by Robyn Carr
And in the firehouse, where the men were bonded by hard work, cooperation, danger, things were resolved quickly, too. You couldn’t let bad feelings fester; it was critical to solve problems or learn to accept the fact that people had both virtues and flaws. Big ones and little annoying ones.
But Chris hadn’t lived that way. Hadn’t she told him that? There were only four of them—her parents and Flo. She was either struggling to be independent or giving in to let someone take care of her. Or she ran away. So it was just as well, then, that she left when she did. She would have gone eventually, at the first sign of trouble….
It wasn’t just the money that made them different. It was the regard they had for risk. She could risk her life trying to save a dumb laptop, but she couldn’t risk the discomfort of an argument, a fight. What did she think? That husbands and wives didn’t fight? He had thought she was a fighter. Turned out it was only sometimes.
“So, what one thing would you change?” he asked the dog. “What one thing that you could do would make everything different?” He nudged the dog with his toe. Cheeks growled. “That’s what I thought you said. Nothing. Not a damn thing. Because it wouldn’t have been better if I hadn’t carried her out of the fire. I would have missed out on a lot of good things if I hadn’t fallen in love with her, and if I had kept my mouth shut, I would have opened it eventually anyway. It all would have turned out the same. Like she said, you have to be accepted just the way you are. And that’s the way I am. And that’s the way she is.”
And I hurt, he thought, because I feel loss. But I am better for what I had. I had my arms full again; I had love that was deep and rich. And because of that, maybe it will come back to me. Maybe I can have it again someday. Just maybe. My amnesia is over. We did what we set out to do, huh? When I’m stronger I’ll send her an e-mail and tell her…thank you. Despite the problems, because of you I am better than I was. I had been in hiding too long, and I needed to learn what a mistake that was.
He heard the sound of a four-wheel-drive vehicle coming up the road. He suspected it might be someone from the Christiansons’ house. Probably they saw the light and pitied him, alone. Or maybe they thought he was with Chris and the kids and were stopping by for a friendly chat. He wished they wouldn’t. He couldn’t refuse to answer the door. You don’t do that in the mountains. He opened the door and watched the car come up the road. It wasn’t the Christiansons’ car. It was a big new Suburban. Oh, hell, he thought, recognizing his brother Chris’s car. Why’d they do that? He had said he wanted to be alone.
Cheeks growled and wagged his tail. The Suburban stopped, but the headlights stayed on. The door on the driver’s side opened, and she got out. He could barely make her out with the headlights shining in his eyes. She walked toward him slowly, until she stood in front of him.
He tried to keep from feeling that he’d won the Lotto. “Have you come back?” he asked her.
“I was wrong. So were you. I think that means we’re not finished yet.”
“Is that Chris’s car?”
“Well—” she shrugged “—no matter how hard I try to be independent, I just keep asking for help, don’t I?” Her smile faded, and she looked up at him, tears in her eyes.
He opened his arms to her, and she filled his embrace. “I love you,” he said. “I don’t care how hard it is, I love you.”
She cried and laughed but would not let him go. He lifted her clear off the ground. “I’m going to keep you happy for a long time,” she said, her voice breaking, “because there is so much I need from you.”
They stood in their rocking embrace for such a long time that soon the children were beside them, greeting the dog, plowing past them into the house, but they didn’t let go of each other. Mike’s face was buried in her jacket collar. Until the door to the Suburban slammed and someone said, “Ugh. Oh, Gawd.”
He looked over Chris’s shoulder to see Aunt Flo ruining her fashionable pumps in snow up to her ankles. She couldn’t move, of course, with her heels jammed into the packed snow. He laughed. It was tough for him to admit to himself, but he was even a little glad to see Flo. It meant they were going to face it, head-on, and work it all out together. That included family. And he felt strongly about family.
He let go of Chris—it figured that the first reason he would have for letting her go would be Flo. This time, though, he felt firm in his faith that he would hold her again and again, and he went to Flo. He looked her up and down with his hands on his hips. Then he scooped her up in his arms and carried her to the house. She complained the whole way, about her shoes, the snow, the cold, the long drive. He put her down inside. And once inside she looked around in silence, probably awed by the rustic sparseness of it.
Mike put his arm around Chris’s shoulders. They watched the activity, the welcome fullness of it all. Cheeks was running in circles, barking. The kids were already looking in the cupboards for treats before even taking off their coats, and Flo was removing her wet shoes in front of the fire, grumbling.
“Did you bring the twenty-two servants?” he asked Chris.
“Nope. She’s going to do this without the caterer. Cold turkey.”
“This ought to be good.”
And it was.
A HERO FOR SOPHIE JONES
USA TODAY Bestselling Author
Christine Rimmer
Praise for USA TODAY bestselling author Christine Rimmer
“Appealing characters, comfortable pacing and plenty of passion demonstrate just why Christine Rimmer is such a fan favorite.”
—RT Book Reviews
“What distinguishes this story is the level of psychological insight displayed by [Ms. Rimmer] and the lovely way she dramatizes the characters’ discovery that they are more like each other than they know…. [The] characters enjoy a relationship that is as deliciously physical as it is deeply emotional.”—The Romance Reader on A Hero for Sophie Jones
CHRISTINE RIMMER
came to her profession the long way around. Before settling down to write about the magic of romance, she’d been everything from an actress to a salesclerk to a waitress. Now that she’s finally found work that suits her perfectly, she insists she never had a problem keeping a job—she was merely gaining “life experience” for her future as a novelist. Christine is grateful not only for the joy she finds in writing, but for what waits when the day’s work is through: a man she loves who loves her right back, and the privilege of watching their children grow and change day to day. She lives with her family in Oregon. Visit Christine at www.christinerimmer.com.
Dear Reader,
I admit to a certain weakness for dark, damaged heroes who don’t know how much they need the right woman’s love. Such a man is Sinclair “Sin” Riker, who lost everything as a child and clawed his way out of poverty to great financial success.
The woman he needs more than he knows? Her name is Sophie Jones. Sophie seems sweet and innocent, but she’s a lot tougher than she looks and she is nobody’s fool.
Sin wants something from Sophie. And he’s willing to do whatever it takes to get it. Sin has a lot to learn about what matters in life—and about love. Luckily for him, Sophie Jones is more than up to the job of helping him to see the light.
I do hope you enjoy this story of Sin’s redemption. And I’m so thrilled that A Hero for Sophie Jones is on the stands again in this two-in-one volume with a great book by the fabulous Robyn Carr.
Happy reading everyone,
Christine Rimmer
What is it about those Joneses?
Every time I think I’ve written the last Jones Gang story, another Jones pops up and says, “But what about me?” This one’s for all of you who have written me letters asking for more.
Chapter 1
The raven-haired stranger in the fifth row had eyes as black as his hair. Eyes that mesmerized. Eyes that managed to be both lazy looking and bold at the same time. Those eyes were locked right on her as Sophie B. Jones began introducing the evenin
g’s feature presentation.
“Welcome to the Mountain Star.” Sophie smiled, a smile intended to include each and every one of the eighty-five people who sat in the ten rows of battered seats before her.
Though most of her guests smiled back, the dark-haired stranger did not. And he certainly seemed to be making himself at home, sitting there in an idle sprawl, an elbow braced on the seat arm and one long, graceful hand across his mouth. Thoughtfully, he brushed his index finger over his lips, an action that Sophie found extremely distracting.
Sophie made herself look past him. Smiling wider, she spread her arms in a gesture that embraced all of her guests at once. “I’m so glad you could make it, and I hope you enjoy this weekend’s installment in what I like to think of as our Randi Wilding Film Retrospective.”
From overhead, in the rafters of the old stone barn that housed Sophie’s makeshift movie theater, came a soft cooing sound. Sophie glanced upward, then back out over the rows of expectant faces. “Pardon that pigeon.” She lifted a shoulder in a what-can-I-tell-you shrug. “I thought I shooed him out of here this afternoon.”
A low chuckle passed through the crowd. Sophie scanned the rows again, making eye contact, watching the little quirks of smiles come and go on the faces.
But not that one face.
Or, wait a minute—Maybe he had smiled. She couldn’t be sure, but it had seemed for a split second as if that sinfully sexy mouth of his had lifted at one corner.
And those bedroom eyes certainly did look interested—in a lot more than the evening’s feature presentation at the Mountain Star. Those eyes seemed to speak to Sophie. They said they planned to get to know her. Intimately.
Up in the rafters, that pesky pigeon cooed once more.
And Sophie told herself that she’d better get real. The man had an…aura about him. He might be wearing chinos and a Polo shirt right now, but she just knew he had a closet full of Armani at home—wherever that was, some big city, she was sure.
It took no effort to picture him cruising around in a limousine, behind windows tinted black. He was the kind of man who could cause a hush by simply entering a room. The kind of man who made women wonder: Who is he? What’s he after? And is there any way I might have a chance with him?
Tall. Dark. Delectably menacing. Lord Byron and the vampire Lestat. Definitely not someone likely to be driven mad with desire by a woman who bought her dress at a yard sale and always cut her own hair.
Sophie ought to be suspicious of such obvious interest from a man like that, and she knew it.
And maybe she was suspicious. A little.
But at the same time, her hopelessly romantic soul couldn’t help but respond, couldn’t help feeling what those eyes said he felt: attraction, plain and simple.
Sophie realized right then that the barn was way too silent. How long had she been standing there, pondering the possible agendas of Tall, Dark, Et Cetera, while her audience waited to hear about the show?
Something warm and fuzzy was making figure eights around her ankles. Grateful for an excuse to look away from all those staring eyes, she glanced down. “Eddie.”
The gray tabby lifted his head. Yellow-green kitty eyes met hers. “Rrreow?”
She bent and scooped him up. He purred and nuzzled her neck. “You’re a sweetheart, you are.” Petting the cat, she dared to look out at the faces again—taking extreme care this time not to allow her gaze to linger on him.
“Let’s see. Where was I? Oh, yes. Randi Wilding. As you all probably remember, she started out as just another gorgeous blonde—on the hit TV show Eden Beach. She broke into movies a couple of years later. And now, at barely thirty years of age, she’s become a megastar. Some still think of her as nothing more than a sex symbol, but those in the know are already calling her one of the great all-time actresses. She makes exciting, fast-paced movies that everyone wants to see, and she also makes each character she plays come alive on the screen.
“Tonight, you’ll be seeing Sagebrush and Desire. It was Randi’s second feature film. In it, she got to wear chaps and shoot a pair of pearl-handled Colts—not to mention deal with a passel of rustlers out to steal her herd. The word is that she did her own stunts, which I think you’ll all agree is pretty amazing once you see the scene where she slides off the roof of a barn, turns a somersault in midair and lands square in the saddle on the back of her mustang mare—which bolts off at a dead run.
“Unfortunately—” Sophie smoothed Eddie’s wiry fur “—that wasn’t a big year for Westerns. Sagebrush and Desire remains Randi’s only box-office flop. And you all know how I feel about box-office flops.” Sophie paused, grinned and scratched Eddie behind an ear. “I love them on principle. So tonight at the Mountain Star, I’m proud to present…Randi Wilding in Sagebrush and Desire.”
Friendly applause followed Sophie up the aisle. A shiver went through her as she passed the fifth row, but she didn’t allow herself to turn and look into those dark eyes again.
Sin Riker watched the Jones woman as she strolled by with the gray cat in her arms. Her waterfall of honey-brown hair shone gold in the glare from the fluorescent lights that hung from the rafters overhead. She looked sweet as a milkmaid in some sentimental old print.
He shifted a little, so he could watch her as she moved beyond him up the aisle. Beneath the hem of her worn flowered dress trailed about three inches of white cotton lace. On any other woman, it would have looked as if her slip was showing. But not on the Jones woman. On her, that border of lace looked just right.
At the top of the aisle, she let the cat down and climbed a ladder to what once must have been a hayloft, but now clearly did duty as a projection booth. Sin watched that innocent white lace until it disappeared overhead, then he turned and faced the screen again.
She wasn’t his type at all, of course. He preferred a more complex woman, one who could hold her own in the boardroom as well as the bedroom, one with a little darkness in her soul—to match his own.
In the rafters, the rogue pigeon fluttered his wings. The gray cat strolled down the center aisle, striped tail held high.
“I’m so glad we came,” the elderly woman to Sin’s right whispered to the gray-haired gent on her other side. The man took the woman’s age-spotted hand. They shared a smile. “The Mountain Star is a special place,” the woman said.
Sin had to agree. This impossible theater in a barn charmed him. He had no idea why. The awful, rickety seats must have been stolen from some condemned movie palace and the screen had a hole in the upper left-hand corner.
He should have found the place ridiculous. Yet he didn’t. Not at all. It captivated him.
As did the Jones woman herself, with those big eyes and that sunny smile, all that bronze hair—and white lace showing beneath the hem of her skirt.
Not that this sudden, absurd fascination mattered one bit. Sin had no intention of allowing himself to be distracted by a pair of wide brown eyes. He had other, much more crucial business to transact with Sophie B. Jones.
The fluorescents overhead dimmed. Sin heard the rolling click of a projector starting up. He shifted in his seat again, trying to get reasonably comfortable, as the show began.
When intermission came, Sophie set her ancient projector to rewind the first reel. Then she climbed down the ladder to handle the concession stand.
Though Sophie had two full-time employees and a part-time maid to help her at the Mountain Star Resort, she ran the theater herself. Her guests—both the ones who took rooms in the main house and the folks who drove in from town just to see the show—loved it that way. They bought their tickets from her, she served them their refreshments, and before they saw the show, they got to hear her opinion of it.
That night the dark stranger bought a bowl of popcorn. Myra Bailey, the Mountain Star’s cook, popped the corn up fresh before the show. Sophie served it in plastic bowls.
The stranger also bought a bottle of spring water.
“That’s three, four, five—a
nd five makes ten.” Sophie counted change into that elegant hand. She made the mistake of glancing up, of meeting those deep dark eyes. Instantly all rational thought sailed right out of her mind. She could only stare. They just didn’t make men like this anymore—if they ever really had.
He tucked the change into a pocket, his mouth barely lifting at the corner the way it had earlier, in the slightest insinuation of a smile. “I suppose you’re going to want this bowl back.”
She watched his lips move, and wondered vaguely what he was talking about. He prompted in a teasing whisper, “The bowl—do you want it back?”
She had to cough to make her throat open enough for words to come out. “Oh, yes. The bowl. Yes, I would. Like it back. It’s recyclable. I wash them and use them all over again.”
He waited, not smiling, just looking, a look that made her feel warm and weak and positively wonderful. She had no idea what he was waiting for, but it didn’t seem to matter much.
Then he asked, “Where should I put it?”
She gestured way too wildly, almost whacking him one on his sculpted jaw. “Over there. On that little table by the double doors…”
He nodded. “Good enough.” And then he smiled. Really smiled.
It was nine-fifteen at night and outside an August moon was shining down, but to Sophie the sun came up at that moment. Even when he turned, carrying his popcorn and water, and headed for the curtains that separated her concession area from the rest of the barn, she still felt as if she’d been blinded by the bright light of a new day.
It was ludicrous. And she knew it. Hopeless romantic or not, she had to get a grip here.
“How about a pear nectar?” the next fellow in line asked.
Sophie gave him a brisk, very professional smile. “Pear nectar it is.”