But, with the recent death of her mother, Charlotte, aka Charlie, Honor knew that Charlie’s would never be the same, and neither would her life.
One night, with the grief too much to bear, Honor hid between two huge rigs in the parking lot and burst into tears. A second later she realized she wasn’t alone. She was being watched by a handsome stranger who barely hesitated before pulling her into his arms and offering her the warm comfort of his embrace.
After the long trip from Colorado, Trace Logan couldn’t believe his good fortune. He’d been sent here to find Honor O’Brien. And, like magic, the long-legged beauty with a glorious black jumble of curls had fallen into his arms. He had found his woman. Now, if he could only get her back to Colorado without a struggle…
“Do I know you?” Honor asked.
“No.” His voice came softly through the darkness, straight into her heart.
“Oh,” she said quietly. “Are you a nice man?” she asked.
“My family thinks so,” he said with a grin.
“Good,” she said with a choked sob as she stepped forward into his arms. “I don’t want anyone I know to see me cry.”
His quick reflexes caught her, but he couldn’t have spoken a word to save his soul. Shock warred with dismay, and quickly flared into a possessive feeling that scared the hell out of him. Trace knew in his heart he wasn’t going to be able to turn this one loose….
* * *
“Ms. Sala tugs at our heartstrings with tender persistence, making us ache with joy and wonder.”
—Romantic Times Magazine
“Sharon Sala is not only a top romance novelist, she is an inspiration for people everywhere who wish to live their dreams.”
—John St. Augustine, Power! Talk Radio WDBC-AM Michigan
Dear Reader,
It is my great privilege that Silhouette is reissuing yet another of my stories. Honor’s Promise was my third published novel, and a book very dear to my heart. In it, my heroine must come to terms with the fact that the woman who raised her wasn’t her mother after all.
As I wrote, I tried to put myself in the heroine’s place, wondering how I’d feel if suddenly my world was turned upside down. Would I feel betrayed? Would I feel rootless? Would I dread the inevitable confrontation of meeting a new family, or would it be a life-enriching experience?
As the story unfolded, I found myself treasuring my own family even more and thanking God for the life that I’d been given and the love with which I was raised.
I hope, as you read, that this story makes you take stock of your existence, and that you realize how very short and precious life really is.
Next month, look for King’s Ransom, also available from Silhouette Books. You can write to me at P.O. Box 127, Henryetta, OK, 74437.
HONOR’S PROMISE
SHARON SALA
Also available from Sharon Sala:
SWEET BABY
(MIRA Books)
REUNION
(MIRA Books)
REMEMBER ME
(MIRA Books)
BUTTERFLY
(MIRA Books)
THE RETURN
by Sharon Sala writing as Dinah McCall
(MIRA Books)
MISSION: IRRESISTIBLE
(July 2000, Silhouette Intimate Moments #1016)
ALWAYS A LADY
(Silhouette Books)
GENTLE PERSUASION
(Silhouette Books)
SARA’S ANGEL
(Silhouette Books)
Coming soon from Sharon Sala:
KING’S RANSOM
(December 2000, Silhouette Books)
FAMILIAR STRANGER
(June 2001, Silhouette Intimate Moments #1082)
This book is dedicated to mothers and daughters everywhere who’ve come to realize that the bonds of love are stronger than the bonds of birth.
and
To my dear son, Christopher, and his darling wife, Kristi Ann, who with the patience and understanding of their daughter, Chelsea Nicole, are learning what it’s like to be parents.
Special thanks to EMT Dennis Dukes for his advice and expertise, and an acknowledgement of the dedication and sacrifice an EMT makes every day just for the welfare of the patient.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 1
Dear Mr. Malone, by the time you read this letter, I will be dead.
Trace Logan’s feet came off the desktop with a thump, his casual posture gone as he continued to read the strange letter. Ordinarily he wouldn’t be reading J. J. Malone’s mail, but the boss of Malone Industries was at home, recovering from a fall off his horse. That in itself was not unusual, except for the fact that J. J. Malone was on the down side of seventy-six years old.
Trace frowned as his eyes caught the phrase, I was the woman. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The words on the page yanked him to his feet. The overstuffed, oxblood leather chair went spinning around and around on its base like a merry-go-round gone crazy. Took your granddaughter, sent Trace to the wide expanse of plate-glass windows overlooking a portion of Colorado Springs’s business district.
His eyes narrowed, and he tilted the page to catch the fading light as an approaching thunderstorm slowly blocked the sun’s September rays.
Trace’s heart was racing, his thoughts in a turmoil. He debated with himself as to the possible authenticity of the letter. Knows nothing about it, the woman wrote, ending with a final sentence, And her name is Honor. It was signed, Charlotte O’Brien.
“Damn,” Trace muttered, and stared unseeingly through the tinted windows.
He barely remembered the incident. He’d been no more than eleven or twelve when it happened.
Mary Margaret Malone, only daughter of J. J.’s eldest son, John, who later died in Vietnam, was barely eight months old when she was snatched from her stroller in a park. It was the most publicized kidnapping since the disappearance of the Lindbergh baby years ago. But this time, no ransom note arrived, no phone calls or ominous threats were issued. There was no contact made whatsoever. The baby simply disappeared. After a time, it was assumed she was either dead or had been sold on the black market to some unsuspecting couple, desperate for a child they could not conceive.
J. J.’s hopes faded with each passing year until finally he’d ceased searching. Now, he rarely mentioned her passing through their lives.
Trace hurried back to his desk, searching through the shuffled papers for the letter’s envelope. A Texas lawyer’s return address in subdued but tasteful black script graced the corner. He frowned, tapped the envelope absently against the desk, and then pivoted decisively toward the office door.
“Irene,” Trace ordered, “cancel my appointments for the rest of the day. I’ll be at the Malone estate.”
The secretary’s perfectly drawn eyebrows arched in surprise, but she appropriately refrained from voicing her thoughts. She’d been J. J. Malone’s personal secretary for many years. When Trace Logan joined Malone Industries over twelve years ago, he’d become part of her duties.
She sighed a long-suffering sigh as the office door slammed shut behind him, then started leafing through his appointment
book, mentally preparing a plausible, professional excuse.
* * *
The wind whipped around the corner of the two-story Tudor-style mansion, blowing the first hints of moisture from the quickly moving storm front onto the windshield of Trace’s car. He pulled into the paved driveway at the Malone estate and parked.
Patting his suit pocket to assure himself the letter was safely inside, he opened the door and made a dash for the house. He beat the deluge by two long-legged leaps as he entered through the rear entrance.
“Mr. Logan!” Trudy Sinclair cried, startled at Trace’s unannounced arrival, and dropped the stalk of celery she’d been cleaning onto the hard, shiny surface of the gray flagstone floor. Little bits of leaf, water, and the long, thready strings she’d been stripping from the crisp green ribs went everywhere. She clasped her hand to her chest in dramatic surprise and promptly plastered the rest of the water and celery leaf on her apron front.
“Sorry, Trudy.” Trace grinned remorsefully. He watched the celery come to an abrupt halt against the work island in the center of the room. “I couldn’t beat the rain to the front door, so I used the back. I didn’t mean to scare you. Here, let me help you clean this up.”
He bent down and began to gather the crisp, wet stalks when Trudy snatched them from his hands and pushed him toward the main part of the house.
“I don’t need anyone messing about in my kitchen,” she announced, clutching the celery to her already wet apron. “You just startled me. I’ll clean it up myself, thank you. Mr. Malone is in the library. Go talk to him. Maybe you’ll put him in a better mood.”
Trace grinned again as Trudy’s sturdy little figure bustled busily about the kitchen, quickly putting it back to rights.
“He wouldn’t be in such a fix if he’d act his age,” Trudy muttered, and shoved Trace the rest of the way from the kitchen. “The very idea,” she continued accusingly, “riding horses at his age!”
Trace wisely left Trudy to her task and headed for the library. The smile disappeared from his face as he remembered the reason for his visit.
John James Malone was impulsive, hot-tempered, and rarely admitted to a failure or a mistake. And, he was too old to change. Trace was worried about how J. J. was going to receive the news.
He quietly entered the open double doors of the library and caught J. J. in the process of sneaking a cigar from the silver humidor on his desk.
“J. J.?” Trace said.
The tall, silver-haired man, balancing himself on crutches, jumped and dropped the lid of the humidor. It went clanging to the floor and spun about in a whup, whup, whup sound until it came to rest at Trace’s feet.
“Hellfire, boy,” J. J. Malone said. He turned and glared, struggling to maintain his balance. “Now you’ve done it. Sinless Sinclair will have heard that lid and hide my cigars again. What the hell are you doing here this time of day? Is something wrong at the office?”
“Sorry, boss,” Trace said. “This must be my day for surprises, in more ways than one.” He slid his hand inside his suit coat and pulled out the letter. “No, nothing’s wrong at the office. But…” and he hesitated, almost afraid now that he was here, to hand the man the letter. What if he had a heart attack? It was going to be a shock. He should have had Irene call J. J.’s doctor.
“But what?” J. J. urged, and slipped the cigar back into the humidor, quickly putting the silver lid back in place just as his housekeeper came bursting through the doorway.
She fixed him with an icy, disapproving glare, looked pointedly at the humidor, and then back at J. J. She sniffed the air suspiciously, and when she could detect no offending odors, she barked out, “Will there be anything you’d be wanting, sir?”
“Just a little privacy in my own home would be nice,” J. J. muttered in return, then grinned mischievously as Trudy spun around and bustled back to the kitchen.
“Told you,” J. J. said to Trace, and then his playful manner disappeared as he saw the odd, intense look on Trace’s face.
Trace Logan was the son of his best friend, Conrad Logan. He’d taken him straight out of college and into the firm, more or less as a favor to Conrad. Trace had a razor-sharp mind and had quickly evolved into the hard, savvy man he was today. Due to J. J.’s accident, Trace was running Malone Industries single-handedly…and competently.
“What is it, boy?” J. J. repeated. “Did we lose that government contract after all? I knew I should have called my man in Washington—”
“No,” Trace interrupted. “It has nothing to do with business. It’s personal, J. J. I opened a letter addressed to you.”
“So?” J. J. questioned. “You know you have full authority to act on my behalf.”
Trace pulled himself up to his full height of more than six feet, took a deep breath, and spoke as he handed the letter to his boss. “Maybe you’d better sit down to read this.”
J. J.’s shaggy, white eyebrows shot upward as he cocked his head sideways.
“That bad, is it, boy?” He clumped awkwardly to his favorite chair by the fireplace and let himself drop backward with a thump. “Now, hand me the damned letter.”
“I wouldn’t call it bad news, sir. If it’s valid, it could be the best news you ever had.”
Trace handed him the letter, then lowered himself in the chair opposite the man he considered to be his second father. Trace watched J. J. pat his shirt pocket, locate his glasses, and slide them up his long, craggy nose. Then he looked at the return address on the envelope bearing his name, looked back at Trace’s worried expression, and slipped the letter from the envelope. He cleared his throat, pushed his glasses to a comfortable position, unfolded the piece of paper, and began to read.
Trace watched the old man’s face run the full gamut of expressions. It went from shock, to disbelief, to sudden understanding, and then pure, unadulterated joy.
J. J. let the letter fall limply in his lap. He leaned his head back against the cushioned headrest and closed his eyes. His mouth worked spasmodically as he struggled with composure.
Trace could restrain himself no longer. He leaned forward and placed his hand on the old man’s knee, curling his long, tanned fingers around the bony kneecap.
“Are you all right, J. J.?”
J. J. opened his eyes, unashamed of the tears that slipped from the corners, and sighed. He reached down and patted Trace’s hand.
“Yes, son. I’m more than all right. I knew there was a reason I had to stay behind when my Meggie died. For the longest time I was so damned mad at God I didn’t think it through. Yes, I was,” he repeated, watching a frown appear on Trace’s face. “First we lost baby Megan. She was named for my own Mary Margaret, you know. Then less than a year later that damned telegram came from the War Department telling us Johnny was gone. After that, my Meggie just quit on me. I couldn’t do anything but watch her die from a broken heart.”
J. J. fumbled around, digging in his hip pocket for a handkerchief. He looked up gratefully as Trace quietly handed him his.
“Thanks, boy,” J. J. muttered, and blew noisily into the cloth as he continued. “There I was, Johnny and baby Megan gone. Then I had to let my Meggie go, too. Hell, yes, I was mad at God. There was no one left to be mad at but Him. Look at what’s left of the Malones. You know as well as I that they’re a sorry lot. My only other son is a priest. No babies there to carry on the Malone name. And my daughter Erin is so busy being career person of the year that she has no time for family. Not even time for me.”
“What happened to the baby’s mother, J. J.?” Trace asked.
J. J. grunted loudly and gave his nose a final blow. “She up and married less than a year after Johnny’s death and moved to Europe. I heard several years later that she’d been killed in a plane crash on one of her jet-set vacations. They’re all gone. But…” His eyes darkened, and tears pooled again. J. J. Malone suddenly looked his age. “I’ve still got you, boy,” he said huskily. “And now maybe my little Megan. You go to Texas, Trace. You fi
nd my Megan and bring her home.”
“You read the letter, J. J.,” Trace warned. “Her name’s not Megan anymore. It’s Honor, Honor O’Brien. And she may not want to come.”
“You go find her,” J. J. ordered gruffly, and pulled himself shakily to his feet, trying to balance on his injured leg without crutches.
Trace bent down, retrieved the crutches from beneath the chair legs, and handed them to his boss.
“I’ll go,” he promised. “And I’ll find her. I’ll even bring her back. But no one can say if she’ll stay, sir,” he warned. “No one.” And then he was gone.
J. J. turned, and hobbled to the fireplace where a large, framed portrait hung in a conspicuous place of honor above the massive mantel.
“Well, Meggie love,” J. J. spoke. “We’re finally going to get her back. I just wish to God you were here to share my joy.”
The laughing face stared silently back at the man beneath the portrait. The artist had captured to perfection her spirit, as well as her likeness. Masses of inky black curls tumbled carelessly around her face and neck, and the stormy gray eyes mirrored the sky outside. The turned-up nose and generous lips framing her laugh highlighted the single dimple at the left corner of her mouth. Mary Margaret Malone would remain, captured in spirit by the stroke of brush and oils, and stay on canvas, as she did in J. J.’s heart, forever young.
* * *
The numbers faded and blurred on the ledger page. Honor pinched the bridge of her nose, refusing to give in to the constant threat of tears that hovered behind her eyelids. They’d been there for almost a month now. Ever since her mother’s death, she’d been fighting this near-overwhelming feeling of hopelessness. How was she going to get through the rest of her life without Charlie? She was all Honor had known for the first twenty-six years of her life. Now, Honor O’Brien had to figure out how to survive the rest of her life without her.
The busy sounds of customers coming and going filtered in through the office door where Honor was trying to work. Trucks and cars continually pulled in and out of the best-known all-night truck stop in west Texas. Charlie’s had a reputation for the best mesquite barbecue in Texas. At least, that was what the truckers claimed. They were always ready to haul a load going down that way. If they did, it was a sure bet that they’d be stopping at Charlie’s for some good eating, a chance to rest, and a visit with the two prettiest women in Texas.