“But I didn’t just come close,” she said, her green eyes wide and fixed on his. “I did love you, and I do love you. I never needed anyone as much as I needed you in these last few days, and I’ve been so lonely and scared—”
“Oh, darling,” he groaned, and bent to kiss her with slow fervency, and the calibre of feeling in his caress was so deep that it swept away any remaining cobweb of doubt in her mind.
“I’m so glad you came!” she whispered against his warm mouth.
He sighed, and drank her words in with open lips. “I’ll always come. I’ll always be here right beside you, always. No matter what.”
“But what about your work?” she asked, pulling back to stare at him worriedly. “You’ve got so many people depending on you, I’ll understand if you have to go back. I’m just happy you managed to come at all, and—well, there’s no telling how long I’ll have to stay.”
It hurt her deeply to say it: to admit in words that Devin’s condition was so unknown, to free Matthew from any sense of obligation when all she wanted to do was to cling shamelessly and beg him to stay.
Matt’s head raised and he said shortly, with a savage frown, “You must be joking. Do you honestly think I’d leave, with your father in hospital, and God knows what kind of danger you might be in?”
“But there isn’t any danger!” she exclaimed. “Honestly.”
He looked at her in frank disbelief and replied coolly, “Your father’s friend certainly thought otherwise.”
Sian waved an impatient hand. “Malcolm’s been under a lot of strain. He blames himself for what happened to my father, but the people responsible are already in gaol. You don’t have to worry about me.”
“If it’s all right with you,” he said drily, “I think I’ll find that out for myself, thank you very much. And as far as my work is concerned, there’s nothing I left that can’t be taken care of when I get back. No, Sian—you can’t put up any more barriers between us. Life’s too short for that. By the grace of God, and despite our own idiotic behaviour, we’ve managed to find each other, and we’ll just have to rearrange our own lives accordingly, because now that I’ve got you, I’m not going to let go again. Ever. You’re looking in the face of a lifetime sentence, so tough luck.”
“I’m just going to have to learn how to handle it?” she asked, her eyes alight with memory and laughter.
His impatience melted away into a sexy grin. “You got it.”
“Lassie!” Malcolm’s urgent shout from down the corridor made her jump violently, and stark fear bleached away all signs of the growing happiness that had sweetened her face. She and Matt looked at each other for one grim moment, then she turned and nearly fell to the floor in weak relief at the sight of the beaming smile on Malcolm’s face. “It’s yer da—he’s awake and asking for you!”
“Matt!” she turned to him with a smile of such blinding loveliness that his breath caught in his throat.
He whirled her around and grabbed hold of her hand. “Come on!”
They ran swiftly through the corridors, and people turned to look, and nurses frowned, but nothing could eclipse the huge perfection of the joy that washed over her in waves so tangible that it was nearly visible light.
She pointed the direction out to Matt, and he thrust open the door for her to rush through. At the sight of Devin’s clear, lucid gaze, she smiled and cried at once. She came up to his bedside to take his hand tenderly, and she said, “Oh, Daddy. I’ve been so worried. How do you feel?”
“Sure, and how else do you expect me to feel?” said Devin with a weak grin, as his eyes lit up with love. “Like I’ve lost an argument with a brick, of course. And don’t you go scolding me, mind. I know I’ve been a stubborn fool.”
“I’ll scold you if I want. Don’t you ever, ever do that to me again!” she said, but gently, as she stroked his hand.
“No, lass,” he said meekly, then he caught sight of Matt standing silently behind her. “What’s this? And here you’ve been telling me there’s no man in your life.”
“There is now,” said Matt as she opened her mouth. His hand settled on to her shoulder.
“Sure, and now he’ll be expecting me to play the stern father, and here I am with my head wrapped up like an Indian prince,” said Devin with a dubious scowl, to which she laughed. “And just what are your intentions towards the most beautiful lassie you’re ever likely to see, me young lad?”
“Strictly honourable,” said Matthew, who then added, “And far too explicit to be telling her father on his sick-bed.”
At that, he surprised Devin into laughing so hard that Sian grew alarmed and leaned over him. “Aye, darling,” said her father complacently when he could catch his breath. “It looks like you’ve caught yourself a live one.”
Matt’s firm fingers tightened on her shoulder, running threads of sensual warmth and promise throughout her body, and a vital, unspoken message of commitment. Of course he would always be there. Hadn’t he wooed her from a different State and chased her across two countries and an ocean? She said with deceptive placidity, while a twinkle was born in her eye, “Why, yes.”
She was thinking of a story her father had once told her, about the devil and an Irishman.
About the Author
Thea Harrison started writing when she was nineteen. In the 1980s and 1990s, she wrote for Harlequin Mills & Boon under the name Amanda Carpenter. The Amanda Carpenter romances have been published in over ten languages, and sold over a million and a half copies worldwide, and are now being reprinted digitally by Samhain Publishing for their Retro Romance line.
For more information, please visit her at: www.theaharrison.com. You can also find her on Facebook at: www.facebook.com/TheaHarrison and on Twitter at: @TheaHarrison.
Look for these titles by Amanda Carpenter
Now Available:
A Solitary Heart
Cry Wolf
Passage of the Night
Caprice
The Gift of Happiness
Reckless
Rose-Coloured Love
A Deeper Dimension
The Wall
A Damaged Trust
The Great Escape
Flashback
Rage
Waking Up
Writing as Thea Harrison:
Novellas of the Elder Races
True Colors
Natural Evil
Devil’s Gate
Hunter’s Season
The Wicked
Coming Soon:
The Winter King
Can a white knight change from protector to lover?
Cry Wolf
© 2014 Amanda Carpenter
Fleeing for her life, Nikki Ashton rounds a corner and runs into an unyielding wall of man. Injured and desperate for rescue, she’s the very picture of a damsel in distress. Businessman Harper Beaumont is more than willing to act as her white knight—and after taking care of her he offers Nikki the career chance of a lifetime.
But Nikki sees more in Harper than just her savior. She sees a man she can fall in love with. But Harper needs a strong, passionate woman at his side, and though Nikki knows she can be that woman for him, he only views her as a girl in need of protection…
Enjoy the following excerpt for Cry Wolf:
Nikki Ashton was running for her life when she stumbled around the corner of an old brick building and blundered headlong into the hard, unyielding wall of someone’s chest.
They had caught her. There would be no second chance, nowhere else to run. As strong arms encircled her, Nikki screamed, a terrible lonely cry from a soul that had found its hell in utter hopelessness.
She was taken by the shoulders and shaken once, a hard, decisive gesture, before the man let go of her as if she bore some kind of contagious disease, and his mellifluous voice over
her head cracked sharp as a steel-tipped whip, as hard as the hands that had held her, and as pitiless. “Get a hold of yourself, woman! I’m not going to rape you, for God’s sake. Bumping into you was an accident!”
Left without support, her legs collapsed underneath her, and she tumbled to the ground, but Nikki’s head lifted. Whoever she had run into, it was not one of the two men who had dragged her down a dark alley and attacked her. Yellow light from a streetlamp halfway down the filthy block shone on her short black hair and gleamed on the high pale cheekbones of the small face, the great drowning pools of summer-blue eyes.
All she could see was a black towering figure, for the light came from behind him. He seemed to hesitate, but only for a moment. She reached desperately to pluck at the trousered leg so fleetingly close, but the material slipped agonisingly through fingers that could not curl to grasp it properly.
“Don’t go—” she gasped, the harsh sound breaking from a parched throat, and perhaps it was just the rebirth of hope that had her imagining that the unidentifiable figure hesitated again. The same hope had tears destroying sight so that she dashed one hand across her face and left a wet, sticky trail. “Please,” she whispered. “I’m in trouble.”
That wet, sticky streak stood out like a beacon against the snow-white pallor of her face, for it was blood.
“Dear God,” said the man in a completely altered tone of voice. He squatted in front of her, and Nikki looked into a dark brown gaze that, when softened, would look like velvet, but now stabbed rapier-sharp. “You’re American, aren’t you? What the hell are you doing in Soho at night? Don’t you know, you witless creature, this is no place for a sightseeing trip on your own?”
“Does it look like I’m on a sightseeing trip?” she exploded in furious reaction, cradling her curled hands against her breast, for they were on fire. Since flight no longer seemed imperative, the pain had room to come back. “I’m lost and two men are chasing me! There was one just behind me—that’s why I ran around the corner so hard!”
The man rose to his feet and walked away. Stunned, Nikki bowed her dark head over her injured hands. The hope, then, had been for nothing.
But he had simply gone to the street corner, peered around it and strode back. He knelt and said, sounding brusque, “There’s no one there now, but we shouldn’t stay here in case they come back. Are you hurt too badly to walk?”
In spite of his curt tone, the large hand that wiped the smear of blood from her face, then took hold of both of hers and turned them open, was very gentle indeed. She straightened her fingers as much as she could for his inspection, long, delicate fingers she had always kept neatly, had always cared for so well. The palm of each hand was slashed with a diagonal cut, from the base of the index finger to the opposite corner, and both were still bleeding.
The man drew in a quick breath, eyes widening with shock before they filled with a terrible fury. His hard brown gaze lifted to hers. “They did this to you?”
“They tried to do worse!” she snapped, the embers of outrage flaring again to animate the delicate lines of her face. “I grabbed the wrist of the one with the knife. When he yanked away, I did this to myself.”
One of his eyebrows lifted satirically at the sight of Nikki’s sparkling blue eyes and aggressive, jutting chin, for, terrified or not, she looked ready to do battle all over again. “We need the police and a doctor,” he said decisively. “Let’s get you to the nearest phone.”
He drew her to her feet, where she swayed unsteadily until he put one arm around her waist and helped her down the street, his lean athletic body brushing hers with each fluid stride. Nikki had recovered herself enough to notice details about him. His head was grey all over, a thick, vibrant pelt of iron hair like a wolf’s.
The nearest phone happened to be in the stranger’s car just two blocks down. Nikki stared wryly at the subdued elegant length of the black Jaguar as he fitted his key into the lock. The car suited the rolling, coiled grace of the tall man, but only as an accessory. This was not the kind of man who needed a status-symbol car to proclaim his worth to the world. This was a man who took quality and used it, but did not give it too much importance in his mind. She had known many men like that, and from long experience she knew power when she looked it in the face.
Her terror-induced adrenaline had receded but the resulting depression had not yet set in, so Nikki was remarkably clear-thinking, almost light-headed. When the grey-haired stranger turned to help her into the passenger-seat, she felt everything he did as separate and important in itself: the quick sensitivity of his dark eyes assessing her present condition, the long, graceful hand he extended that was saved from being willowy by the sheer breadth of physical strength across the palms, the tiny predatory shift of his lean, impassive face as he scanned the empty street one last time.
Understated, she thought, settling into the seat as he shut the door and moved to the driver’s side. Restrained. Then she thought of the expression in his hard dark eyes as he had looked down on her poor hands. No, leashed.
As soon as he had got into the car, he pressed the automatic door locks. His startlingly grey head turned to her as the metallic bolts thunked into place, the ungentle gaze boring into hers. A card player’s face, a boardroom face long familiar with power manoeuvres, and not as old as the grey hair might indicate; Nikki met his gaze with unfeigned composure.
“Don’t you have even the slightest apprehension at being locked in a stranger’s car?” he said sardonically.
Watch those hard eyes. Nikki pointed out with absolutely no trace of anger, “I am alive. If I had not run into you, I might be dead now. That tends to put things into a certain perspective.”
“Perhaps you extend your trust too easily,” he said silkenly.
She gave him a tiny smile, then shaped her reply with a succinct baring of even white teeth. “A case of the devil and the deep blue sea?”
There was still no facial change, but his gaze, locked with hers, undertook a subtle shift. Nikki’s heart pounded once, hard. His eyes lowered, and as he lifted the white scarf from around his neck he said, “Hold out your hands.”
No reassurances were forthcoming. For all she knew of him, he could be waiting to tie her up. Nikki was quite adept at reading nuances; she was to make of him what she would, and cope with her reactions in her own way. It was another key to the man. He had a certain amount of compassion, but it only went so far, and without so much as saying a word he was telling her what he must have said to many a business associate: deal with it or get out.
She smiled with genuine amusement. It lit her features, transforming her into a wise woman, and told him more clearly than anything else could have done that she saw through him and was not cowed. The last person able to do so had died five years ago, and not even she had possessed such a straight purity of gaze. This young woman was rare.
If he had his way, their love would be blossoming in no time…
Full Bloom
© 2014 Karen Leabo
Ugh! Sent home from a whale-watching trip due to sickness, Hilary McShane arrives home to find herself locked out of her own house. Forced to climb through a bedroom window, she’s greeted by a total stranger armed with a baseball bat. Sure, he’s nice to look at, but this man is definitely not the house-sitter she hired.
Matt Burke never thought agreeing to a last-minute job as a house sitter would lead to him, armed with nothing but a bat, confronting a beautiful burglar. So yes, he has made her house his home in the interim—as a horticulturalist, he couldn’t resist adding his own special touch and organizational flair. But Matt soon discovers something he can’t manage—his new feelings for the irresistible Hilary.
Enjoy the following excerpt for Full Bloom:
Hilary McShane shivered as she stood on the porch of her old frame house, her back to the front door. She watched with a growing sense of desolation as the taillig
hts of the taxi receded into the unseasonably cool, misty night.
“Home again, home again,” she murmured in the darkness, wishing now that she’d called Sheila to come pick her up at the airport instead of taking the cab. She hadn’t wanted to drag her friend out of bed at this late hour, but if she had, she wouldn’t be facing this dark house alone.
She fought off a coughing fit as she searched through her overflowing leather bag for her keys. At least her fever was down, Hilary thought as her fingers closed around the familiar shape of the wooden key chain. But her cough persisted. She fitted the key into the dead-bolt lock and, knowing from many past battles that the lock was stubborn, she gave it a healthy twist.
The key broke off in her hand.
Hilary stared at the twisted scrap of metal in dismay, silently cursing the spate of bad luck that seemed to be following her. She had hoped to creep into the house without awakening her house sitter, Meredith, but now she had no choice. She drew her hand into a fist and pounded on the wooden door. A few flakes of pink paint drifted down.
“Meredith?” she called out, and pounded again. There was no answer. After repeating the process, Hilary was forced to accept the fact that her house sitter wasn’t in. Sheila had warned Hilary that her social-butterfly daughter often stayed out late. At the time Hilary hadn’t minded, just so someone would be around to water the plants, collect the mail and give the house a lived-in look. Now she minded.
She’d spent almost twenty-four hours in transit from the wild Alaskan coast to Kansas City, counting layovers. All she’d thought about during that time was the warm bed that awaited her. She was too tired and too miserable to stand out here in the drizzle.
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