A Shocking Request

A Shocking Request
Colleen Faulkner

NEVER IN A MILLION YEARS HAD GRANT EXPECTED THIS.His late wife, Ally, speaking on a memory videotape she'd left behind, was actually suggesting he start dating."Date?" Grant thought aloud. "Who would I date? Who wants a widower who lives on a principal's salary and has three daughters?"Clearly anticipating his reaction, Ally said into the camera, "I know you're going to sit around for weeks saying you wouldn't know who to ask if you wanted to go on a date. I've thought this out, too."She leaned forward in the chair. "Jenna," she said softly. "I want you to date my best friend, Jenna. And, Grant, I think you'll fall in love with her."

“So your kind of man doesn’t have to leap from burning cars, tunnel under mountains or drive motorcycles off cliffs?”

“Nah, I prefer a man who is a little more…subtle about his masculinity.” Jenna smiled up at Grant. It had been a long time since she had flirted with someone.

“My kind of hero can make dinner, sweep the floor and help children do homework, all at the same time,” she said.

Grant halted on the sidewalk and turned to face her. “Well then, hey.” He lifted his hands, palms up. “I can do all of that and then some.”

“I know you can.” She glanced at him, suddenly feeling shy. “I’m sorry, Grant,” she said, avoiding his smoldering gaze. “I didn’t mean to—”

To her surprise, he caught both of her hands and gently pulled her toward him, their bodies almost touching.

“Jenna,” he whispered, as he completed the motion and drew her into full contact against his warm, strong chest. “I want to kiss you….”

Dear Reader,

Brr…February’s below-freezing temperatures call for a mug of hot chocolate, a fuzzy afghan and a heartwarming book from Silhouette Romance. Our books will heat you to the tips of your toes with the sizzling sexual tension that courses between our stubborn heroes and the determined heroines who ultimately melt their hardened hearts.

In Judy Christenberry’s Least Likely To Wed, her sinfully sexy cowboy hero has his plans for lifelong bachelorhood foiled by the searing kisses of a spirited single mom. While in Sue Swift’s The Ranger & the Rescue, an amnesiac cowboy stakes a claim on the heart of a flame-haired heroine—but will the fires of passion still burn when he regains his memory?

Tensions reach the boiling point in Raye Morgan’s She’s Having My Baby!—the final installment of the miniseries HAVING THE BOSS’S BABY—when our heroine discovers just who fathered her baby-to-be…. And tempers flare in Rebecca Russell’s Right Where He Belongs, in which our handsome hero must choose between his cold plan for revenge and a woman’s warm and tender love.

Then simmer down with the incredibly romantic heroes in Teresa Southwick’s What If We Fall In Love? and Colleen Faulkner’s A Shocking Request. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll fall in love all over again with these deeply touching stories about widowers who get a second chance at love.

So this February, come in from the cold and warm your heart and spirit with one of these temperature-raising books from Silhouette Romance. Don’t forget the marshmallows!

Happy reading!

Mary-Theresa Hussey

Senior Editor

A Shocking Request

Colleen Faulkner

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

For Donna Clayton.

Thanks for being so willing to slide over on the bench.

You’re a true friend.

COLLEEN FAULKNER

had romance writing encrypted in her genetic code. Her mother, Judith E. French, is also a bestselling historical romance author. Whether through genes or simply karma, Colleen began her writing career early. She published her first historical romance at the tender age of twenty-four. Since then she has sold twenty-three historical romance novels, five contemporary romances and six novellas.

Colleen resides in southern Delaware with her husband of twenty years, the couple’s four children, a Bernese mountain dog named Duncan and a Siamese cat named Xena. When she’s not writing, Colleen enjoys playing racquetball and volleyball, coaching girls’ softball and coed soccer and, of course, reading.

Dear Reader,

I can’t tell you how excited I am to be publishing my first Silhouette Romance novel. In the last fifteen years, I’ve written two dozen historical romances, so writing a modern-day love story was quite a challenge. In writing A Shocking Request, if there’s one thing I learned, it’s that romance and love are the same no matter where in time they take place.

A Shocking Request came about when a group of friends and I were talking over coffee about our families and what we would do if we discovered we were dying. All of us realized we would be concerned not just for our children, but for our husbands, too. We all agreed that, out of love, we would want to give our spouses permission to date, fall in love and marry again. Laughing, we agreed we would like to pick out the perfect woman to mother our children and love the man we loved. Some may think that A Shocking Request is a sad story, but it’s not. It’s a story of joy. It’s the story of a man and woman who find love after great loss and proves to us once again that love really can conquer all.

Contents

Chapter One (#u28d14ca9-e4db-5d02-afec-5b72ddabfc98)

Chapter Two (#u3d95d651-6d6a-55fc-99bb-7823f881a7ee)

Chapter Three (#u1556e983-990d-55aa-a671-c08603674bdd)

Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter One

“Happy anniversary, Happy anniversary, Happy anniversary…Happy…Happy…Happy,” Grant sang aloud to himself. He had no idea when he had heard the tune, but knew it was from a Flintstones cartoon. He tapped his foot as he waited for the noodles to boil and when they were done, he drained them in the sink. A little milk, a little margarine, that yellow packet of powder that was supposed to be cheese, and voilà, he had an anniversary dinner fit for a…

Fit for a widower on his wedding anniversary, he thought as he dumped the entire pot of macaroni and cheese into a big chili bowl. He grabbed a spoon and the glass of Chardonnay he had poured himself and carried it into the den, shutting off the lights behind him. In the dark, Grant set down his feast and picked up the videotape he had left on his chair.

“Watch two years after I’ve been gone,” it read in his wife’s neat, floral handwriting. Ally had made a whole box of these tapes, “just in case.” Most of them were for their daughters. Each tape was labeled with the child’s name and the occasion for which she was to watch it. The next tape in the box was for Hannah’s sixteenth birthday, which was four months away.

It was another two weeks until the anniversary of Ally’s death, but Grant thought it would be okay if he watched a little early. It was their wedding anniversary today, and he thought he deserved it. He popped the tape into the VCR and turned on the TV.