Stranger In Her Arms

Stranger In Her Arms
Lorna Michaels

When the doorbell rang in the middle of a devastating summer storm, Christy Matthews found a bruised, rain-battered stranger on her porch. While the wind howled, she tended to his injuries. Stranded with him in her island sanctuary, she found it impossible to ignore his rugged sensuality…and the growing desire to lose herself in his embrace.No wallet. No driver's license. Not a clue to his identity. Yet this beautiful healing angel trusted him to keep her safe. With a killer on the loose, protecting Christy became his most vital mission, but the passion she awakened could thrust them both into harm's way. He had no memory of yesterday, but he'd risk everything to lie in her arms today, tomorrow and always….

A man stood beside the door.

Tall and lean, he was thoroughly soaked from the rain.

As she watched, he paced to the porch steps. He turned back, and she saw his face more clearly. A bruise marred his jaw.

Who was he? If she’d met him before, she’d have remembered. In spite of his bruises, he had the kind of face a woman would notice. Eyes as gray as the stormy skies, a firm, sensuous mouth above a square jaw, and the hint of a cleft in his chin.

“I’ve had an accident.” He drew in a sharp breath, put a hand against the house as if he needed support.

What should she do? Send the stranger back into the storm?

Something was telling her not to. Instead Christy opened the door.

Stranger in Her Arms

Lorna Michaels

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

LORNA MICHAELS

When she was four years old, Lorna Michaels decided she would become a writer. But it wasn’t until she read her first romance that she found her niche. Since then she’s been a winner of numerous writing contests, a double Romance Writer’s of America Golden Heart finalist and a nominee for Romantic Times magazine’s Love and Laughter Award. A self-confessed romantic, she loves to spend her evenings writing happily-ever-after stories. During the day she’s a speech pathologist with a busy private practice. Though she leads a double life, both her careers focus on communication. As a speech pathologist, she works with children who have communication disorders. In her writing, she deals with men and women who overcome barriers to communication as they forge lasting relationships.

Besides working and writing, Lorna enjoys reading everything from cereal boxes to Greek tragedy, interacting with the two cats who own her, watching basketball games and traveling with her husband. In 2002 she realized her dream of visiting Antarctica. Nothing thrills her more than hearing from readers. You can e-mail her at lmichaels@zyzy.com.

To Barbara Sher,

who taught me to dream.

And in memory of Rita Gallagher,

who taught me how to make my dreams come true.

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 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 1

Christy Matthews loved storms—the noise, the roiling sky, the hint of danger. And what better place to enjoy one than on San Sebastian Island in her parents’ vacation cottage, with a rerun of Raiders of the Lost Ark on the tube? She’d left the back blinds open so she could see the oleanders tossing wildly in the yard, the lightning zigzagging overhead.

The weather report said the rain was likely to continue all night and into tomorrow. Christy smiled and inhaled the aroma of warm popcorn. It was a buttered-popcorn kind of evening, with weather that encouraged her to put the fat content of butter out of her mind.

She grabbed a handful of popcorn as Indiana Jones battled furiously with a pit full of hissing snakes. This was her favorite part.

The telephone rang. “Nuts,” she muttered as she picked up the receiver. “Hello.”

“Hi, Toad.”

“Steve.” Her older brother had become overprotective since Christy’s divorce. And when Steve used the nickname he’d bestowed on her when she was five, Christy knew she was in for a long and heavy dose of brotherly concern. Too bad she’d settled for the classic movie channel instead of renting a video. With a last longing look at Indy, she pressed the mute button on the remote.

“How’s the weather?”

“Wet but not too bad.” An earsplitting crash of thunder, surely loud enough for her brother to hear, belied her words. “Um, thunder always sounds louder at the beach.”

“Maybe you should leave.”