Lily and the Lawman

Lily and the Lawman
Marie Ferrarella

City girl Lily Quintano came to tiny Hades, Alaska, to get away from men. Her cheating ex-fiancé had turned her heart to stone–or so she thought.For the minute she saw Max Yearling, her pulse started racing. She had to avoid the sexy sheriff at all costs. But in a town the size of Hades, heated encounters with the handsome local hero were inevitable…and way too enjoyable.Max Yearling didn't believe in love–his deadbeat father made sure of that. So why did he feel the need to keep an eye on the pretty Ms. Lily? Perhaps she might get lost in the wilderness…or even better, lose herself in his strong, protective arms….

“I like women with fire in their eyes and a go-to-hell attitude.”

Max allowed himself just one touch of her hair. “I like them with shining black hair and legs so long they make you want to fall to your knees and thank God you’re alive.”

Damn it, her heart had shifted again. Now it was in her throat, making it hard to breathe. Still, Lily raised her chin defiantly. Willing him to do something to prove her wrong.

“I don’t believe you.”

He shrugged as if it made no difference to him one way or another.

“Believe what you want. But, woman, you have stirred up something inside of me I’ve never felt before and I think that for both our sakes, we should walk away from this here and now, before we both do something that there’ll be no walking away from….”

Lily and the Lawman

Marie Ferrarella

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

To

Julie Barrett,

Welcome to the fold

MARIE FERRARELLA

earned a master’s degree in Shakespearean comedy and, perhaps as a result, her writing is distinguished by humor and natural dialogue. This RITA

Award-winning author’s goal is to entertain and to make people laugh and feel good. She has written over one hundred books for Silhouette, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide and have been translated into Spanish, Italian, German, Russian, Polish, Japanese and Korean.

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 One

“I hate men. I hate tall men, I hate short men, I hate old men, I hate young men. I hate men!”

Alison Quintano held the phone away from her ear for a moment. Distance hardly muted her older sister Lily’s tirade. It was as if the petite woman who had dominated a large portion of Alison’s childhood was standing right here in Hades’s lone medical clinic rather than far away, in her own trendy Seattle apartment.

“You. Men. Hate. Got it,” Alison quipped, trying to get Lily’s voice down to a level that didn’t threaten to shatter her eardrum. Lily had called her about three minutes ago and had been carrying on like this from the moment she’d answered the phone. “Now calm down and tell me what brought this on.”

Even as she said it, Alison had a sneaking suspicion she knew what the problem was. Or rather, who.

Lily steamrolled right over the question, not hearing her sister. She was just too angry and trying very, very hard not to be hurt. But the pain was there, hot and biting.

How could she have been this blind?

“I especially hate sneaky plastic surgeon men.”

Ah, now they were getting to it, Alison thought. Lily’s fiancé, Allen, was a plastic surgeon. Alison felt guilty over the sense of relief she was experiencing. But it was there nonetheless. She had never liked Allen. None of them had.

“Does this mean the wedding’s off?” Alison could just see their older brother, Kevin, doing a little jig.

Of the three of them, Kevin, who had raised them ever since their father had died, had disliked Allen the most. The artificial surgeon was the way he referred to Allen whenever he mentioned the man to the rest of them.

But, Lily being Lily, none of them had said anything to her. It would have only made her dig in her heels. Now, it looked as if her heels had been naturally dislodged.

It was hard for Alison to keep from cheering.

Feeling like a caged animal, Lily paced the length of her kitchen, a headset sitting like an appendage on her straight black hair. Normally, being around the various state-of-the-art appliances in her kitchen soothed her. But nothing was soothing her now. Short of filleting her fiancé.

Ex-fiancé, she amended with a vengeance. How could he? How could he?

“Not only is the wedding off, but I very nearly came close to taking his head off, as well.” She huffed angrily, struggling to keep the skewering feeling of betrayal at bay. “Not that he needs his head since he seems to rely very heavily on the Braille system of doing things.”

With the telephone wedged against her shoulder and her ear, Alison tallied up a bill for the burly miner who had just walked out of examining room one. It took her a second to decipher her brother Jimmy’s illegible handwriting. Even for a doctor it was awful, she thought.