“What do you hope to get out of helping me?”
Lissa asked.
“I told you. Nothing.”
“Don’t give me that, Henderson.”
“Evan. The name’s Evan. And I’m not asking for anything from you.”
“Ha!” Lissa flung her head back. Eyes bruised by the public scorn she’d endured glared at him. “I might have believed that three years ago. Now I know better. Tell me the truth, Evan. What do you want from me?”
Evan hated that she saw him with a clearer vision than he saw himself. Digging deep inside himself, he was forced to admit that he wanted a heck of a lot more from Lissa than he’d wanted from any woman in a long, long time.
Dear Reader,
This is a very special month here at Intimate Moments. We’re celebrating the publication of our 1000th novel, and what a book it is! Angel Meets the Badman is the latest from award-winning and bestselling Maggie Shayne, and it’s part of her ongoing miniseries, THE TEXAS BRAND. It’s a page-turner par excellence, so take it home, sit back and prepare to be enthralled.
Ruth Langan’s back, and Intimate Moments has got her. This month this historical romance star continues to win contemporary readers’ hearts with The Wildes of Wyoming— Hazard, the latest in her wonderful contemporary miniseries about the three Wilde brothers. Paula Detmer Riggs returns to MATERNITY ROW, the site of so many births—and so many happy endings—with Daddy by Choice. And look for the connected MATERNITY ROW short story, “Family by Fate,” in our new Mother’s Day collection, A Bouquet of Babies. Merline Lovelace brings readers another of the MEN OF THE BAR H in The Harder They Fall—and you’re definitely going to fall for hero Evan Henderson. Cinderella and the Spy is the latest from Sally Tyler Hayes, an author with a real knack for mixing romance and suspense in just the right proportions. And finally, there’s Safe in His Arms, a wonderful amnesia story from Christine Scott.
Enjoy them all, and we’ll see you again next month, when you can once again find some of the best and most exciting romance reading around, right here in Silhouette Intimate Moments.
Yours,
Leslie J. Wainger
Executive Senior Editor
THE HARDER THEY FALL
MERLINE LOVELACE
To Betty and Dee Lovelace, who moved me to tears with the love shining in their eyes at their 50th wedding anniversary—where, incidentally, I first got the idea for this book!
Books by Merline Lovelace
Silhouette Intimate Moments
Somewhere in Time #593
*Night of the Jaguar #637
*The Cowboy and the Cossack #657
*Undercover Man #669
*Perfect Double #692
†The 14th…and Forever #764
Return to Sender #866
**If a Man Answers #878
The Mercenary and the New Mom #908
**A Man of His Word #938
**The Harder They Fall #999
Silhouette Desire
Dreams and Schemes #872
†Halloween Honeymoon #1030
†Wrong Bride, Right Groom #1037
‡Undercover Groom #1220
Harlequin Historicals
§Alena #220
§Sweet Song of Love #230
§Siren’s Call #236
His Lady’s Ransom #275
Lady of the Upper Kingdom #320
Countess in Buckskin #396
The Tiger’s Bride #423
Harlequin Books
Renegades
The Rogue Knight
Silhouette Books
Fortune’s Children
Beauty and the Bodyguard
†Holiday Honeymoons:
Two Tickets to Paradise
His First Father’s Day
MERLINE LOVELACE
spent twenty-three exciting years as an air force officer, serving tours at the Pentagon and at bases all over the world before she began a new career as a novelist. When she’s not tied to her keyboard, she and her own handsome hero, Al, enjoy traveling, golf and long lively dinners with friends and family.
Merline enjoys hearing from readers and can be reached at P.O. Box 892717, Oklahoma City, OK 73189, or by email through Harlequin’s web site at http://www.eHarlequin.com.
Look for her next book in the sexy miniseries MEN OF THE BAR H, coming soon from Silhouette Intimate Moments.
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 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 1
If Evan Henderson had given the matter any thought at all, he wouldn’t have guessed that a rangy, lop-eared jackrabbit the size of a small dog would become the instrument of his fate.
And if he hadn’t spent the better part of the past week watching his brother, Jake, downing Jack Daniel’s like milk, he would’ve kept his mind as well as his eyes on the road that curved like a lazy snake through the July heat of the Arizona desert.
But Jake’s stubborn refusal to admit that he was killing himself by deliberate degrees hung like a cloud in Evan’s mind. Worry about his older brother crowded everything else out and slowed his reaction time just the half second it took to turn the combination of narrow road and fast-moving jackrabbit into disaster.
The blasted thing shot out from behind one of giant saguaros that sprang up like trees in this corner of the Sonoran Desert. With a single flex of its powerful hindquarters, the oversize rodent jumped the ditch beside the road and hit the asphalt only a few yards in front of Evan’s Harley XL 883 Custom Sportster. Cruising along at almost fifty, he barely had time spit out a curse before taking evasive action.
“Dammit!”
He couldn’t aim left, into the opposite traffic lane. That would put the jackrabbit directly under the Sportster’s wheels. His only option was right, onto the narrow, unpaved shoulder.
The instant it hit the soft shoulder, the powerful motorcycle churned up dust and bits of rock. Its front wheel fought to grab hold while the rear fishtailed all to hell and back. Evan knew he was going into the ditch even before rubber parted company with dirt. Sure enough, the Harley dived straight down and hit bottom with a bone-jarring crash. The impact sent its driver flying headfirst over the handlebars.
It wasn’t the first time Evan had been thrown from a saddle. Big John Henderson had put all five of his sons on horseback before they could walk. The Henderson boys had grown to manhood riding the steep, high mountain ranges of the Bar-H. Over the years, Jake, Evan, Reece, Marsh and Sam had all collected enough broken bones and busted heads to handsomely supplement the income of their family doc in Flagstaff.
Evan had learned from those spills…and from the character-forming experience of growing up with four rowdy brothers. As handy with their fists as with a rifle or a branding iron, the Hendersons had participated in their share of barroom brawls. Instigated a few, too. Most fights they won with a show of force. Five Hendersons lined up shoulder-to-shoulder tended to intimidate even the most drunken cowboys. The few fights they’d lost generally occurred when they battled each other. As a result, Evan knew how to take a fall.
He landed on his back with a thud that rattled every bone in his body. His helmet protected his head. His jeans proved tough enough to shield his butt. The rocks and scrub brush did a number on his white cotton shirt, though. If he’d worn the sorrel-
tan leather jacket he usually pulled on when cruising, he would’ve come out of the accident un-bloodied, but the sizzling sun had made leather and heatstroke worse risks than jackrabbits.
Cursing, Evan picked himself up. His right shoulder felt like it had taken a direct hit from an iron-shod hoof, but the bones moved without grinding against each other too painfully. He rotated his arm a few times before reaching up to yank off his helmet. Spearing a hand through his hair, he surveyed the damage.
The Sportster’s front wheel rim was bent almost in two, and its handlebar had twisted at an angle the design engineers had never intended. It wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
Neither was Evan.
Climbing out of the ditch, he tugged off his sunglasses and tried to get a fix on his location. He’d come through the Gila Bend Mountains a half hour ago and passed the town of LaGrange ten or twelve miles back. Ahead…
Ahead, the road disappeared in a haze of dancing heat waves. Yuma was a good forty or so miles farther south. In between lay one or two small towns, isolated outposts baking in the July heat. And all around him, as far as he could see, were the rolling swells and purple ridges of the great Sonoran Desert.
Nothing moved in the merciless afternoon sun. No tumbleweeds drifted across the two-lane road. No hawks wheeled in the blinding blue sky. The jackrabbit who’d brought Evan down had long since disappeared. Even the rattlesnakes had sense enough to curl under the shade of the rocks during the day.
“Well, hell!”
That just about summed up the situation, he thought with a wry twist of his lips. He’d run off the road and landed in hell.
He couldn’t blame anyone but himself for his predicament. He could have cruised the interstates all the way from Flagstaff back to San Diego instead of cutting across the desert. He should have cruised the interstates. Or left the Harley at the ranch and flown home, as an exasperated Carrie had suggested. Several times.
Carrie didn’t understand why Evan had abruptly taken off with one of the biggest cases of his career about to go to the Grand Jury. Nor did she understand why he’d lingered at the Bar-H for almost a week, with nothing pressing to keep him there.
She didn’t understand, because Evan hadn’t told her.
He hadn’t told anyone about the call he’d made to Jake last Tuesday. Or about the way his older brother had fumbled and dropped the phone twice before answering in a voice so slurred and whiskey-rough that Evan almost didn’t recognize it.
He’d suspected Jake had been diving into a bottle to dull his pain long before that phone call. All of them had…he and Marsh and Reece and Sam, together with their assorted wives. Lauren, the newest Henderson bride, had picked up on it first. Maybe because she was the newest, because she’d met Jake at the lowest point in his life and didn’t make excuses for his pain, as the rest of the family did. Or maybe her insight stemmed from the fact that the hit men who gunned down Jake’s wife six months ago had gone after Lauren, too. Whatever the reason, she’d looked into his soul with the clear, keen compassion of an outsider and laid bare the truth the rest of the family had begun to suspect but hadn’t yet confronted.
Evan had come face-to-face with that brutal truth this past week. He’d also learned firsthand the futility of trying to help someone who didn’t want help. His last, no-holds-barred argument with Jake had been swirling around in his mind when that damned jackrabbit had jumped in front of the Harley. Now he’d pay the price for his lack of concentration.
Blowing out a long breath, Evan sidestepped back down into the ditch. The desert heat was already sucking the moisture from his body. He pulled his navy-and-orange San Diego Padres baseball cap from the saddlebag, sighing with relief when the bill cut the sun’s glare to manageable proportions. Luckily he’d also picked up a couple bottles of water when he’d pulled off for gas in Buckeye and decided, like a fool, to cut across the desert to Yuma. He’d intended to use the empty stretches of back roads to think through his last confrontation with Jake.
Looked like he’d have more time to think than he’d anticipated.
He knew it was useless, but Evan tried the cell phone he always carried with him. Repeated jabs at the power button produced no dial tone. The roam function didn’t work this far from a relay station. Snapping the phone shut, he stuffed it into his shirt pocket and allowed himself one small swig of the lukewarm water. Only one. There was no telling how long he might have to wait before another vehicle came tooling down the road.
Although Evan had grown up in the pine-studded high elevations around Flagstaff, he and his brothers had made enough trips south to have gained a healthy respect for the desert. There was a reason the inhabitants of the area were mostly creatures of the night. In summer, daytime air temperatures averaged around 110 degrees Fahrenheit. Ground temperatures had been known to soar to a scorching 175 degrees. Elf owls, kangaroo rats, most snakes and any damned jackrabbit with an ounce of sense hid out during the day in cactus holes, underground burrows, or any other cool, shaded spot. Which meant Evan had better find some shade, too, and fast.
The same giant saguaro that had shielded the jackrabbit drew him. Dragging his leather jacket from the saddlebag, he headed for the tree-size cactus, skirting a clump of jumping chollas on the way. The saguaro was a monster, a good twenty feet tall, with four arms that branched out about a third of the way up its trunk. Evan checked the ground around it for other shade-seeking critters before draping his jacket across two of the arms.
That done, he hunkered down in the shade to wait.
Ten, sweat-drenched minutes passed. Twenty. A half hour. He checked his chrome-faced sports watch. Carefully spaced his sips of water. Swiped the stinging salt from his eyes. He thought about Jake; about the frustrating week he’d just spent at the Bar-H; about Carrie Northcutt’s impatient demands that Evan haul his butt back to San Diego, like immediately!
Resting his elbows on his knees, he laced his fingers together and pictured Carrie’s delicate face surrounded by her short, feathery black hair. At first glance, she looked like a sexy, green-eyed elf. A magical creature who sprinkled fairy dust wherever she went and bewitched everyone who beheld her.
She’d certainly bewitched Evan when she’d walked into his office three months ago and announced that the Department of Justice had assigned her as special prosecutor to help him prepare the Mendoza case for the Grand Jury. Evan had never encountered such a potent combination of sensuality, intelligence and ambition.
They’d become a smoothly functioning team within a week. Become more than a team during one idiotic and incredibly erotic session on the conference table in Evan’s office late one night. Carrie, being Carrie, now wanted more. Wanted—no, demanded—a commitment Evan wasn’t ready to make.
He tipped his head back, squeezing another trickle of water down his throat. With lawyerly detachment, he tried to analyze just why he kept resisting her suggestions that they pick up where they’d left off on the conference table. She didn’t buy his explanation that sex and a professional working relationship didn’t mix.
As she had taken to pointing out, he was the last of the Henderson brothers to bite the matrimonial bullet. Maybe his legal training had made him too cautious to enter into a binding contract he didn’t have the inner drive to make work. Or maybe he was just too damned content with his free and easy life-style to alter it, as Carrie frequently claimed. She didn’t pull any punches when it came to…
His hand froze with the water bottle still in midair. Was that music?
He cocked his head, straining every faculty to separate the buzz in his head caused by the heat from that distant sound.
It was music! A faint, but joyous beat drifting across the desert.
Evan lunged to his feet. Narrowing his eyes behind his aviator sunglasses, he squinted in the direction of the rhythmic beat. It took a few moments to penetrate the shimmering haze enough to spot a pickup barreling down the road from LaGrange.
Snatching his jacket from the saguaro
limbs, he raced for the edge of the road. The music grew louder by the second, booming now through the stuporous heat. Evan didn’t recognize the song or the artist, but that didn’t surprise him. He wasn’t into rhythm and blues. No, not rhythm and blues. Gospel. Rollicking, down-home, grab-at-your-gut gospel. The male vocalist climbed to impossible highs, plunged to wrenching lows and rolled every note in between in pure emotion.
“I will wait, yes, I will wait
For that pure, sweet light from above.
I’ll find a way, yes, I’ll find a way
To that cool, green garden of the Lord.”
Evan jumped the ditch at the side of the road just as the pickup crested the same rise he’d driven over himself some thirty minutes ago. He had one arm up, slicing a wild arc through the air, when the battered white pickup sped past.
He caught a glimpse of the driver’s startled face through the open side window, felt the bass beat of the music pound at his eardrums. He held his breath, waiting for the taillights to flash red as the driver braked, then cursed when they didn’t.
“Hey! Stop!”
Keep going!
The thought jolted through Lissa’s head even as her sneaker hovered above the brake pedal. Heart pounding, she stared into the rearview mirror at the apparition that had plunged out of the heat waves.
What she saw in the cracked mirror didn’t reassure her. He was tall. Whipcord lean. Wearing tight jeans, a dirt-smeared white shirt and a navy-blue ball cap pulled low over his eyes. All that showed of his face were dark sunglasses and a tough, uncompromising chin bristling with several days’ growth of beard.
Not the kind of hitchhiker any woman in her right mind should stop to pick up. Particularly a woman traveling alone down a long, empty stretch of road.
The Harder They Fall (Intimate Moments) Page 1