The Secret Sin

The Secret Sin
Darlene Gardner

Annie Sublinski was sixteen when a brief encounter with Ryan Whitmore left her pregnant.Ryan stood by her decision to give up their baby for adoption. Now that child is here in Indigo Springs, forcing Annie to confront the man she's been avoiding all these years…. It seems she underestimated Ryan. He wants to get to know the daughter he thought he'd never see. And her mother.As old feelings resurface, Ryan surprises Annie with the intensity of his passion. He refuses to give up on her…on all of them. But Annie has to forgive herself for the past if she has any hope of building a future.

Ryan moved a step toward her

Annie sat very still.

“I meant what I said on the river today. I want to give what’s between us a shot.”

“There’s nothing between us,” she denied, jumping to her feet, intending to return to the house. Instead of backing away, he took a step forward, trapping her between the picnic table and his body.

“You know that’s not true.” He laid a hand against her cheek. “You can feel it, the same way I do. There’s always been something there.”

Dear Reader,

As a reader, nothing pulls me into a story more effectively than a secret. That’s probably why my own books tend to be full of them. It’s great fun to uncover the mystery along with the characters. It’s almost as enjoyable when one character keeps something from another.

In most books with a plot involving a secret baby, the father is the one who’s in the dark. In The Secret Sin, it’s the baby herself, who’s grown into a lovely thirteen-year-old girl.

Lindsey Thompson has no idea she’s on a collision course with her birth parents when she runs away to Indigo Springs to visit a family friend—or the effect she’ll have on the two former lovers who haven’t spoken in fourteen years.

I hope you enjoy the third book in the RETURN TO INDIGO SPRINGS series, with the couple who will do anything to keep their birth daughter from getting hurt.

All my best,

Darlene Gardner

The Secret Sin

Darlene Gardner

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

While working as a newspaper sportswriter, Darlene Gardner realized she’d rather make up quotes than rely on an athlete to say something interesting. So she quit her job and concentrated on a fiction career that landed her at Harlequin/Silhouette Books, where she wrote for Harlequin Temptation, Harlequin Duets and Silhouette Intimate Moments before finding a home at Harlequin Superromance. Please visit Darlene on the Web at www.darlenegardner.com.

To Kurt, Paige and Brian—the loves of my life.

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

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

A NNIE S UBLINSKI gulped down the last bite of her turkey sandwich and scooped her sunglasses off the kitchen counter before grabbing the receiver on the ringing telephone.

This was the third time she’d had to answer the phone in the last ten minutes, proving that her father was right. He did need her to take time away from her magazine-writing career to be in charge of Indigo River Rafters while he was away.

She didn’t bother with a hello. “What is it this time, Jason?”

She’d instructed the teenager her father had hired for the summer to prepare the next group of white-water rafters for the one o’clock run down the Lehigh. He was a nice enough kid, but she wouldn’t be surprised if he couldn’t locate the paddles. So far he’d phoned asking first where to find the liability forms and then the sunscreen they sold in the shop.

The silence that carried over the line was uncharacteristic for Jason, whose weak point wasn’t lack of communication.

“I was calling my uncle Frank.” The voice, young and female, was not one Annie could identify.

Annie’s father’s first name was Frank. If the girl had spoken with a Polish accent and called her father Wujeck Franek, she’d conclude it was one of his nieces. But wouldn’t they know he was visiting their family in Kraków?

“I must have the wrong number,” the girl continued, providing an explanation; the call was a mistake.

“No problem.” Annie hung up and headed for the door, instantly putting the girl out of her mind.

From the porch of her father’s modest home, the warehouse-type building serving as company headquarters was visible, with the wide blue ribbon of river beyond it. The rafting trip she was leading wasn’t scheduled to leave for another fifteen minutes, but she needed to brief her customers on the dos and don’ts of spending the afternoon on the rumbling river.

The phone sounded again, the shrill noise stopping her in her tracks. It was probably the girl trying the number a second time. She debated ignoring it.

It continued to ring.

On the other hand, it could be Jason with a real crisis.

Just in case the few minutes it would take her to reach the shop mattered, she reversed course and plucked the receiver off the wall mount. “Yeah?”