The Sheriff's Daughter

by Jessica Andersen

  “You’re safe here,” Logan murmured huskily. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

  He lifted a hand and traced a finger down her cheek, leaving shivers behind.

  “And who’s going to protect you?” Her voice came out sharper than she’d intended, edged with nerves and his unsettling nearness. “When I saw you in the truck…” She bowed her head and found that her forehead rested comfortably on the slope of his chest. “I thought you were dead.”

  “Hey,” he said, nudging a finger beneath her chin to tip her head up. “You don’t need to worry about me. It’s my job to worry about you.”

  No, it’s not, she wanted to say, I can take care of myself. But she said nothing, because she was trapped in his eyes. In the warmth of his body pouring into hers and the inevitable knowledge that he was going to kiss her. That this was all wrong.

  And all right.

  Then he kissed her, and she couldn’t think anymore.

  Dear Harlequin Intrigue Reader,

  It might be warm outside, but our June lineup will thrill and chill you!

  * This month, we have a couple of great miniseries. Man of Her Dreams is the spine-tingling conclusion to Debra Webb’s trilogy THE ENFORCERS. And there are just two installments left in B.J. Daniels’s McCALLS’ MONTANA series—High-Caliber Cowboy is out now, and Shotgun Surrender will be available next month.

  * We also have two fantastic special promotions. First, is our Gothic ECLIPSE title, Mystique, by Charlotte Douglas. And Dani Sinclair brings you D.B. Hayes, Detective, the second installment in our LIPSTICK LTD. promotion featuring sexy sleuths.

  * Last, but definitely not least, is Jessica Andersen’s The Sheriff’s Daughter. Sparks fly between a medical investigator and a vet in this exciting medical thriller.

  * Also, keep your eyes peeled for Joanna Wayne’s THE GENTLEMAN’S CLUB, available from Signature Spotlight.

  This month, and every month, we promise to deliver six of the best romantic suspense titles around. Don’t miss a single one!

  Sincerely,

  Denise O’Sullivan

  Senior Editor

  Harlequin Intrigue

  THE SHERIFF’S DAUGHTER

  JESSICA ANDERSEN

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Though she’s tried out professions ranging from cleaning sea lion cages to cloning glaucoma genes, from patent law to training horses, Jessica is happiest when she’s combining all these interests with her first love: writing romances. These days she’s delighted to be writing full-time on a farm in rural Connecticut that she shares with a small menagerie and a hero named Brian. She hopes you’ll visit her at www.JessicaAndersen.com for info on upcoming books, contests and to say “hi”!

  Books by Jessica Andersen

  HARLEQUIN INTRIGUE

  734—DR. BODYGUARD

  762—SECRET WITNESS

  793—INTENSIVE CARE

  817—BODY SEARCH

  833—COVERT M.D.

  850—THE SHERIFF’S DAUGHTER

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  Dr. Samantha Blackwell, DVM—The lady vet has been burned by love before, but she has no real enemies until her new tenant pulls her into his dark, dangerous world.

  Dr. Logan Hart, MD—The surgeon-turned-agent is on enforced vacation following a harrowing undercover assignment.

  James Donahue—The current town sheriff and a protégé of Sam’s retired sheriff father, Jimmy is Sam’s good friend—and maybe something more.

  Viggo Trehern—The crime boss has been jailed since Logan helped close the net around him. But if Logan is gone, it is likely he will be acquitted.

  William Caine—Viggo’s right-hand man, Logan would have liked to call him friend. Now he may have to call him executioner.

  Dr. Jennifer Lyle, DVM—Sam’s partner and good friend, Jen may be in danger by association.

  Horace Mann—The head of the local dogfighting community, Horace has little love for Sam, who is a part-time animal officer.

  Dr. Sears, DVM—The on-staff vet at the wildly successful racehorse breeding establishment, Bellamy Farms, Sears has no intention of letting Sam near his patients or his livelihood.

  Viggo Trehern, Jr.—Viggo Jr. rules the organization in his father’s absence. What lengths will he go to in order to see his father returned to power?

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter One

  A heavy fist pounded on the vet clinic door.

  The noise shattered the quiet of the deserted waiting area and Dr. Samantha Blackwell jolted. She shook off sudden unease, tied off one last stitch in the stray dog’s sunken hip and raised her voice. “Come on in. It’s open!”

  There was no answer.

  Sam frowned. “Jennifer? Can you get the door?”

  Most of her clients knew to let themselves in. The open door policy was standard in Black Horse Beach, even during the just-finished summer months when strangers came and went with the Cape Cod tides. Though Sam was grateful for the income the tourists brought her, she couldn’t help resenting that when they left, there were always a few half-grown pets left behind—like the poor dog on her table, whom she’d called Maverick. The crossbred’s muzzle and ears bore fighting scars, and the fractures of his ribs and leg told of a run-in with a car.

  “Jennifer?” she called again, then shook her head at her own forgetfulness. “Duh. She’s in class this morning.”

  Sam had been too caught up in treating the dog to notice when her partner had taken off for acupuncture class, leaving the clinic empty.

  The knock sounded again. Shaking off the creeping heebie-jeebies, which were misplaced since nothing dangerous ever happened in Black Horse Beach, she called out, “Just a minute!”

  She picked Maverick up and winced when the pulled muscles in her shoulders and back sparked a protest. She’d been up until dawn delivering an overlarge colt at posh Bellamy Farms. Though the thoroughbred racing stable wasn’t a regular client, their live-in vet had been out of town and the mare hadn’t been in any mood to wait.

  Neither was the person at the door. The knock came again, faster and louder this time, and Sam’s heart picked up a beat as adrenaline pushed aside the unaccountable nerves.

  It must be an emergency with one of her clients.

  “Coming!” She slid Maverick’s limp form into one of the lower recovery cages. He’d wake up over the next hour or so, and should survive the broken leg and cracked ribs. Hopefully, during that time she could also repair his failed trust in human beings and find him a new home.

  Hurrying now, Sam stripped off her gloves, tossed them into the wood-framed biohazard bin just inside exam room 1 and jogged across the waiting room. She yanked open the door. “I’m here. What’s the problem?”

  The wooden porch was deserted, but her already unsteady heart thumped double-time when she saw her tenant halfway up the clamshell walkway.

  He froze mid-step, lifted his eyes to stare at her, and said, “Problem?”

  In the three weeks since she’d rented Beach Plum Cottage to Dr. Logan Hart, she’d tried not to think about the brooding, too handsome M.D. But the moment their gazes connected, she knew she’d been unsuccessful. Like it or not, his eyes haunted her. Light hazel, almost pale gold, they were made striking by a dark brown ring around each iris.

  Hunter’s eyes, her sheriff fathe
r would have called them. Then he would have taken the measure of the man before making a call on his character. But Sam hadn’t given Hart the benefit of consideration. There was something…unnerving about him. He was too big, too masculine.

  Too much like Travis and Brent. After one divorce and one near miss, Sam had sworn off big, masculine men forever. Which was just as well, since Logan Hart hadn’t shown any indication that he wanted to be friends with her—hell, with anyone in town. He kept to himself, sometimes disappearing for days, sometimes holing up in the little cottage for just as long.

  Not that Sam had been keeping tabs on him. But since the cottage and her place were the only two structures on Dune Buggy Road, it was hard to miss his comings and goings.

  Honest.

  Because she was rattled, and because her foolish heart stuttered at the sight of him, Sam squared her shoulders. “You could have come on in. You didn’t need to knock so many times.”

  His long, muscular legs carried him onto the porch, and a frown darkened his habitually guarded expression. “I didn’t knock.”

  “Well, someone did.” Sam forced herself not to step away, because that would be retreating, and Sheriff Bob’s daughter didn’t retreat. Even though her father had long retired to Arizona, she still measured her actions against his expectations. So she stood her ground and stared at the man opposite her.

  In his midthirties, Logan Hart was a few years older than she. His dark brown hair caught the fading late-summer sun to glow reddish at the ends, and his worn jeans and black T-shirt showcased his large, powerful frame.

  He shook his head. “It wasn’t me.” His tone brooked no argument, reminding her of the forceful personality she’d glimpsed before, when he’d rented the cottage and pushed for her assurance that he wouldn’t be disturbed.

  At the time, she’d noted the tense set of his shoulders and the lines of exhaustion in his face and figured he needed to escape a draining medical practice. Now, sensing a faint aura of danger hovering over him, she pressed her back against the molding around the old wooden door and wondered if there was more to him than she’d thought.

  “Then it must have been kids,” she said, though her gut thought otherwise. What was going on here? “Were you looking for me? Is anything wrong with the cottage?”

  “Nothing’s wrong with the cottage.” Logan’s voice was clipped and Yankee, his accent one of expensive Boston schools rather than the softer, flatter cadences of the Cape Cod beach towns. “I came by to drop off the key to your cottage. I’m leaving.”

  Sam’s stomach dropped. Leaving? He couldn’t leave. She needed the rental income. Spurred by near panic, she stepped forward and got in his face—well, as close as she could get, given that he topped her by a good six inches. “You can’t leave now. You leased the cottage for six more weeks. I have a contract!”

  And the money was already spent on new cages and supplies for the no-kill shelter she ran as part of her duties with the Black Horse Animal Protection Agency. The few thousand dollars he’d paid to lease the cottage for nine weeks past-season had been a much-needed windfall.

  She wasn’t giving the money back. No way.

  But Logan held up his hands, tension and an edgy sense of barely-leashed energy etching his powerful arms. He glanced from side to side, then lowered his voice. “Don’t worry about the money—it’s yours. But I need to get out of town. It’s not safe for me—”

  A gunshot split the late summer air.

  Sam’s heart lodged in her throat even as her mind struggled to grasp the words not safe.

  “Down! Get down!” Logan reacted before she did. He pushed her to the porch and covered her body with his as a second shot hit the brass plaque that advertised her hours. The sign chimed like an off-tune bell.

  “Get off!” Panicked, Sam pushed at him and struggled to escape even as she heard two more shots.

  “Go!” He rolled to one side and shoved her toward the clinic. “Call 911.”

  A fifth shot plowed into the porch between them. Pain flared as a splinter of wood pierced her jeans and dug into her hip. “Someone’s shooting at us!”

  “Get in the house and stay there.” Though his eyes were hard, his voice was controlled, as though people shot at him every day. But that made no sense. He was a doctor.

  Wasn’t he?

  Oh, God. Who had she rented the cottage to? What if he was some sort of criminal? She’d done a routine credit check, but what if—?

  Heart pounding, she scrambled backward on her hands and rear end, eyes glued across the road on the high scrub brush that screened a small estuary from view.

  When she realized where the shots were coming from, she stiffened. “It could be hunters,” she whispered into a moment of silence. “Poachers. They’re not supposed to shoot over there, but they do sometimes.”

  They’d even blasted out the back window of her vet’s van once. But that didn’t account for her tenant’s quick, practiced reaction or the dark anger in his eyes.

  “Maybe.” In a smooth motion, he dropped down off the porch and crouched in the shadows behind a spreading rhododendron. He turned back to her and growled, “Stay there.”

  “Wait!” She grabbed for his arm but missed when the splinter in her hip protested. “What the hell is going on? Who are you?”

  He frowned, eyes narrowed with irritation, or maybe guilt. “I’ll be gone soon—that’s all you need to know.”

  With that, he slipped from the rhododendron to the side of his truck, then ran lightly across the road toward the estuary. He dove into the bushes, which snapped together in his wake.

  Then there was silence.

  Sam wasted little time on debate; she was her father’s daughter, after all. She darted into the clinic, yanked the double-barreled shotgun from behind the office door, grabbed a handful of cartridges from the desk, and scooped up her cell phone. Her hands shook as she punched in the three digits.

  “Nine-one-one,” a familiar, perky voice said in her ear. “What’s your emergency?”

  “Treece, it’s Sam. I need you to send Jimmy out here right away.”

  The dispatcher’s voice sharpened to serious in an instant. “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m not sure.” Sam wiped a sweaty palm against her jean-clad leg. “Either the poachers are at it again over in the estuary, or my tenant is in some sort of danger.” She had a suspicion it was the latter. No wonder she’d found him attractive. Her hormones always leaned toward trouble.

  “Where will you be?”

  Sam took a deep breath and swallowed hard. “Tell Jimmy I’ll meet him near the water.” She folded the phone shut, cutting Treece off midprotest. Then she hefted the shotgun, ignored the stitch in her hip and limped across the road.

  Logan Hart needed help and she was the only one around to give it right then.

  Besides, she had her daddy’s shotgun.

  STUPID. Logan cursed himself as he pushed through the thick, screening brush. He’d been stupid to think Viggo Trehern’s men wouldn’t follow him here. And because of his stupidity, his pretty landlady had been endangered. His fault.

  The silence of the nearby woods told him the shooters were long gone, but that didn’t help matters. They’d be back. They couldn’t afford to leave him alive.

  The case Logan and his employers at Hospitals for Humanity—HFH—had helped build against Trehern was solid. The feds had failed to convict the crime boss on charges ranging from extortion to murder, but HFH had managed to get him indicted on a lesser federal crime. For the past six-plus years, the leader of the unholy Boston-based syndicate had fed his prescription drug habit with a combination of illegal doctor shopping and sidewalk deals. The case Logan and his team had developed was a lock.

  Or so it had seemed. But just that day, Trehern’s lawyers had earned their Armanis by delaying the trial yet again. Logan might have wondered why, except for the glare Trehern had fixed on him as the guards had led the older man away. It had promised revenge against Logan
, who had gone undercover, penetrated Trehern’s circle of trust and gathered the damning evidence.

  He had understood the look with a flash of intuition and a sharp slice of worry.

  Trehern had put out a contract on him.

  Now, as the ghosts of gunshots echoed in his ears, he thought, Damn. Viggo’s men move fast.

  He pushed through the last of the clinging thorn bushes and emerged at the edge of a lake, or maybe a finger of brackish water from the nearby Atlantic. There was no sign of the shooter—or shooters—but footprints marred the soft edge of the water and spent casings gleamed on the sand, their aura of death reminding him of the fourteen months he’d spent as Trehern’s confidante.

  Reminding him of the things he’d seen, and hoped never to see again.

  Brush rustled to his left. He spun and grabbed for his gun, but he’d left the .44 behind at the cottage, thinking he had time enough to pick up his things and run for the city, where his employers could keep him safe. He hadn’t wanted to carry a weapon in this peaceful town, just as he’d hoped the violence wouldn’t follow him.

  Bad call.

  Footsteps crashed and Logan faded behind a nearby tree as a shadowy human figure emerged, gun barrel first.

  He seized the shotgun, yanked forward and down, and grabbed the gunman by the throat. In the instant it took him to spin the figure around and press it against a nearby tree, two things happened.

  His brain told him it was a woman.

  His body told him it was Samantha Blackwell, with her strawberry-blond hair, blue eyes and knockout figure.

  He swallowed hard and forced himself not to move closer.

  HUNTER’S EYES, was all Sam could think in that first moment when Logan pressed her against a tree with a forearm across her throat. Those eyes loomed large in her vision, amber and dark-rimmed and molten with barely suppressed violence. His legs tangled with hers, their bodies bumped at thigh and chest and she froze when heat flared through her, composed of equal parts fear and sexual awareness.