Damon wanted her.
Letter to Reader
Title Page
Dedication
Books by Christine Flynn
About the Author
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Copyright
Damon wanted her.
The knowledge flowed through Hannah as she yearned for this man who tried to do what was right. This scarred, angry man who felt compelled to hide how truly decent he was.
She’d never known, never believed, that she could crave a man with such desperation. But then, she’d never been desired the way Damon desired her. No man had ever touched her with such possession.
His big hands molded her, shaped her, drew her intimately against him. Still, it wasn’t enough.
For she had fallen in love with him. Hopelessly. She could no more deny it than she could deny the fire he ignited deep inside her.
Everywhere he touched, she burned.
And he was touching her everywhere....
Dear Reader,
What would July be without fun in the sun, dazzling fireworks displays—or heartwarming love stories from the Special Edition line? Romance seems even more irresistible in the balmy days of summer, and our six books for this month are sure to provide hours of reading pleasure.
This July, Myma Temte continues her HEARTS OF WYOMING series with an engaging story about best friends turned lovers. THAT SPECIAL WOMAN! Alexandra McBride Talbot is determined not to get involved with her handsome next-door neighbor, but he goes to extraordinary lengths to win this single mom’s stubborn heart in Urban Cowboy.
Sometimes true love knows no rhyme or reason. Take for instance the headstrong heroine in Hannah and the Hellion by Christine Flynn. Everyone warned this sweetheart away from the resident outcast, but she refused to abandon the rogue of her dreams. Or check out the romance-minded rancher who’s driven to claim the heart of his childhood crush in The Cowboy’s Ideal Wife by bestselling author Victoria Pade—the next installment in her popular A RANCHING FAMILY series. And Martha Hix’s transformation story proves how love can give a gruff, emotionally scarred hero a new lease on life in Terrific Tom. Rounding off the month, we’ve got The Sheik’s Mistress by Brittany Young—a forbidden-love saga about a soon-to-be betrothed sheik and a feisty American beauty. And pure, platonic friendship turns into something far greater in Baby Starts the Wedding March by Amy Frazier.
I hope you enjoy each and every story to come!
Sincerely,
Tara Gavin,
Editorial Manager
Please address questions and book requests to:
Silhouette Reader Service
U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269
Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3
CHRISTINE FLYNN
HANNAH AND THE HELLION
For Pat Warren, the best of friends
Books by Christine Flynn
Silhouette Special Edition
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A Father’s Wish #962
*Logan’s Bride #995
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*The Black Sheep’s Bride #1053
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Hannah and the Hellion #1184
*The Whitaker Brides
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CHRISTINE FLYNN
admits to being interested in just about everything, which is why she considers herself fortunate to have turned her interest in writing into a career. She feels that a writer gets to explore it all and, to her, exploring relationships—especially the intense, bittersweet or even lighthearted relationships between men and women—is fascinating.
Chapter One
If there was anything Damon Jackson did well, it was block distractions. The distraction ahead of him, however, was driving him nuts. He wasn’t about to acknowledge her. If he ignored her, she’d leave.
It was with that hope that he turned his broad back to the woman waving at him from the deserted dock and tried once more to start the Naiad’s engine. The old commercial fishing boat had been named for the young, musical nymphs once believed to inhabit fresh waters, but she was more of a croaking old hag now. The thirty-foot trawler he inherited from his father had battled Lake Superior’s often perilous waters for every one of Damon’s thirty-two years, and time had wreaked its own brand of havoc on them both. Damon considered himself impervious to any further damage. A man’s scars were made of tougher stuff than wood and corroding metal. As for the boat, about all that held the dilapidated vessel together anymore was determination and duct tape. This winter, come hell or high water, he’d strip her down and refit her. If she didn’t sink first.
The engine shuddered, coughed and quit. With an inventive curse, Damon hit the starter again. When the ignition fired this time, all cylinders kicked in and the crankshaft finally began to turn. The racket was deafening, and would be until the engine warmed up, but at least the thing was running.
Moving with the ease of a man who’d spent his life on the rolling deck of a boat, he swung out of the wheelhouse, deliberately overlooking the peeling paint and wood rot eating at the door frame. For the third time in two weeks, one of the two itinerant hands he’d hired for the season had failed to show for work. That had left him with only Marty, the more reliable but taciturn ex-dock worker who, like him, had his own reasons for staying out of trouble. He didn’t know what those reasons were. He didn’t ask. He didn’t care. The other guy would get fired tomorrow, if he bothered to show up at all. As small as his operation was, Damon couldn’t afford to be down a man.
“Hey! Can’t you hear me?”
The woman’s melodic voice rang out over the clatter and chug of the old workhorse of an engine.
Keeping his distance had become essential to his survival. Pretending he hadn’t heard a thing, Damon snatched up a rag he’d dropped on the deck and headed for the open engine hatch. As he did, he glanced toward the parking lot beyond the dock for Marty. He’d sent him up the hill twenty minutes ago to buy another fan belt. The minute he returned, they’d pull out.
“Excuse me. Sir?”
The insistence in that single word had Damon uttering an expletive as short as it was succinct. He had no desire whatsoever to deal with some tourist who had more time on her hands than she knew what to do with, but ignoring her didn’t seem to be working at all. The woman had the tenacity of a toothache.
Planting his hands on his hips, thinking a glare might work, he turned to face her. Occ
upied as he’d been, he’d barely glimpsed her when she’d hurried toward his boat. Now, prepared to ask her what in the hell she wanted, he found his glance moving over shining auburn hair that swung against the shoulders of a zippered sweatshirt, and skin that looked so soft it fairly begged to be touched. She had the face of an angel, the slender body of a dancer, and the way her lush mouth parted to suck in a breath when her deep blue eyes met his had a jolt of white heat slamming low in his gut.
The distinct, purely physical reaction added a whole new dimension to the morning’s frustrations.
“You want the other dock,” he called out, raking her with an appraising glance. She was clearly one of the summer people who swarmed up from the Twin Cities to invade Pine Point every summer. Even dressed in running shoes, jeans and the loose, zippered sweatshirt that camouflaged her curves, she was too polished to be a local.
A certain wariness preceded her hollered “What?”
“The fishing charters,” he expanded, wondering if her hair was as silky as it looked. The breeze toyed with it like the fingers of a lover, pushing it back from her face, lifting it to catch the light of the sun. Strands of deep amber and ruby glowed in the depths of rich mahogany. He’d never seen quite that shade of fire in hair before. As his glance drifted down, he wasn’t sure he’d seen anyone who could do what her long legs did for faded denim, either.
His jaw locked, the muscles there as tight as the unwanted ache burning low in his belly. The last thing he needed was a reminder of how long he’d been without the softness of a woman.
“They run from the new dock. Over there.” He jerked his thumb toward the pleasure craft moored on the other side of the inlet. “There’s nothing for tourists here.”
Most people would have backed off after such a curt dismissal. As he turned away, he thought for sure she’d have the sense to do just that. Not her. Apparently as dense as the pine woods growing straight out to the shoreline, she promptly tracked his path to the opposite side of his stern.
“I don’t want to go fishing,” she informed him. “I want to know if you know him.”
“Who?”
“Him!”
Looking totally exasperated, she held her arm out toward the end of the weathered dock. All Damon could see was the abandoned bait house, until he noticed an elderly man leaning against its age-silvered siding. The muted greens and grays of his clothing made him nearly invisible against the greens of the lichen and moss on the warped boards.
“He was there when I got here a few minutes ago. He seems awfully confused, and I’m afraid he’s going to fall into the water if he’s left alone. Is he with you?”
Metal clanged against metal as Damon wiped grease from wrenches and tossed them one at a time into his toolbox. “No.”
“Do you know who he is, then? There isn’t anyone else around.”
She held her arms wide, encompassing the line of empty slips. Only one other boat was still moored this time of day. An old derelict that made the Naiad look like a racing yacht.
The last wrench landed in the toolbox with a jarring clatter. Glancing toward the parking lot, wishing his man would hurry up, Damon unplugged the utility light and started coiling its thick yellow cord.
“His name’s Lindstrom.”
“Do you think he’ll be okay?”
His brow furrowed, but he kept at his task. “How am I supposed to know?”
His response obviously gave her pause. It did not, however, get rid of her. “Since you know who he is, it stands to reason you might know something about him.”
“Well, I don’t.”
“We can’t just leave him here,” she announced, unfazed by his lack of interest. “Do you know where he lives?”
Securing the end of the cord, he shoved it into a canvas duffel. “About a mile up the road,” he told her, not caring at all for this “we” business. “Head south on the highway until you get to the sign for Verna Lake. Take a right and follow the road till it dead-ends. He lives in the last house.”
Duffel and toolbox in hand, he disappeared into the hatch. A moment later, fervently hoping she’d disappeared, he reemerged.
She hadn’t budged. And she was still talking.
Making no attempt to listen, he lowered the hatch door into place. Rusted hinges screeched, the obnoxious noise cutting off part of whatever it was she said. All Damon caught was something about her car not being there.
“I walked down from the café,” she continued, apparently referring to the little restaurant on the hill behind them. “I tried to get him to come back up there with me, but he won’t do it. He just kept saying he missed his boat. What about yours?”
“My what?”
“Your car,” she explained, somehow sounding exasperated and patient at the same time. “Is there any way you can take him home?”
The magnificently built ox with the lousy attitude finally looked up from what he was doing. As put off as Hannah was by his rudeness, she almost wished he’d continued ignoring her with his tasks. Meeting his hard glance head-on made her uneasy. He made her uneasy. He had ever since he’d turned around and given her the bold once-over that had made her feel as if he’d removed every article of clothing she wore—just before he’d dismissed her.
There was nothing even remotely civil about the mountain of granite-hewn male staring her down from the deck of the battered old fishing boat. From the dark sable hair falling defiantly over his forehead to the challenge in his wide-legged stance on the unsteady deck, everything about him radiated a kind of latent tension that told her to back away. Everything inside her warned her to listen to the silent message he was sending her, too. Tall and solidly muscled, he had a hard, hungry look about him that made her think him as dangerous and unyielding as the monoliths of rock farther down the shore. His eyes were the cool gray of a stormy sea, shadowed and fathomless. His handsome features were chiseled, the firm line of his mouth beautifully carved and frankly sensual.
Her glance jerked down, her heart hammering. That sensuality was as disturbing as his defiance. The latter impression was enhanced considerably by the dark, narrow tattoo circling his bicep and the sleeveless black sweatshirt that allowed the symbol to be visible.
With anyone else, Hannah might have thought the silent way he watched her meant he was thinking over her request. With him, she strongly suspected he was only waiting for her to finish checking him out.
“No,” he replied flatly, apparently assuming she was through. “There isn’t any chance that I’ll take him home. Find someone else.”
“There isn’t anyone else.” Common sense nudged hard for her to back away. Had she not been so concerned for the elderly gentleman, she’d have done so long before now. “And we can’t just leave him here,” she insisted, when the man on deck started to turn from her. “He isn’t too steady on his feet and I’m afraid he’s going to fall into—”
“Lady,” he muttered, swiftly cutting her off, “we aren’t doing anything. I’m already two hours late pulling out, and I’m going to have to haul net twice as fast to get my catch in because one of my men didn’t show. The minute my deckhand gets back, I’m out of here.”
“How long will that be?”
“Five minutes.”
“Then, you have time to take him home.”
“Are you deaf?”
She met his glare, her own expression considerably more tolerant. “If he only lives a mile away, it wouldn’t take that much longer for you to run him to his house. I’ll wait here and tell your deckhand you’ll be right back.”
For a moment, Damon said nothing. He just stood on his vibrating deck and narrowed his gaze on the woman who’d planted herself squarely behind his stern. Pretty as she was, she reminded him of a barnacle. She clearly had no intention of dislodging herself from the back of his boat until she got his help.
He was about to tell her that Lindstrom wouldn’t want to taint himself by going anywhere with the likes of him when he saw the cause of this l
atest interruption push himself away from the bait shack and sway to the side. The woman was right. The old Swede was about as steady on his feet as a sailor on a three-day binge.
“He’s drunk,” he pronounced.
Hannah shook her head. “I don’t think he is. His speech isn’t slurred, and he doesn’t smell of alcohol. Even if he were drunk,” she added, “we couldn’t leave him alone down here the way he is. Wouldn’t you want someone to help you, if you needed it?”
The look he gave her was utterly bland. If it was her intention to appeal to his sense of guilt, sympathy or humanitarianism, she was wasting her breath. He possessed none of those qualities. Anyone in town could tell her that. Any of the locals, anyway. And the old man by the bait shack was one of them.
Ever since Damon had returned to Pine Point, he’d managed to avoid trouble by keeping contact with the town’s “respectable” citizenry to a bare minimum. Trouble had a way of finding him, though. It always had. And this smelled like something he would live to regret. But he’d no doubt regret it if he didn’t help. Not because she’d hit on some bit of decency lingering beneath his defenses. Because of plain old practicality. With his reputation, he didn’t doubt someone would find a way to hold him responsible if the old man did happen to totter off the dock and drown.
He could hear the self-righteous accusations even now.
A woman tried to get him to help, but that Jackson boy just took off and left that poor old man....
Hannah And The Hellion (Silhouette Treasury 90s) Page 1