A big man with dark hair, and her heart started beating harder. At first glance, from the side, he looked like Boone, but that couldn’t be. Boone didn’t know where she was. Nate had made sure that no one did. But damn, it sure looked like Boone.
He knocked again, and she saw his profile. A cry escaped as she put the gun down on the table by the door, then jerked the locks open. Her hand shook so hard she almost broke the knob. But then it was open, and oh, God, it was him. “Boone.”
He lifted her into his arms, and kissed her over and over, spinning her around and inside, where he kicked the door shut. Then he kissed her again.
He tasted like Boone, like everything she remembered. It wasn’t possible, he couldn’t be here, but she touched his face and it was his face.
“Christie,” he said, his voice cracking with emotion. “I can’t believe it’s you.”
She laughed. “That’s my line. How are you here? Is it over?”
He studied her eyes as she studied his. So green, so beautiful, with that incredible crease right above his nose. She kissed him right there, and then on the lips again.
He put her down, but she still felt as if she were flying. “Tell me, dammit. How are you here?”
“It wasn’t easy. But I found you. Dammit, Christie, I’ve missed you so much.” He swallowed hard. “I had to find Nate first. He didn’t want to give it up, believe me. But he told me to tell you to keep the good thought. Things are happening. Slowly, but they’re happening.”
“So it’s not over?”
“No, baby, it’s not. We still have a long way to go. But I was miserable without you. If we have to live like this, then I say we do it together. You and me. It won’t be fun, but it’s not fun now, right?”
She cupped his face. “I knew I loved you for a reason.”
“You do, huh? Love me?”
She nodded, so incredibly sure.
“Then you’re cool with this? With us?”
She kissed him again, and this time she took her sweet time. It was everything she remembered, and so much more. Her hands explored his back, his butt, then went back for seconds.
When she finally pulled back, he was smiling at her. Not that loopy grin from when his mouth was all bangedup, but the beautiful smile she knew from her dreams. “How’s your leg?”
“Ugly, but useable.”
“Good. That’s good.”
“No,” he said. “This is good. This is worth everything. I love you, Christie. I’m not willing to lose you again.”
“Well, isn’t that something,” she whispered. She touched his lips with her fingertips, then leaned in close. “Because I’m not willing to be lost.”
In November 2006, look for Jo Leigh’s next
Harlequin Blaze novel, RELENTLESS, part
of an exciting new miniseries featuring
more of Kate, Seth and Nate.
Ever since LISA CHILDS read her first romance novel (a Mills & Boon story, of course) at age eleven, all she wanted was to be a romance writer. With over forty novels published with Mills & Boon, Lisa is living her dream. She is an award-winning, bestselling romance author. Lisa loves to hear from readers, who can contact her on Facebook, through her website, www.lisachilds.com, or her snail-mail address, PO Box 139, Marne, MI 49435.
To my wonderful groom — Philip Tyson — thanks for an amazing first year of marriage. And to the woman who raised him to be the wonderful man he is, Shirley Tyson — thank you for being such a loving and supportive mother. You are a phenomenal woman, and I am so lucky to have you as a mother-in-law.
Their petals dried and brittle and as black as tar, the roses arrived the day after the announcement was printed in the paper. There were a dozen of them in the box, the thorny stems twisted around each other like barbed wire.
Tanya Chesterfield’s finger bled from the one she had been foolish enough to touch. Crimson droplets fell onto the white envelope of the card that had come with the gift.
Her hand trembled as she fumbled to open the envelope. Maybe she should have just tossed it and the flowers into the trash. But she had to see if it was as threatening as the other notes she’d received anytime she had seriously dated anyone the past ten years.
She wasn’t just dating now, though. She was engaged. And it was that engagement announcement that she pulled from the envelope.
The picture of her and her intended groom had been desecrated with a big black X. But that wasn’t all the marker had scratched out on the announcement. The date of the wedding had been changed to date of: DEATH.
“You’re messing with me,” Cooper Payne accused his older brother. He hadn’t been gone so long that he’d forgotten how they all handled any emotional and uncomfortable situation—with humor and teasing.
“I’m giving you an assignment,” Logan said, but he was focused on the papers on his desk as if unwilling to meet Cooper’s stare. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”
After his honorable discharge from the Marines, he had come home to River City, Michigan, in order to join the family business. The business his brother had started: private security protection. Not his mother’s business: weddings.
“I want a real assignment,” Cooper clarified as he paced the small confines of Logan’s dark-paneled office. “Not some trick our mother put you up to.”
“Trick?” Logan asked, his usually deep voice rising with fake innocence. “Why would you think it’s a trick?”
Frustration clutched at his stomach, knotting his guts. “Because Mom’s been trying to get me to go to this damn wedding before I even got on a plane to head back...”
“Home,” Logan finished for him. “You’re home. And Tanya Chesterfield and Stephen Wochholz are your friends. Why wouldn’t you want to attend their wedding?”
Because the thought of Tanya marrying any man—let alone Stephen—made him physically sick. He shook his head. “We were friends in high school,” Cooper reminded his brother and himself. “That was a dozen years ago.”
And as beautiful as Tanya was, it was a miracle that she wasn’t already married with a couple of kids. It wasn’t as if she would have been pining over him. They hadn’t shared more than
