Secret Dad

Secret Dad
Raye Morgan

SECRET MARRIAGE?She called herself "Charlie Smith," and only Denver McCaine remembered her as Adrianna Charlyne Chandler. But Charlie was no longer the aloof-but-beautiful heiress a rugged mercenary like him could only dream about. Now she was a struggling single mom who'd run from the husband her wealthy family had chosen for her. And her new life was wonderful - until her family found her… .The only way Charlie could keep her happy home was if she pretended to be Denver's wife. But her son secretly longed to make Denver his real dad. And soon Charlie wondered how much tender loving protection she could take before dreams of happily-ever-after took hold of her wistful heart… .

Excerpt (#ufa1e8553-b233-58f0-8016-d1c251021e4e)Letter to Reader (#ue5d3f447-937f-5fcc-8663-26dea697e240)About the Author (#u3aaf900c-4d26-5aed-ad11-072b0655fdc0)Title Page (#u94eda7f9-0c30-5e4a-9f72-0668fd5950d9)Prologue (#u0d1f0a0d-cbd1-5558-b9ba-1f808002145e)Chapter One (#ud3fc16f2-2b61-5431-b73e-935654ba3173)Chapter Two (#u2563bde7-849c-5d3c-a1dc-53d0c0934afc)Chapter Three (#uf7e72237-6bf7-5575-a524-dddbdb732af6)Chapter Four (#ue2ad6c93-13ee-59ee-85d9-fce2b8a106a5)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)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

“Are you trying to prove something by taking care of me?” Charlie asked.

“That’s crazy,” he said, avoiding her gaze.

“Oh? You mean you might turn out to be a good guy after all?”

“I’m no saint,” he warned her.

She surprised him by reaching up to touch his cheek with her finger. “What are you, then?”

She was too close, too tempting. Moving on reflex, he grabbed her by the hair at the back of her head and forced her face an inch from his own. “I’m probably harder and rougher and less refined than any man you’ve ever been with, Charlie,” he told her, his voice a low rumble in his throat. “Don’t take this lightly.”

“I take you very seriously,” she told him softly, her voice pulsing with the excitement he was rousing in her blood. “You are the most serious thing that has happened to me in a long time.”

Dear Reader,

Happy Valentine’s Day! And what better way to celebrate Cupid’s reign than by reading six brand-new Desire novels...?

Putting us in the mood for sensuous love is this February’s MAN OF THE MONTH, with wonderful Dixie Browning offering us the final title in her THE LAWLESS HEIRS miniseries in A Knight in Rusty Armor. This alpha-male hero knows just what to do when faced with a sultry damsel in distress!

Continue to follow the popular Fortune family’s romances in the Desire series FORTUNE’S CHILDREN: THE BRIDES. The newest installment, Society Bride by Elizabeth Bevarly, features a spirited debutante who runs away from a business-deal marriage ..into the arms of the rugged rancher of her dreams.

Ever-talented Anne Mane Winston delivers the second story in her BUTLER COUNTY BRIDES, with a single mom opening her home and heart to a seductive acquaintance, in Dedicated to Deirdre. Then a modern-day cowboy renounces his footloose ways for love in The Outlaw Jesse James, the final title in Cindy Gerard’s OUTLAW HEARTS miniseries; while a child’s heartwarming wish for a father is granted in Raye Morgan’s Secret Dad. And with Little Miss Innocent? Lori Foster proves that opposites do attract.

This Valentine’s Day, Silhouette Desire’s little red books sizzle with compelling romance and make the perfect gift for the contemporary woman—you! So treat yourself to all six!

Enjoy!

Joan Marlow Golan

Senior Editor, Silhouette Desire

Please address questions and book requests to:

Silhouette Reader Service

U.S 3010 Walden Ave., P.O Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269 Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3

About the Author

RAYE MORGAN favors settings in the West, which is where she has spent most of her life. She admits to a penchant for Western heroes, believing that whether he’s a rugged outdoorsman or a smooth city sophisticate, he tends to have a streak of wildness that the romantic heroine can’t resist taming. She’s been married to one of those Western men for twenty years and is busy raising four more in her Southern California home.

Secret Dad

Raye Morgan

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

Prologue

Robbie lifted his tousled head and listened. He could hear his mother talking and laughing softly with friends in the next room. The sound of her voice filled his almost-six-year-old heart with satisfaction and he snuggled down into his thick, soft covers, holding his teddy bear. He loved his mom.

“But where’s your dad?” his friend Billy had asked insistently that afternoon when they were playing in the mud at the edge of the lake. “Where is he, huh?”

He, frowned, remembering. It made him feel funny and hollow inside to think about it. Billy had a dad. He was big and loud and he took Billy fishing on Sunday afternoons. You were supposed to have a dad. Where was his dad?

His mother had said just tonight, “Your birthday is coming up, Robbie. Better start thinking about what you’re going to wish for.”

Could you wish for a dad for your birthday? He wasn’t sure. He didn’t want to say anything to his mom. He hated it when she looked sad and something told him asking for a dad would make her sad. So he would have to ask someone else.

Putting his hands together, he squeezed his eyes tightly shut and whispered, “Please, please. Could you bring me a dad? I promise I’ll sweep the porch every day and brush my teeth every night. So could you? Could you make him sort of big? I really, really need him.” He opened his eyes, then quickly closed them again, because he’d almost forgotten. “Thank you,” he added quickly. “Thank you very much. And God bless Mom.”

One

Denver McCaine winced as he climbed the trail to the cabin he’d rented for the month. His bruised, broken and thirty-eight-year-old body was rebelling, and he didn’t blame it. He’d wanted something remote, but if he’d known the cabin was going to be this hard to get to, he would have opted for something closer to the edge of the water.

“Go stay at Big Tree Lakes,” his coordinator, Josh Hoya had advised him. “You’ve had three rough assignments in a row. You’re not going to make it through another one without taking some time to heal.”

The casual onlooker might have thought Josh compassionate, but Denver knew better. Josh just wanted him ready for his next mission, and he wanted him in shape, just in case Denver had to pull the usual dangerous stunts he’d become known for during his almost twenty years as a government agent. But for the first time, Denver wasn’t sure he was going to be back when his R and R was over. For the first time, he felt a certain lack of will he’d never experienced before.

“You’re getting old,” he told himself, stopping to rest with his hand jammed against the rough bark of a pine to hold himself up. It might be time to consider changing to a desk job.

But that made him grin. A desk job—that would never happen. It just wasn’t his style. Still, this climb was destroying his right knee. He looked around for a better way to make it up to the cabin and his eye fell on an old streambed. That might give him better footing. He walked gingerly toward the rocky gully, cursing the foreign government soldier who had taken a whack at his leg with the butt of a rifle just three weeks ago—and the sniper who had put a bullet into his backside. All in all, he felt just this side of broken.

But he should have been paying attention to where he was placing his feet rather than cataloguing his pains. One misstep, then another, and he was falling, reaching out to try to catch himself on brush that came away in his hand, sliding down into the streambed on his back, wedged in between two boulders and twisted so that he knew right away it was going to be very difficult for him to get back up on his own.

A wave of pain swept over him and he closed his eyes for a moment, waiting for it to pass so that he could think straight. In the meantime, he uttered every curse word he knew, and some he’d only read in ancient books. This was so stupid, so avoidable. “See,” he muttered darkly to himself. “More evidence you’re losing your edge” He never made mistakes like this. What the hell was the matter with him?

Once he felt his strength coming back, he tried to leverage himself up into a sitting position, but he couldn’t get the traction he needed. His right leg was gone, completely unusable, and without it, he didn’t know how he was going to get up again.

He lay there, unbelieving, stream water soaking his pants. He was helpless. He—Denver McCaine, government agent, adventurer, sometime mercenary rescuer of damsels in distress, defender of the weak, the man who went where wise men feared to tread—here he was, flat on his back like a damn turtle. If he hadn’t felt so completely humiliated, he might have laughed.

“Hold on. I’m coming.”

The voice was female and he groaned. No woman should ever see him like this. This was not the face he usually presented to the world.

She came scrambling over the bank and toward him.

“Are you hurt? Do I dare move you? Or should I run into town and get a doctor?”

At first all he saw was a swirl of blond hair slashing through the sunlight above him, but as she bent over him, her face began to take shape and come into focus.

“I’m not really hurt,” he said gruffly, wondering just how he was going to explain. “I mean, I’m hurt, but it’s from an earlier incident. This isn’t bodily injury. It is, however, a definite wound to the spirit.”