Harlequin Superromance November 2013 - Bundle 1 of 2

by Mary Brady

  What did they know anyway? They didn’t know of the bone-crushing guilt that Miranda carried every day or the pain of regret and loss that dogged her nights and chased her days. And they certainly didn’t know of the recrimination Miranda saw in her mother’s eyes for a falling-out over a damn sweater that had kept Miranda from picking up her sister that night in a fit of pissed-off ire. Nobody knew. Nobody understood. And that was just fine. Miranda wasn’t inviting anyone in to take a look and offer their opinion.

  Russ heaved a sigh and shook his head. “One of these days you’re going to realize this isn’t helping.”

  “Maybe. But not today,” she muttered as she tossed the shot down her throat, her vision swimming nicely as the alcohol began to do its job. The sudden blast of arctic air chilled the closed-in heat of The Anchor, chasing away the stale smell of fish, beer and good times, and Miranda gave a cursory glance at who had walked through the front door.

  And suddenly her mood took a turn for the better.

  Hello, stranger. A smile settled on her mouth as she appraised the newcomer. The liquor coursing through her system unhindered by anything resembling food made her feel loose and wild, and that broad-shouldered specimen shaking off the snow from his jacket and stamping his booted feet was going to serve her needs perfectly.

  “Hey, Russ...who’s he?” she asked.

  Russ glanced up but shrugged after a speculative look-see. “Never seen him before. Looks too soft to be a fisherman. By the looks of him, probably a tourist who got lost on his way to Anchorage.”

  A tourist? Here today, gone tomorrow. “He’ll do,” she murmured.

  * * *

  JEREMIAH BURKE ENTERED the raucous din of The Rusty Anchor, practically the only place in Homer, Alaska, to get a drink at this hour, and headed straight for the bar. He was well and truly screwed and looking at spending the night stuffed inside a storage closet if he was lucky, and his mood wasn’t what one would call warm and fuzzy.

  Maybe if he drank enough he’d forget the fact that his hotel had somehow given away his room for the night and none of the other hotels had any vacancies. His options were slim seeing as he didn’t know a soul in his new zip code and he was looking at bedding down at his new office, on the old, lumpy couch that looked as if it’d been salvaged from a trash heap after spending a few nights in the elements. Hell, he’d been tempted to try his luck in his rental truck after taking one look at the couch. No telling what vermin had made their residence in its old springs.

  He sidled up to the bar and signaled for the bartender.

  “What’s your poison?” the man asked.

  “Whatever’s on tap,” he answered just as his gaze found the leggy brunette regarding him with open interest. Talk about bold. He couldn’t say he wasn’t flattered but he was surprised to feel equal interest spark to life. “Would you be offended if I said you looked out of place in this bar?” he said, accepting his beer from the bartender.

  “Depends on why you’re saying it,” she countered, swiveling around to give him a full measured stare, a slight smile playing on her lips. “Tread carefully. I was born in this town.”

  He chuckled, enjoying the husky timbre of her voice. “And by making that statement, I just cemented your assumption that I’m not from around here, right?”

  She laughed, her green eyes lighting with amusement. “Honey, I knew that before you opened your mouth but I won’t hold it against you.”

  “Thanks. I’d hate to think I’ve already made a bad impression.”

  At first glance, she had indeed appeared out of place in the rough bar with her long hair tucked into a ponytail and a warm woolen scarf wrapped loosely around her neck, but upon a closer look he realized that beyond that pretty face was a woman who could probably take care of herself. There was something hard as glacial ice about her even though her curves were soft. Her tight jeans left nothing to the imagination, something his own mind immediately jumped on with all kinds of scenarios, but it was her eyes that knocked him back for a second.

  Green as summer moss with flecks of brown that reminded him of a Wyoming meadow in the spring, her eyes were framed by long, black lashes that dusted her cheekbones, and he had to remember not to stare. Hell, she was gorgeous.

  “Careful—you keep staring like that I might get the wrong impression about you,” she teased.

  “And what impression would that be?” He didn’t know how to play this game anymore and he’d never been particularly good at it in the first place. He was already out of his element—new place, new job—why not chat up the prettiest woman in the bar and see where it took him?

  She responded with another throaty laugh and his groin tightened, warming in places he’d nearly forgotten about in the past year, but she switched gears, saying, “So, I’m guessing you’re not a fisherman.... What brings you to Homer of all places?”

  Jeremiah hesitated, not quite sure how much he wanted to share about his personal life. He smiled, going for a variation of the truth. “A change in scenery,” he answered, taking a swig of his beer. “What about you? What’s kept you in Homer?”

  Her smile faltered the tiniest bit but she recovered within a blink, returning to her previously bold assessment of him without being the least bit coy. “Are you married?” she asked. He lifted his left hand, showing her his ringless finger, and she scoffed. “That doesn’t mean anything. Half the men in this town don’t wear rings—that doesn’t mean someone isn’t waiting for them to come home at night.”

  “No one is waiting for me,” he said. No one at all. He shook off the pull of sad memories and focused on the woman smiling at him. “And how about you? Beautiful woman in a small town? I find it hard to believe someone hasn’t laid claim to you already.”

  “I don’t like to be tied down...unless I’m the one in charge of the rope.”

  Another flush of arousal heated his groin at her suggestive answer and he nearly choked on his beer. He’d always found couples who claimed they’d felt an instant chemistry with one another to be exaggerating. How could you be instantly, insanely attracted to someone you’d only just met? Seemed the stuff of fairy tales and rom-com movies that he usually avoided, and yet, his blood was moving at a fine clip with just one look from this beautiful stranger. How did a woman like her get stuck in a fishing village like Homer without getting snagged by a local? He tipped his beer back, intrigued. “So, what’s your name?” he asked.

  “Where are you from?” she countered.

  “Wyoming.” He grinned. “Your turn. Name?”

  Her smile deepened and she leaned forward far enough for him to get a nice whiff of her perfume. “Are names really necessary?” she asked. “Here’s the thing.... I think you’re pretty easy on the eyes and I’m ready to get out of here. Catch my drift?”

  “Are you asking me to go home with you?”

  “I am.” She swigged her beer like a woman who was used to playing poker with the guys and taking all their cash at the end of the night. There was something about her that pulsed like a live wire—dangerous and hot.

  And he wanted to feel the burn. Desperately.

  “No names. No personal details. Should I be worried?”

  “You should be very worried,” she said with a mock-solemn nod that only served to make his heart rate triple. “Didn’t your mama ever warn you not to pick up strange women in bars?”

  “She might’ve missed that one,” he said, sliding his tongue along his bottom lip, mimicking her own subconscious gesture. He knew a little about human nature. He’d taken a course in college on body language when he’d been considering a career in law enforcement. He hadn’t become a cop but he’d found the course had been beneficial nonetheless. And right now, she was throwing off major “come and get me” signals from the way she was angling her hips toward his and the tiny dart of her tongue along the seam of her
lips, teasing him with the slow, wet slide, practically sending out a gilded invitation to throw her down on the dirty floor. It was hard to remember that he wasn’t a randy college kid but a grown man with responsibilities, especially when he was looking at ending a yearlong celibate streak.

  “My place is just around the corner,” she said, reading his mind. “Interested?”

  He wanted to shout hell yes but a sliver of reserve had him counter, “Not that I’m not interested but how about you? Didn’t your father ever warn you about taking off with strange men from bars? I could be a pervert or a serial killer.”

  She slid from her barstool and graced him with a dazzling smile that was just a bit menacing as she said, “My daddy taught me to shoot a gun, gut a fish and break a kneecap if need be. Strange men in bars don’t scare me.” She slung her pack onto her back and headed for the door. She graced him with a single questioning look, then kept walking. The message was clear: come or stay, it doesn’t matter to me.

  He grinned ruefully and tossed a few bucks on the scarred wooden bar. Either he was about to make the biggest mistake of his life or he was going to have a heart attack from the wildest night of sex ever imagined.

  He hoped it was the latter.

  At least he’d die happy.

  And he didn’t have to worry about where he was going to spend the night.

  Things were looking up already.

  Perhaps this gig in Homer was going to work out just fine.

  Copyright © 2013 by Kimberly Sheetz

  ISBN-13: 9781460321812

  NOW YOU SEE ME

  Copyright © 2013 by Christine Fletcher

  All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

  ® and ™ are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.

  www.Harlequin.com

  A life-changing discovery

  Mia Parker’s restaurant-in-progress is the best shot Bailey’s Cove has at survival. That is, until a two-hundred-year-old skeleton is unearthed on-site. It doesn’t help that the investigator—sexy, guarded anthropologist Daniel MacCarey—instantly charms her to distraction. Add in rumors that the remains belong to a pirate—and that his treasure might be buried nearby. Mia’s trapped in the mystery that jeopardizes everything.

  Despite the risks, Daniel can’t resist offering to help Mia. Nor can he fight the attraction that reels him in. And working together, they may find a treasure better than any other….

  Daniel made himself let go of Mia’s soft warm hand

  What he wanted to do was take that hand and put it against his heart to tell her how much he had hated leaving her so early this morning, how much he loved to touch her, have her touch him.

  What he needed to do now was to keep his hands, his lips and everything else off her. She did not need his hang-ups in her life.

  She looked away and instead focused on the documents in front of her. “Liam Bailey’s account of maintaining law and order in the early eighteen hundreds is a combination of fascinating and dead dog boring.”

  “I don’t suppose he built a tomb and walled a man up in it.”

  She sputtered out a laugh. “hope not. He and his legend have messed me around enough.”

  “Remind me not to cross you.”

  “Oh, please, you have crossed me too many times to count.”

  He stopped studying the file in his hand and gave her a wry look.

  “Okay. So some of the times you crossed me, I liked it.”

  Dear Reader,

  Thank you so much to the readers of my books.

  Come to Maine this time! Mia Parker has been out in the world, and she knows her small hometown of Bailey’s Cove is rare and special. The people value friendship, family and the legend of their pirate founder—and his treasure. When Daniel MacCarey arrives here, his intentions are not to instigate a treasure hunt that may destroy the town, nor does he set out to break Mia Parker’s heart—but will he do both?

  I hope you enjoy Mia and Daniel’s story as they each face their demons and search for their own treasure.

  I’d love to hear from you. Visit my website at www.marybrady.net or write to me at mary@marybrady.net.

  Enjoy the Harlequin Superromance authors blog at www.superauthors.com. Comment and you just might win great treasures.

  Warmest regards,

  Mary Brady

  BETTER THAN GOLD

  Mary Brady

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Mary Brady lives in the Midwest and considers road trips into the rest of the continent to be a necessary part of life. When she’s not out exploring, she helps run a manufacturing company and has a great time living with her handsome husband, her super son and one cheeky little bird.

  Books by Mary Brady

  HARLEQUIN SUPERROMANCE

  1561—HE CALLS HER DOC

  1691—PROMISE TO A BOY

  1730—WINNING OVER THE RANCHER

  Other titles by this author available in ebook format.

  To my husband and son, who are always there with love and encouragement. To my family of friends and fans, especially my siblings and cousins, who help fill my stories with real life and love.

  And to good-hearted pirates everywhere. Argh!

  Acknowledgments

  A heartfelt thank-you to the people of the state of Maine, where I have built a fictional town on their beautiful coast without so much as a by-your-leave.

  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 Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Epilogue

  Excerpt

  CHAPTER ONE

  A STARTLING thwack reached Mia Parker where she stood on an upended bright orange bucket, chipping away at eighty-year-old plaster.

  “Holy crap. Oh, holy Jesus, save us!” Charlie Pinion’s irreverent bellow buffeted her, and the pry bar she had been using clattered to the floor.

  “Jesus, Mary and Joseph.” This cry from another, the ordinarily sane member of her construction crew, concerned her more than the first.

  “Hey, what’s going on back there?” She hopped down onto the old wooden floor and headed from the storefront section of the building toward the rear of her future di
ning room. The two areas were divided by a twenty-foot-long, four-foot-thick wall with open doorways on each end. Storage closets were tucked into the ends of the dividing wall. An odd arrangement, but the building was two hundred years old, so many opinions and various needs had altered the floor plan over the years.

  Mia stopped in what was left of the doorway and tugged the dust mask from her face.

  Charlie stood, posed like a burly statue, raised sledgehammer still clutched in his pudgy fists. He gaped at something his large body blocked from her view. Beside him scrawny Rufus Boothby slowly drew down his mask to tuck it under his neat red goatee.

  The workers had demolished most of one closet and stripped the plaster, lath and support frame from the far side of the dividing wall. In the middle where the closets terminated stood a column of gray granite. Another oddity. There should be no column in that wall.

  “Charlie!” Stella LaBlanc’s excited shout came from the direction of the newly installed Women’s Room in the hallway past the kitchen area. “Charlie, you big creep, I told you to wait ’til I got back.”

  She rushed out tugging at the zipper of her jeans as she sped across the room. “The treasure! You found the treasure! I knew it had to be—”

  The dark-haired woman threw up her arms as if to ward off something and skidded to a halt between the two men, her ponytail flipping forward over her shoulder. Then slowly she lowered her hands and leaned forward a bit. “Oh, wicked cool.”

  Mia tried not to get too excited about what this trio had found. Being their keeper, making sure they stayed on task, was practically a full-time job. Plus the residents of Bailey’s Cove, Maine, had been searching for the treasure of the pirate Liam Bailey for two hundred years and no one had found a trace. She didn’t expect that to change today.

  Stepping up to the group, Mia followed their collective gape to the exposed column of rough granite, three feet wide and deep and taller than Charlie.