I'll Be Seeing You

I'll Be Seeing You
Beverly Bird

SURPRISE #1: Her client, dead in his salad plate.SURPRISE #2: Detective Raphael Montiel.Caterer Kate Mulhern's life was suddenly full of surprises. And her knee-buckling attraction to the rogue cop assigned to protect her was the biggest shock of all. For steel-bodied Raphael wasn't the sort to get cold-cocked by Cupid. So Kate had to remember that his strong embrace was merely a tactic to make her safe. His heated, watchful eyes were only keeping surveillance. And his kisses were nothing but…pure love?

She could handle the flirting.

She could. She was practical enough to know that Raphael didn’t mean anything by it. All she had to do was look at him to understand that.

He was all animal grace and golden good looks.

Tall, gorgeous women were Raphael’s type, Kate thought, not someone who was five foot four if she stood on her tiptoes, someone who did not have a bad hair day now and again but was having a bad hair life.

The problem was…his eyes.

Raphael had a way of looking at her when he said things, a steady way, with that smoky green gaze, while one corner of his mouth crooked up in a secret smile. Like there was something shared between them…

Dear Reader,

As the Intimate Moments quarter of our yearlong 20

anniversary promotion draws to a close, we offer you a month so full of reading excitement, you’ll hardly know where to start. How about with Night Shield, the newest NIGHT TALES title from New York Times bestselling author Nora Roberts? As always, Nora delivers characters you’ll never forget and a plot guaranteed to keep you turning the pages. And don’t miss our special NIGHT TALES reissue, also available this month wherever you buy books.

What next? How about Night of No Return, rising star Eileen Wilks’s contribution to our in-line continuity, A YEAR OF LOVING DANGEROUSLY? This emotional and suspenseful tale will have you on the edge of your seat—and longing for the next book in the series. As an additional treat this month, we offer you an in-line continuation of our extremely popular out-of-series continuity, 36 HOURS. Bestselling author Susan Mallery kicks things off with Cinderella for a Night. You’ll love this book, along with the three Intimate Moments novels—and one stand-alone Christmas anthology—that follow it.

Rounding out the month, we have a new book from Beverly Bird, one of the authors who helped define Intimate Moments in its very first month of publication. She’s joined by Mary McBride and Virginia Kantra, each of whom contributes a top-notch novel to the month.

Next month, look for a special two-in-one volume by Maggie Shayne and Marilyn Pappano, called Who Do You Love? And in November, watch for the debut of our stunning new cover design.

Leslie J. Wainger

Executive Senior Editor

I’ll Be Seeing You

Beverly Bird

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

BEVERLY BIRD

has lived in several places in the United States, but she is currently back where her roots began on an island in New Jersey. Her time is devoted to her family and her writing. She is the author of numerous romance novels, both contemporary and historical. Beverly loves to hear from readers. You can write to her at P.O. Box 350, Brigantine, NJ 08203.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 1

Perfection had its own kind of rush, Kate Mulhern thought. It was a tingling flow of adrenaline that made her want to hold her breath in anticipation of the final result.

She stopped moving for a split second in the kitchen of one of Philadelphia’s finer Society Hill brownstones and looked—just looked—at what she had created. The china she’d selected for Dinner For Two, her unique catering business, was a fragile ivory with gold trim. On each plate a filet nested among roasted scallions with a touch of potato thins to the side. Perfect.

Kate smiled and got back to business.

She’d left the couple she was catering for alone for eight minutes now. They had their wine to keep them company—an excellent South Australian ’84 Pinot Noir—but the man was rapidly moving through that. It was time to get on with the meal’s centerpiece. Kate left the plates on the kitchen’s center island and turned away to retrieve the orange béarnaise and julienne rind that would top the steaks.

A crash splintered the kitchen’s quiet.

She let out a yelp of surprise and whirled around, her hand pressed to her chest. What she saw was preposterous! “Hey!” she yelled. “Hey, you! No, wait, stop!”

And the dog did.

It was a dog! In the kitchen? Her client hadn’t mentioned that he had one. But she’d left the back door open a crack while the broiler had done its business—it was August, and Kate considered it to be in poor taste to hike her client’s air-conditioning up without asking. So she’d left the door slightly ajar to let in what scant breeze there was, and a dog—some scrappy little Chihuahua type thing—had come in instead.

Kate’s skin pulled into gooseflesh. Not just any dog, she thought. That dog.

It looked back at her and wagged its tail. Kate let out a strangled sound. The dog dropped the filet that was clamped in its jaws to bark once, a cheery hello, then it snapped the meat up again and trotted out.