Author
TRIBUTE
Standing in the yellow glare of sun with the dulling bite of March chilling her face, Cilla could see it perfectly. The steamy summer night, the blue wash from the spotlight moon. The gardens would’ve been at their magnificent peak and stunning the air with fragrance. The water would’ve been so cool and silky on the skin, and the color of chamomile tea with pink and white blossoms strung over it like glossy pearls. Janet would have been at her stunning peak as well, Cilla mused. The spun-gold of her hair tumbling free, spilling over white shoulders . . . No, those would have been spun-gold, too, from her summer tan. Gilded shoulders in the tea-colored water, and her Arctic-blue eyes bright with laughter—and most likely a heroic consumption of liquor.
HOT ICE
She wanted to kiss him…he looked rough and restless and disheveled, the way a man might after a night of wild sex. But just what kind of lover would Douglas Lord be? Ruthless. She felt her heart thud a little faster at the thought. He smelled of tobacco and sweat. He looked like a man who lived on theedge and liked it. She’d like to feel that clever, interesting mouth on hers—but not yet. Once she’d kissed him she might forget that she had to stay one step ahead of him. “The thing is,” she murmured, letting her hands stray into his hair when their lips were only a breath apart, “Uncle Maxie can get a passport for you and two thirty-day visas to Madagascar for both of us within twenty-four hours.” “How?” Whitney noted with amused annoyance just how quickly his seductive tone becamebusinesslike. “Connections, Douglas,” she said blithely. “What’re partners for?” He shot her an appraising look. Damn if she wasn’t becoming handy. If he weren’t careful, she’d become in dispensable….
THE LIAR
When she’d said—just a joke—that she didn’t know they had zebras in Italy, he’d given her that look. The look that told her despite the big house, the fancy clothes and the fat diamond on the fourth finger of her left hand, she’d always be Shelby Anne Pomeroy, two steps out of the bumpkin town in Tennessee where she was born and raised.
LEGACY
Lina looked over, saw those gold-green eyes watching her. “Because I was once young and stupid. I’m sorry. I’d say I wish I hadn’t been, but then you wouldn’t be here, would you? Can’t fix what used to be, only what’s now and coming up.” “Was he nicer when you were young and stupid?” Lina let out a laugh, and her ribs whined pitifully. How much, she wondered, did you tell a seven-year-old? “I thought he was.” “Did he hit you before?” “Once. Only once, and after that I never, ever saw him again. If a man hits you once, he’s probably going to hit you again, and again.” “You said before that you loved my dad, but things didn’t work out, and he didn’t want us, so he didn’t matter anymore.” “I thought I loved him. I should’ve said that. I was only twenty, Adrian. He was older, and handsome and charming and smart. A young professor. I fell in love with who I thought he was. And he didn’t matter between then and now.” “Why was he so mad today?” “Because someone, a reporter, found out, and wrote a story. I don’t know how, I don’t know who told him. I didn’t.”
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