He Had Never Planned On Being A Father. Letter to Reader Title Page About the Author Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Epilogue Copyright

He Had Never Planned On Being A Father.

But now that Mike was actually faced with the prospect of a child, it was different. Surprising as it was to admit, he had caught himself almost hoping there would be a baby. A girl maybe, with Denise’s blue eyes and blond hair.

Something inside him shifted painfully Was it the child he wanted...or was it her child that had suddenly become so important?

“We’ll know for sure tomorrow,” she said, “one way or the other.”

He nodded.

“But tonight, Mike,” she went on, “let’s forget about everything but us. I want one more night with you before we know. Before things change forever.”

Mike bit back a groan as an invisible hand tightened around his heart and squeezed. Her quiet words tore at him, leaving his insides open and unguarded.

“Kiss me, Mike.”

Dear Reader,

This month Silhouette Desire brings you six brand-new, emotional and sensual novels by some of the bestselling—and most beloved—authors in the romance genre. Cait London continues her hugely popular miniseries THE TALLCHIEFS with The Seduction of Fiona Tallchief, April’s MAN OF THE MONTH. Next, Elizabeth Bevarly concludes her BLAME IT ON BOB series with The Virgin and the Vagabond. And when a socialite confesses her virginity to a cowboy, she just might be Taken by a Texan, in Lass Small’s THE KEEPERS OF TEXAS miniseries.

Plus, we have Maureen Child’s Maternity Bride. The Cowboy and the Calendar Girl, the last in the OPPOSITES ATTRACT series by Nancy Martin, and Kathryn Taylor’s tale of domesticating an office-bound hunk in Taming the Tycoon

I hope you enjoy all six of Silhouette Desire’s selections this month—and every month!

Regards,

Senior Editor

Silhouette Books

Please address questions and book requests to:

Silhouette Reader Service

U.S. 3010 Walden Ave., PO Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269

Canadian: P.O Box 609, Fort Ene, Ont. L2A 5X3

Maureen Child

Maternity Bride

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MAUREEN CHILD

was born and raised in Southern California and is the only person she knows who longs for an occasional change of season. She is delighted to be writing for Silhouette and is especially excited to be a part of the Desire line.

An avid reader, she looks forward to those rare, rainy California days when she can curl up and sink into a good book. Or two. When she isn’t busy writing, she and her husband of twenty-five years like to travel, leaving their two grown children in charge of the neurotic golden retriever who is the real head of the household. She is also an award-winning historical writer under the names Kathleen Kane and Ann Carberry.

One

“Just stick it in, dummy,” Denise Torrance whispered to herself and scraped the key across the doorknob plate again. The darkness in the hallway pushed at her. She glanced uneasily over her shoulder and wondered why a simple power outage could make her feel as if she were stuck in a fifties horror movie. For heaven’s sake. She knew these offices better than she knew her own apartment. There were no monsters lurking in the shadows waiting to pounce.

“Ah.” She sighed in satisfaction as the stubborn key finally slipped into the lock. Pushing her purse strap higher on her shoulder, she shoved the oversize bag out of her way, turned the key and stepped into the darkened office.

Automatically, her right hand went to the switch plate. She tried each of the two switches with no success. “Perfect,” she said into the black stillness. “Apparently, no one is in a hurry to get the power turned back on.”

But then, if she had collected the files from Patrick’s office a bit earlier, she’d have been gone long before the lights went out and she wouldn’t be standing there in the dark talking to herself.

“Ten o’clock at night,” she muttered. “What kind of idiot works until ten o’clock when they could be home in a hot bath?”

“Just you and me, I guess.” A deep voice rumbled out of the darkness.

Her heart shot into her throat.

“And honey,” the voice added, “that bath sounds real good.”

She choked her heart back into her chest and whirled around, her gaze sweeping across the shadowy corners of the room. Instinctively, Denise backed up, and wished she was wearing her running shoes instead of the three-inch heels wobbling beneath her. Her sharp eyes strained to find the intruder at the same time her mind screamed at her to run like hell.

Then he stepped closer, passing across a splash of moonlight shining through a window before disappearing into the darkness again. Still, she’d been able to see him. Not his face of course, but enough to know he was big.

And standing between her and the door.

Okay fine, she told herself. No escape there. They were on the third floor, so jumping out the window was quickly dismissed, as well. Think, Denise, think. Frantically, she tried to remember the self-defense lessons she’d taken the year before. Something about step into the attacker and throw him over your shoulder?

Yeah, right.

She took another step back, bumped into a chair and staggered. One of her heels snapped off and she dropped into a tilted stance. “Stay back,” she warned, in her best I-am-a-trained-killer voice. “I’m warning you. ...”

“Take it easy, lady,” that voice came again as the man took a step closer.

“I’ll scream.” An empty threat. Her mouth and throat were so dry, it was a wonder she could issue these whispery warnings, let alone, scream.

“Oh, for...” He sounded disgusted.

She hobbled backward, listing dangerously to one side. Why couldn’t she think? Why couldn’t she remember something that she’d learned from that overpriced instructor? It was just as she’d always feared. When faced with a real attacker, her mind had gone blank.

Her purse swung around with her jerky movements and slapped her in the abdomen. She grunted with the impact.

“You okay?”

“Hah!” A concerned maniac! Oh God, she was hyperventilating.

“Look lady, if you’d only stand still for a second...”

“I won’t make it easy on you,” she countered and went into a wild series of bobs and weaves. Her broken heel actually helped in the endeavor. She banged her hip on the corner of Patrick’s desk and promised herself that if this madman killed her, she would haunt Patrick Ryan for the rest of his life.

Some friend he is, she thought hysterically. Taking a vacation so that she would be forced to go into his office and get the files her father wanted for tomorrow afternoon’s meeting. If she survived this, maybe she would have her father fire good ol’ Patrick.

“Dammit, woman!” The huge man in black sounded angry. Swell.

She started singing to herself. Well, not really singing, more of a low pitched keening, really. Anything to make enough noise that she didn’t have to hear the man’s voice as he taunted her. Denise took another few steps, then stopped cold as her purse strap snagged on the corner of the desk. Her breath caught, she leaned forward to free herself and at the same time...miraculously, an actual thought occurred to her.

Hurriedly, she dug into her purse. She couldn’t see well in the dark. She had to depend on her fingers finding just what she needed. Blindly, she began tossing item after item out of her bag and onto the floor.

“Come on now,” he urged and came much too close. “If you’ll just relax, we can straighten all of this out.”

Oh, sure. Relax. There’s an idea!

Her breath staggering, her heart beating wildly enough to explode from her chest, Denise’s fingers closed around the can she had been fumbling for. Triumphantly, she yanked it free of the leather purse, held it up and pointed it—hopefully—at the intruder. Just in case though, she closed her eyes and turned her head away as she pushed the aerosol button.

“Damn it!” he shouted and lunged at her.

A squeak of protest squeezed past her throat.

He slapped the can out of her grip and his momentum carried her down to the floor with him. They hit hard, but he had twisted them both around until he took most of the jarring blow. Immediately then, he rolled her beneath him. He lay across her, pinning her down with his imposing size and weight.

Helplessly, Denise heard her can of pepper spray hit the plank floor and roll into the far corner. She inhaled sharply, hoping for a good, long scream, then felt a large, very strong hand clamp down hard on her mouth.

The mingled scents of Old Spice, tobacco and what smelled like motor oil surrounded her.

“Take it easy, will ya?” he said angrily.

Yeah, that’s what she would do, she thought frantically as she fought to draw a shallow breath into her straining lungs. Take it easy. Simple enough for him to say. His body lay full-length atop hers. She felt his belt buckle digging into her stomach and the hard muscular strength of his thighs pressing her legs down.

Why hadn’t she gone home when everyone else in the building had?

Her mind raced with questions she didn’t really want the answers to. What was he doing in Patrick’s office? This was an accounting firm for heaven’s sake. There was no money to steal. And what was he going to do to her? God, she suddenly remembered every horrifying newspaper article she’d ever read about the rising crime rate.

And now she was going to end up as nothing more than a grainy photograph beside a short sad story on page five.

Even as she thought it, her captor eased slightly to one side of her. Still keeping one of his legs tossed across hers, he captured both of her hands in one of his and held them tightly. As he shifted position, he moved into a patch of moonlight.

Denise closed her eyes and told herself not to look. If she couldn’t identify him, maybe he would leave her alone. But somehow, her eyes opened into slits and her gaze drifted to his features anyway.

She gasped and felt a bit of her fear slip away.

He had the nerve to grin at her.

Surprise battled with temper. What was going on here, anyway? Except for his too long hair, a week’s worth of stubble on his cheeks and the black leather jacket he was wearing, her intruder looked an awful lot like Patrick Ryan. In fact, she thought with a growing sense of disgust, enough like him to be his...twin.

“Finally,” he said and nodded at her. “If you hadn’t been so damned eager to spray pepper into my face, I could have introduced myself a while ago.”

“You’re—”

“Mike Ryan.”

“Patrick’s twin,” she said and tried to twist out of his steely grasp.

“Actually,” he countered with a crooked smile, “I prefer to think of Patrick as my twin.”

Dammit, she thought. Why was Patrick’s brother loitering around his office?

“How did you get in here?” she demanded.

“Security let me in.”

“Great. Why were you standing around in a pitch dark office?”

He snorted a laugh. “The power went out. Remember?”

“Well, you might have said something,” she snapped and tried once more to yank free of him. Again, she failed. For some reason, he seemed reluctant to let her go just yet.

“You didn’t give me much of a chance.”

“There was plenty of time to yell, ‘Don’t have a heart attack, I’m Patrick’s brother’,” she countered. Her heartbeat slowed from its trip-hammer pace as she added, “Or do you enjoy scaring women?”

He scowled briefly. “There are lots of things I enjoy doing with women,” he told her in a voice so deep and rough it scraped along her spine. “Fear has nothing to do with any of them.”

She swallowed and found her mouth dry again.

“So,” he went on and dragged the palm of one hand over the curve of her hip. “We both know who I am. Who the hell are you? Does Patrick have a girlfriend I don’t know about?”

Denise fought to ignore the sensation of wicked heat that trailed in the wake of his hand.

“Maybe,” she countered thickly. “But if he does, it isn’t me.”

“Glad to hear it,” he murmured.

She shifted slightly, trying to move away from his disconcerting touch. He followed her.

“Name?” he asked.

“Denise Torrance.” She gritted her teeth and redoubled her efforts to get at least one of her hands free. “This is the Torrance Accounting firm. Patrick works for my father. I needed to pick up some of his files... Why am I explaining any of this to you?”

He shrugged. “Beats me. Am I supposed to believe any of it?”

She drew her head back and glared at him. “Frankly, I don’t care if you believe me or not. But, why would I lie?”

He shrugged again and let that wandering palm of his slide across her abdomen. Her stomach muscles clenched. Deep inside her, a curl of something dangerous began to unwind.

As if he could read her mind, a deep-throated chuckle rumbled up from his chest.

She felt the flush of embarrassment stain her cheeks and for the first time since entering Patrick’s office, was grateful the power was out.

“I don’t see a thing funny in any of this,” Denise said through her teeth. Especially, she added silently, her body’s reaction to him.

“No,” he agreed. “I don’t suppose you do.” As he finished speaking, his hand moved up her rib cage, slipped beneath her sensible linen blazer and strayed dangerously close to her breast.

“Okay, that’s it,” she muttered, wrenching violently to one side. She wasn’t about to lie on the floor being mauled by a virtual stranger...no matter how much her body seemed to enjoy it.

“You son of a—” Denise gave a furious heave and wrenched one hand free of his grasp. Curling her fingers, she drew her arm back and then let it fly. A fist too small to do any damage clipped him across the chin.

Immediately, he released her and Denise rolled far away from him. Scrambling to her feet, she tugged at her wrinkled, pin-striped business suit until she felt back in control. Then she lifted her gaze to his and glared at him.

The bastard had the nerve to laugh at her?

Rubbing his chin with one hand, he nodded at her slowly. “Not a bad right, for a girl.”

“I’m not a girl. I’m a woman.”

“Oh yeah, honey.” His gaze swept over her. “I noticed.”

The overhead lights flared back into life and Denise blinked, momentarily blinded by the unexpected brightness. When her vision had cleared again, she looked at the man standing so casually just a foot or two away from her.

A relaxed, half smile curved his well-shaped mouth as he watched her. His nose looked as though it had been broken more than once—no doubt by some furious female, she told herself. The whisker stubble on his face gave him a wicked, untamed look, which she was somehow sure he cultivated purposely. His too long black hair hung down on either side of his face and lay across the collar of his jacket. As she looked at him, he reached up with both hands and slowly pushed the mass back out of his way.

Tall and muscular, he wore a spotless white T-shirt beneath the leather jacket that seemed to suit him so well. His worn, faded jeans rode low on his narrow hips and hugged his long legs with an almost indecent grip. Scuffed, square-toed black boots completed the picture of modern day pirate.

She lifted her gaze back to his face and saw sharp green eyes assessing her. It was as if he knew what she was thinking. Amusement flickered in those eyes and she wanted to smack him. Again.

No one should be that sure of himself.

In an instant, his gaze swept over her, mimicking the inspection she’d just given him. Instinctively, she pulled the edges of her navy blazer together and balanced herself carefully on her one good heel.

When his gaze lingered a bit longer than necessary on the fullness of her breasts, Denise shifted uncomfortably. She could almost feel his touch on her body. Her traitorous mind wandered down a dangerous path and imagined what it would feel like to have his fingers caressing her bare flesh. At that thought, another onslaught of heat raced through her, leaving her unexpectedly shaky.

“Well,” Mike said as he eased down to perch on the edge of his brother’s desk. “I’ve got to say, I’ve never been hit by anyone as pretty as you.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

He chuckled again and folded his arms across that magnificent chest.

Good Lord, she groaned silently. Magnificent?

“Most woman don’t find me as...distasteful, as you do, Denise.”

The sound of her name, spoken in that voice, made her knees weak. Instantly, she wished heartily that she was already in the elevator on the way to the parking lot.

“What do you say we try it again?” he asked.

“What?”

“Oh,” he nodded congenially at her. “I’ll let you hit me again too, if it makes you feel better about enjoying my touch.”

“I can’t believe you!” Another flush rose up in her cheeks, but this time, she was sure it was just as much anger as embarrassment.

“You can believe me, honey. I never lie to my women.”

“I am not one of your women.”

His gaze raked over her slowly, deliberately, before coming back to stare deeply into her eyes.

“Yet,” he said simply.

“You’re incredible!” She gasped and fought to ignore the surge of heat flooding her. Something flashed in his eyes and was so quickly gone, she couldn’t identify it. But it had almost looked like a teasing glint.

“So I’ve been told.” He pushed away from the desk and took a step toward her “What do you say, honey?” He rubbed his chin with two fingers and said softly, “That little punch of yours was worth it, you know. To touch you again, I just might be willing to put up with anything.”

Her stomach dropped to her feet and her heartbeat hurtled into high gear. She limped backward a step, never taking her eyes from him. She wasn’t frightened. At least not of him.

Whether he was teasing her or not, she knew she wasn’t in any physical danger from him. He hadn’t had to let her go. She knew as well as he did that her fist hadn’t done the slightest bit of damage to him.

The only thing worrying her now was her reaction to him. Mike and Patrick Ryan were more different than she had at first thought. Oh, they looked alike, there was no denying that.

But she had never experienced this sizzling rush of desire for Patrick. Not once had she imagined rolling around on the floor of his office with him...burying her fingers in his hair...feeling the scrape of his whiskers against her skin.

As those images rocketed around in what was left of her brain, she took another uneven step back in self-defense. What in the world was happening to her? Only moments ago, she had been fighting him, sure that he was some maniac out to destroy her. Now, she trembled at the thought of being kissed senseless by that same maniac?

Oh, she was in big trouble.

Mike smiled. A slow, seductive smile that told her he knew where her thoughts were going.

And that he approved.

Short, shallow breaths shot in and out of her lungs.

She grabbed at the remaining bulk of her shoulder bag and clutched it in front of her as though it were a magic shield, designed to keep lechers at bay. Her fingers worked the leather, locating her wallet and car keys. One corner of her mind realized just how much of her stuff she’d thrown onto the floor. Her purse only weighed about half as much as usual.

The hell with it, she thought, keeping one eye on the man opposite her. She could get the rest of her things later.

“I’m leaving now,” she said and took another hobbling step. “I assume, since you’re Patrick’s brother, you’re not here to rob the place?”

“Good assumption,” he countered and moved a bit closer.

“Then why are you here, anyway?”

“How about we go get a drink and get acquainted?” Mike asked and took another step toward her. “I’ll tell you everything you want to know about me.”

All she wanted to know was why he had such a strange affect on her. But she wasn’t about to ask him that.

He smiled at her again.

Run, her brain screamed. Run now, before it’s too late.

It was the rational thing to do.

It was the only thing that made sense.

So why did a part of her want to stay?

“What do you say?” he repeated. “A drink?”

He reached out one hand toward her.

Denise looked from that hand to his eyes and shook her head, more disgusted with herself than she was him. She mentally shoved her raging hormones aside. “Ryan,” she said slowly and distinctly, “if this was the Sahara and you had the only map to the last Oasis in existence, I still wouldn’t have a drink with you.”

Then she turned and clomped inelegantly from the room and down the hall with as much dignity as she could muster under the circumstances.

As the elevator doors slid soundlessly closed behind her, she heard him laughing.

Two

Mike stood in the doorway looking after her for a long moment, then turned around to stare at the mess strewn across his brother’s office. In her hurry to find her pepper spray, Denise Torrance had thrown the contents of that huge purse of hers all over the room.

He snorted another laugh and shook his head. Next time he volunteered to fix his twin’s air conditioner, he’d make sure to find out if there was going to be a pint-size tornado dropping by.

Of course, if the tornado happened to have short blond hair, wide blue eyes and a dusting of frekles across her nose, he wouldn’t work too hard to avoid her.

From down the hall, he heard the discreet hum of the elevator as it carried her farther away. He’d thought about chasing after her, but then realized that he didn’t have to.

He’d see her again.

As he bent and scooped up some of her belongings to stack them neatly on the desk, he muttered, “She has to come back. Hell, she left half of her life behind.”

Quickly, he went around the room, snatching up the items she’d tossed. As he grabbed the can of pepper spray, he winced and told himself it was a damn good thing he was quicker than she was. He almost set the can with everything else, to be returned to her, then thought better of it and stuffed it into his jacket pocket instead. No sense in arming the woman, he told himself.

He placed the last of her things on the desk and took a long look at them. Everything from a hairbrush to a tube of toothpaste and a neatly capped toothbrush sat atop the mahogany surface. Shaking his head, he noted the foil-wrapped sandwich, a package of Ding Dongs, a screwdriver set and a package of bandages. But then his gaze fell on the jumbo-size bottles of aspirin and antacid tablets, two black eyebrows lifted high on his forehead.

Ms. Denise Torrance apparently led a very stressful life.

Even as he wondered why, he told himself that it was none of his business. He made it a point never to know too much about anyone. With knowledge, came caring. With caring, came pain.

A small, shiny object on the floor caught his eye and he leaned over to pick it up. His long fingers turned the key over and over as he studied it. A smile crept up his features and he glanced at the wall of file cabinets across the room from him.

The only way she was going to get back into this office was with a key. And she’d left hers with him.

Folding the key into his palm, he pocketed it, then walked back to the faulty air-conditioning unit in the corner.

Whistling softly, he told himself that just because he wasn’t going to get involved, that didn’t mean he had to avoid her completely. Besides, anyone so stressed out that they carried enough medication to dose a battalion was desperately in need of some relaxation.

As he pried the metal cover off the unit, he smiled. It would be his distinct pleasure to introduce Denise Torrance to a little fun.

In the soft morning light, Denise stood outside the brick-and-glass building and stared at the foot-high letters painted on the front window.

Ryan’s Custom Cycles.

That unsettled feeling leapt back into life in the pit of her stomach and she sucked in a gulp of air, hoping to quiet it. It didn’t work.

Her fingers clenched and unclenched on the soft, brown leather of her shoulder bag. It hadn’t been hard to locate Mike. Patrick had once mentioned his twin’s motorcycle shop, so a quick glance through the yellow pages had been all the help she had needed.

Denise’s stomach lurched and she laid one palm against her abdomen in response. “Stop it,” she muttered. “He’s just a man.” And, her mind quietly jabbed, the Statue of Liberty is a cute little knick-knack.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” She admonished herself as she started across the parking lot. She didn’t have all day. Her first meeting of the morning started in less than forty minutes. Her father, as president of the firm, would be there and he wasn’t the kind of man to accept excuses for tardiness.

Denise groaned. Just thinking about having to face her irate father this early in the morning was enough to churn up the acid in her stomach. Rummaging in her purse, she yanked out a small roll of colored tablets and popped two of them into her mouth.

As she chewed, she told herself that she didn’t have much choice in this. She had to see Mike again. “Of course,” she said under her breath, “if I hadn’t let him bully me into running for cover last night, this wouldn’t be happening.”

But she had allowed it. Not until she was halfway home had she remembered that she’d left behind Patrick’s spare key and the files she had needed. She had also forgotten about the things she’d thrown out of her purse in her wild search for pepper spray.

“Pepper spray, self-defense classes,” she grumbled in disgust. “A fat lot of good they did me.”

Too late to worry about that, though. She stopped in front of the sparkling clean glass door and took a deep, calming breath. Then she pushed the door open and stepped into another world. A world where she obviously didn’t belong.

The showroom was immense.

Her gaze flew about the room, trying to take it all in at once. Blond pine paneling covered the long wall behind the room-length counter. On the side wall, glass-fronted shelves displayed everything from helmets to gauntlet-style black gloves to black leather pants and boots. The opposite wall appeared to have been designated an art gallery. Against the soft, cream paint were bright splashes of colored signs, proclaiming the name, Harley-Davidson. Beneath those signs, stood racks of clothing. T-shirts, jackets, chaps, even ladies’ nightgowns, all with the same Harley-Davidson logo.

But the most impressive display were the motorcycles themselves. Gleaming wood floors mirrored the chrome surfaces of the almost elegant-looking machines parked atop it. Sunshine filtered through the front and side windows, sparkling off the metal, glinting against the shining paint jobs.

Denise shook her head, dazzled, in spite of herself. Somehow, she had expected a find a dirty, oil-encrusted garage where beer-swilling mechanics scratched their potbellies and traded dirty jokes.

A long, low whistle caught her attention and her head snapped around.

“How did you slip in here, honey? Are you lost?”

The big man in worn jeans and a flannel shirt scratched at his full beard and grinned at her.

She tugged at the front of her sea green blazer and tightened her grip on her purse. All right, so maybe she did look out of place. She glanced around the room again, noting the sprinkling of customers for the first time.

Only a handful of people were in the store and none of them were in a green silk business suit. Except of course, Denise. And, they were all staring at her as though she’d just been beamed down from the planet Stuffy.

Apparently, she thought, as the people went back to what they had been doing when she entered, jeans and black leather were the preferred costume of motorcycle enthusiasts Even for the women, she told herself as she spotted the only other female in the room.

A pang of envy rattled around inside her as she noted the tall blond woman’s long, straight hair and skintight jeans. Without benefit of a shirt, her black leather vest looked provocative. Dismally, Denise acknowledged that even were she to wear the same outfit, the results would be very different. A quick glance down at her own, less than impressive bustline confirmed the thought.

“Looking for a bike, lady?”

She turned toward the first man again. “No.” She cleared her throat and told herself to remember why she was there. It didn’t matter if she would look terrible in a leather vest, since she had no plans to acquire one. “Actually, I’m looking for Mike Ryan.”

He nodded, then said wistfully, “Too bad.” Jerking his head toward the door behind the counter, he added, “Mike’s in the service bay. He’ll be back in a minute.”

“Thank you.”

A moment later, that door opened and Mike stepped into the room. Denise’s stomach jumped. She ignored it and walked toward him.

“Nice wheels,” the bearded man said.

She stopped and looked at him. “What?”

“Your legs, Denise,” Mike spoke up and shot a telling look at the other man. “He said you have nice legs.”

“Oh.” Flustered a bit, she nodded and said, “Thank you very much.”

Hell, Mike thought, what did he care if Tom Jenkins looked at her legs or not? He ignored the skitter in his gut, slapped both hands down on the countertop and leaned forward as Denise came closer.

Dammit, he’d been hoping that he had imagined most of the instant attraction he had felt for her the night before. His gaze raked over her quickly, thoroughly, as she marched determinedly across his shop.

Just his luck, he thought. Even in a boxy, green suit jacket and too long skirt, she did things to him he would have thought impossible at this time yesterday. From the sound system overhead came the muted strains of the Eagles. But over that familiar music, came the sharp click of her high heels against the floorboards. They seemed to be tapping out a rhythm that screamed silently in his head, “Take her, she’s yours. Take her, she’s yours.”

His body tightened and he gritted his teeth in an effort to ignore the voices and concentrate on the woman. Even though he’d been expecting to see her again, he hadn’t expected to feel such a rush of pleasure.

It’s nothing, he told himself. At least nothing more than a very healthy response to a pretty woman. It had been a long time since he’d confused hormones with something deeper.

“Morning,” he said as she came to a stop opposite him.

“Good morning ”

He watched her nervous fingers playing with the strap of her bag. Good. That gave him the upper hand in whatever was going to be between them. And he knew already that there would definitely be something.

“What can I do for you, Denise?” he asked, despite the fact that he knew damned well why she was there.

She inhaled sharply, glanced to either side of her to make sure no one was near, then said, “When I left Patrick’s office last night, I forgot to take the spare key with me.”

“And the files you needed,” he added.

“Yes...”

“Oh, and all that junk from your purse.”

She frowned. “That, too.”

“I know.” He smiled at her and saw temper flare in her eyes before she battled it down again.

“You’re not going to make this easy,” she said quietly. “Are you?”

“Nope.”

Her lips thinned a bit, the only sign of her agitation. “Why not?”

“What would be the fun in that?” he asked.

“Does everything have to be fun?”

He gave her a long, slow smile. “If we’re lucky.”

She sucked in a gulp of air and laid her palms flat on the counter, just an inch or so from his. He thought about touching her, but decided to wait.

“Look, Mike. I just want to retrieve that key, get back into Patrick’s office and pick up my things.” She looked him dead in the eye, hoping, no doubt, to convince him with her calm appeal to his better nature.

Too bad he didn’t have one.

He should do what she wanted, be told himself. Just give her back her stuff and let her disappear from his life. He didn’t want any entanglements. He wasn’t interested in love or long-term relationships. Mike had learned the hard way that love was an invitation to pain and he wanted no part of it. Besides, Lord knew, he had no business getting any closer to a woman who practically had conventional stamped on her forehead.

Still, something inside him just couldn’t seem to let go. To let it...whatever it was between them... end just yet.

“I’ll make you a deal,” he said instead.

“What kind of deal?” Her head cocked to one side and she looked at him through the corners of very cautious eyes.

“Here’s the key for Patrick’s office and the files, but to get the rest of your stuff you have to go to dinner with me tonight.” Even as he said it though, he knew dinner wouldn’t be enough. He wanted to be alone with her again Somewhere quiet and dark, where he could kiss her, touch her. And discover if the sensations that had tormented him long after she had stormed away from him the night before were real...or just a product of the unusual situation they had found themselves in.

“Dinner?”

“Yeah.”

“Where?”

“My choice.”

Her toe tapped against the floor. He watched her as she mentally went over the possibilities. She threw him a worried glance and he knew she was thinking the same thing he was. That here was their chance to prove that absolutely nothing had happened between them the night before.

Then she surprised him.

“You know,” she said thoughtfully, “Patrick never mentioned this ruthless streak of yours.”

He widened his stance and folded both arms across his chest. “I’m not ruthless, honey. I just live my life on my terms.”

“Which are?”

She wouldn’t understand his terms, he told himself. To understand, she would have had to have been sitting in the desert sun, listening to gunfire. She would have had to watch friends die. She would have had to experience the one inescapable fact that life is short. Too damned short.

Since it was pointless to try to explain all of that, he said only, “The terms vary from day to day.”

“Now, why doesn’t that surprise me?”

He gave her points. Irritated and frustrated, she still gave as good as she got.

“So,” Mike said. “What about dinner?”

“Can’t you just give me my stuff?”

“I could...but I won’t.”

Her lips thinned and that toe of hers started tapping even faster. Finally, after she checked her narrow-banded gold watch, she spoke.

“All right, dinner. Here’s my address.” She dug into that saddle bag she called a purse and came up with a business card. She set it down and took a step back from the counter. “Of course, it’s not like I have a choice, is it?” she asked. “To get my things back, I have to go.”

“True,” he agreed and ignored the small stab of conscience.

“Do you always use extortion to get a woman to have dinner with you?”

“Only when I have to. Like I said, the terms vary. Seven-thirly.”

“Seven-thirty.”

“You don’t have to go, Denise,” he heard himself say. “You could call Patrick and whine until he agrees to rescue you from me.”

One pale blond brow lifted. “First, I don’t whine. Second, I don’t need anyone to rescue me from you, Mike Ryan. I can take care of myself.”

She really was something else. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully and grinned at her. “I remember.”

“Good,” she said as she turned for the door. “It’ll be better for both of us, if you keep on remembering.”

What do you wear to have dinner with a man who dresses like a B movie from the fifties and has far more self-confidence than any three people deserve?

Denise stood in the foyer of her condo and checked her appearance in the full-length mirror one more time. Her navy blue dress looked perfect, she thought and swayed to watch the full skirt swirl around her legs.

Nodding to herself, she said aloud, “You wear something that gives you confidence, naturally.”

She smoothed her fingertips along the modestly cut neckline. Revealing just a glimpse of her collarbone, the long-sleeved dress looked demure, almost prudish, until one saw the back. Smiling to herself, Denise half turned and looked into the mirror over her shoulder. The deeply scooped back dipped sensuously low, coming to a stop just below her waist. The smooth expanse of flesh it displayed was evenly tanned a warm, golden brown.

Denise fluffed her hair one last time, checked the hooks of her sapphire drop earrings, then reached into her tiny evening bag for her lipstick. Though the small, black leather envelope on a slim gold shoulder chain looked lovely, she did miss having her day purse.

Leaning toward the mirror, she carefully lined her lips in a dark rose color, then dropped the tube back into the bag.

“Well, I’m ready,” she told herself. “Where is he?”

A quick glance at the clock behind her and she smiled ruefully. Only 7:20. Whatever was wrong with her? She hadn’t wanted to go on this... She refused to call it a date, even to herself. “So why am I ready and waiting ten minutes early?”

She caught her own eye in the mirror and looked away again quickly. Denise wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer to that question.

A rumble of thunder sounded outside and she winced. Looking heavenward, she muttered, “Give me a break, okay? No ram tonight?”

But the thunder continued grumbling until it rolled up in front of her house and stopped.

Frowning, she opened the door.

“Good God.”

Three

Denise stepped onto the porch, pulling the front door closed behind her. She twisted the knob, making sure the lock had set, then started down the pansy-lined walk to the street.

In the hazy, yellowish glow of a streetlight, Mike sat, straddling the biggest motorcycle she had ever seen. Painted bloodred and black, it would have looked intimidating had it been parked and silent. As it was, its engine rumbled like a growl coming from the chest of some jungle beast waiting to pounce.

The word intimidating didn’t even come close to describing it.

Mike pulled his shining black helmet off and set it on the seat in front of him and Denise took a moment to study him. Dressed entirely in black, he looked even more like a pirate than he had the night before. And was, if possible, even more dangerously attractive.

His hair was pulled back into a ponytail at the base of his neck and, she noted nervously, he had shaved for the occasion. When he turned to look at her, his pale green eyes widened in appreciation, then narrowed thoughtfully.

“It looks great,” he admitted. “But it’s not what you usually wear on a bike.”

“I didn’t expect to be riding a bike,” she said, although why she hadn’t considered it, she didn’t know. “We could take my car,” she suggested.

“No, thanks. I don’t do cars.” He reached behind him to the tall bar rising up at the end of the narrow seat. Quickly, he undid the elastic ropes, freeing a silver-and-black helmet, then turned around to hand it to her. “Here. You have to wear this.”

“Mike, I...” Sighing, she pushed the helmet back at him. So much for her spectacular dress. “I’ll go change.”

“No time,” he said. “We’re going to be late as it is.”

“I can’t ride that...” she waved one hand at the motorcycle, then at her dress “...in this.”

His lips twitched in what might have been a smile if given half a chance. But it was gone in the blink of an eye.

“It’ll be all right,” he said. “Just stuff the skirt between your legs and mine. Keep it out of the spokes.”

This was a first. She had never had a man tell her to stuff her skirt between her legs before. Lovely.

“Can’t you just give me three minutes to change?” she asked.

He snorted a muffled laugh. “There isn’t a female alive who can change clothes in three minutes, honey. And like I said, we’re already late.”

His expression told her there was no sense debating the issue a minute longer.

“For heaven’s sake,” she muttered and threw one last, longing glance at her condo, behind her.

“Come on, honey,” he told her and pulled his own helmet on. “Just swing one of those gorgeous legs over the saddle and plop down.”

Gorgeous?

He released the kickstand and stood up, balancing the bike between his thighs. His hands twisted the grips on the handlebars and the powerful engine grumbled in response.

She couldn’t help wondering what her neighbors were thinking at that moment. She could almost feel their interested gazes peering at her from behind the draperies. Well, what did she expect, going to dinner with a man who looked like he’d be back later that night to burgle houses?

He revved the engine again to get her attention.

Then something else occurred to her.

“Hey,” Denise shouted over the rumbling engine, “wait a minute.”

He looked up at her. “What?”

“Where’s my stuff?” She wasn’t about to go through with this little deal of theirs if he hadn’t brought her things with him.

Mike scowled, reached back and patted a dark red compartment hanging off the left rear fender. “It’s all there,” he assured her. “Now, get on.”

Gamely, Denise balanced on her right foot and swung her left leg across the motorcycle. Scooting around until she was comfortable, she braced the toes of her Ferragamo pumps on the foot pedals provided and bunched her skirt into the V between her legs. Muttering under her breath, she pulled the helmet on, winced at just how heavy it felt, then secured the chin strap. She didn’t even want to think about what her hair was going to look like later.

Then Mike sat down in front of her, easing her thighs farther apart with his black-denim-covered behind. She stuffed her skirt between them, hoping the pooled fabric would dull the heat arcing between their bodies.

The engine beneath her shuddered and throbbed, and something deep in her core began to shake in response.

“Hang on to my waist,” he said over his shoulder.

She nodded before realizing he wasn’t looking at her. Rather than try to talk over the noise of the engine though, Denise wound her arms around his waist, pressing herself close to his back.

He tossed a glance at her, then reached around and snapped her visor down. “You ready?” he shouted.

She nodded again, but as they pulled away from the curb, she told herself she wasn’t ready.

Not for him.

When he shut down the engine, the silence was soul shattering.

Denise climbed off the motorcycle and staggered unsteadily for a moment Her legs felt as if they were still shuddering in time with the engine of the beast that had brought her here. Undoing the strap, she pulled her helmet off and handed it to Mike. Her head felt twenty pounds lighter as she fluffed her hair, hoping to revive it.

She shivered as a sharp, cold ocean wind swept across Pacific Coast Highway and swirled around her like icy fingers tugging at her. The hum of traffic on the busy highway faded away as she studied the restaurant Mike had chosen.

She’d seen it before, of course. No one living in Sunrise Beach could have overlooked it. Denise had even heard that the city fathers were talking about making it an official landmark.

It looked as though it had been standing in the same spot for a hundred years. The wooden walls looked shaky, the hot pink neon sign across the door, a couple of spots either dimmed with age or broken, spelled out, O’D ul s. Five or six pickup trucks were parked in the gravel lot, but there were more than twenty motorcycles huddled in a tight group near the front of the building.

As she watched, Mike pushed his own bike into their midst.

She had managed to avoid entering O’Doul’s Tavern and Restaurant all of her life. Even though she had been tempted to go inside once or twice since turning twenty-one eight years ago, the thought of her father finding out she’d been there had been enough to dissuade her of the notion.

“Ridiculous,” she muttered, “a grown woman afraid to stand up to her father.”

Unfortunate, but true. All Richard Torrance had to do was look at her with disappointment and she felt eleven years old again. An eleven-year-old girl whose mother had just died, leaving Denise alone with a father who expected perfection from a child too frightened to deliver anything less.

Denise supposed there was some kind of logic in the fact that it would be Mike Ryan to first take her to O’Doul’s. Because Richard Torrance would never approve of him, either.

While she waited for Mike, she studied the old tavern-restaurant claim to fame. Their mascot. Good luck charm.

On the rooftop was a fifteen-foot tall, one-eyed seagull, holding an artificial dead fish in its beak.

“Oh yeah, your dress will fit right in, here,” she muttered under her breath.

“You know,” Mike said as he walked up beside her, “I’ve noticed you do that a lot.”

“Do what?”

“Talk to yourself.”

An old habit, born of loneliness. But he didn’t need to know that. “It’s when you argue with yourself that you’re in trouble, Ryan.”

“If you say so.”

She nodded at the huge bird. “Now I understand why you were in such a hurry to get here,” she said. “Reservations must be hard to come by.”

“Obviously, you’ve never eaten here before.”

“No, I generally make it a practice only to eat at restaurants where the giant bird has both eyes intact.”

His lips quirked. “Vandals. Some kids with rocks and no values mutilate poor old Herman and you blame the bird?”

“Herman?” She smiled, in spite of her best efforts.

With a perfectly straight face, he said, “Herman Stanley Seagull. Jonathon Livingston’s big brother.”

“Very big.”

He grinned.

A moment later, she nodded. “I get it. Stanley... Livingston.”

“And I thought you had no sense of humor.”

“I’m here, aren’t I?”

His eyebrows arched. “A bit touchy, are we?”

“Not touchy,” she countered. “Just...cautious.”

He laughed shortly. “An accountant? Cautious? There’s a shock.”

She had heard any accountant joke he could possibly come up with. Personally, she thought that the members of her profession were as unfairly maligned as lawyers. More so, since lawyers usually deserved the ribbing they took.

“Well,” she said, with another look at Herman, “I hope the food’s better than the ambience.”

He chuckled. “Don’t be a snob, honey. O’Doul’s serves the best pizza in town. And if you don’t get here early, it’s all gone.”

“Gone?” Denise stared up at him. “What kind of way is that to run a business? Won’t he make more food if his customers demand it?”

Mike shrugged. “He could, but then he wouldn’t have time to play pool with his friends.”

“Of course,” she said, nodding slowly. “A man has to have his priorities, after all.”

This time, he laughed outright.

But when she started walking toward the restaurant, Mike’s laughter died. He had thought it was torturous, with Denise sitting behind him on the bike. Every turn he had made, her thighs pressed harder against his. He’d felt the swell of her breasts pushing into his back and the surprisingly strong grip of her slender arms around his waist. Never had the ten-mile drive to O’Doul’s seemed so long.

But all of that was nothing compared to what he felt now. As if a fist had slammed into his belly, his breath left him in a powerful rush the moment his gaze locked on the smooth, tanned surface of her back.

His gaze followed the column of her spine and rested on the curve of her bottom. His palms itched to stroke that expanse of flesh and then to explore further, beyond the boundaries of that incredible dress.

Mike’s groin tightened uncomfortably, and he had to muffle a groan as he gripped the chin straps of their helmets in one hand. He took three long strides and caught up to her easily. Taking Denise’s arm with his free hand, he said, “You should have warned me about that dress.”

She stopped and looked up at him. A knowing smile curved her lips, but she asked anyway, “What do you mean?”

What could he say? He wasn’t about to admit to her what that dress did to him. Nor, he thought with a glance at O’Doul’s front door, did he want to think about the impact that dress would have on the men inside. His gaze shifted to her again and Mike found himself staring into those deep blue eyes. After a long moment, she looked away and he took the opportunity to bring himself back under control.

“Let’s just say, I like a good tan. Especially when there aren’t any suit lines.”

She only smiled and Mike’s racing brain took care of the rest. Immediately, he imagined her nude, lying under the hot sun. And in his mind, he was right beside her, smoothing lotion onto her warmed skin. He could almost feel her soft, pliant flesh beneath his fingertips.

Great. Now he had that mental image to drive him nuts all night.

Steering her toward the door, he grumbled through gritted teeth, “C’mon. I’m hungry.”

The fact that he was hungrier for tanned, smooth skin than he was for pizza, had nothing to do with anything.

She should have gone to O’Doul’s years ago.

If she had guessed just how much fun the game of pool could be, she might have risked her father’s ire. Of course, she wasn’t sure if it was the game, or her teacher that she was enjoying so much.

She bent at the waist, set her left hand on the worn, green felt and laid the tip of her cue stick between her curled fingers. Behind her, Mike stood close and leaned over her, his right hand on hers, his chest pressed to her naked back.

Warmth seeped through him down to her bones and she felt the unmistakable, hard bulge of his groin against her behind. She swallowed and tried desperately to listen to what he was saying.

“Take your time, honey,” Mike whispered near her ear. “We’ve got all night to line this shot up.”

All night. She inhaled the scent of Old Spice and wondered why more men didn’t wear the old-fashioned cologne. Spicy and cool and sexy, it seemed to be everywhere, drawing her deeper into fantasies she had no business indulging and even less of a chance of experiencing.

He worked the pool cut back and forth between her fingers and instead of pool, her mind was caught on another mental image created with that smooth, in-and-out motion.

Glancing to one side, she noticed a biker Mike had called Bear, watching her with knowing eyes. Like the other men in the place, he wore jeans and leather and a leering expression that would have worried her if not for Mike’s presence. She turned her gaze back to the pool table in time to see her stick make contact with the cue ball.

Laughter rose up around the table as the white ball missed its mark by inches. Mike straightened up and Denise, suddenly so warm she could hardly breathe, took a step away from him.

“Hey Mike,” one of the men called over the pounding, pulsing beat of the music, “losin’ your touch?”

“Doesn’t look like it to me,” a woman in the crowd answered for him. More laughter and Denise was grateful for the smokiness of the room. Hopefully, it was enough to hide the flush she felt staining her cheeks.

The other man in the game, someone called Stoner, took his shot and missed.

“Our turn,” Mike said over the music and waved her back to the table.

“I think I’ll just watch for a while,” she said with a shake of her head. “You finish the game.”

“Sure?”

She nodded, knowing damn well the only reason she was quitting was because she didn’t know if she could take being that close to him again.

Denise held her pool cue and watched Mike pick up another stick and work his way around the green felt table. He paused every other step or so to exchange some comment with one of his friends and each time he smiled, the knot in her stomach tightened.

She swayed a bit unsteadily and tightened her grip on the stick in her hands, using it more for balance than anything else. Apparently, the beer she’d had with her pizza—the best pizza she’d ever tasted—had gone right to her head. Fog nestled in her brain and Denise struggled to clear it. Of course, the loud rock music blasting over the speakers, the crowded press of bodies in the place and the heavy cloud of blue-gray cigarette smoke wasn’t helping things any.

A huge man with tattooed forearms the size of ham shanks slapped Mike on the back in a friendly gesture that would have sent any other man sprawling to the sawdust-covered floor.

Not Mike.

The black T-shirt he wore hugged his shoulders and upper arms, defining muscles that seemed to have a life of their own. They rippled and shifted whenever he took a shot and Denise caught herself holding her breath to watch the show in admiration.

Foggy brain or not, she knew enough to realize that she was in deep trouble.

A moment later, the pool game ended when Mike sank the eight ball in a corner pocket. Cheers erupted and a dark-haired woman in jeans tight enough to cut off her circulation wrapped herself around Mike like a child’s grubby fist around a Popsicle stick.

Except that there was nothing childlike about the voluptuous brunette.

When the woman grabbed Mike’s face between her palms and planted her lips on his in a long, lusty kiss, Denise gritted her teeth and fought down the roiling in her stomach. She told herself that she had no claim on him. That it didn’t matter who he kissed. Or when. Logically, she knew that this wasn’t even a real date.

But logic had nothing to do with what she was feeling.

Mike pulled his head back, patted Celeste’s shoulder and peeled her off him. He shot a quick look at Denise’s tight features and felt...guilty, for God’s sake. Stupid. He didn’t owe her anything. He wasn’t her boyfriend—or God forbid, her husband. And the knowledge that he had no intention of getting involved didn’t do anything to quiet the storm inside him.

While he gave Celeste a gentle push toward her date for the night and walked toward his own, he told himself that Denise had no claim on him. He was as free as old Herman, up on the roof.

The fact that Herman was not real and permanently attached to the wooden building was beside the point.

When he reached Denise’s side, he took the pool cue from her and passed it off to another player.

“I don’t want to interrupt your fun,” she said loudly, to be heard over the music.

Sure you do, he thought. The look in her eye would have sliced Celeste to ribbons if the other woman had been aware of it. But he didn’t say that. Instead, as he heard the music change, he grabbed her hand and headed for the postcard-size dance floor.

She dragged behind him as he wended his way through the Friday night crowd. Once, she even tried to slip away, but he tightened his hold on her and kept walking. When he reached the small area where two other couples were already swaying in time to the music, he stopped and turned around to face her.

Her expression was mutinous, but he didn’t give a damn. He’d put up with the other men in the place ogling her all night and now, he wanted the chance to put his arms around her and hold her close. He wanted to show the rest of them that Denise was his.

At least for tonight.

He tugged her closer and she moved slowly, reluctantly.

“Dance with me,” he said into her ear and inhaled the delicate, flowery scent of her perfume.

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