Linda Goodnight - Sometimes When We Kiss

“What if I could find a husband for you, a man who would agree to a marriage short-term, while Gus gets back on his feet?”

Shannon’s eyes widened. “Are you serious?”

Jackson swallowed. Was he? “Yeah.”

“Who?”

“Me.”

She jumped up and was out the door in record time. She needed air. She needed a clear head. And what she didn’t need was the black-eyed Cajun following her.

“Gee, Shannon,” Jackson said as he caught up to her. “You sure know how to make a guy feel good about his proposal.”

“That wasn’t a proposal, that was a—” She gulped past the confusion in her throat.

“What scares you more, Shannon? That you won’t be able to pretend you love me? Or that you never stopped loving me to begin with?”

Dear Reader,

Whether you’re enjoying one of the first snowfalls of the season or lounging in a beach chair at some plush island resort, I hope you’ve got some great books by your side. I’m especially excited about the Silhouette Romance titles this month as we’re kicking off 2006 with two great new miniseries by some of your all-time favorite authors.

Cara Colter teams up with her daughter, Cassidy Caron, to launch our new PERPETUALLY YOURS trilogy. In Love’s Nine Lives (#1798) a beautiful librarian’s extremely possessive tabby tries to thwart a budding romance between his mistress and a man who seems all wrong for her but is anything but. Teresa Southwick returns with That Touch of Pink (#1799)—the first in her BUY-A-GUY trilogy. When a single mom literally buys a former military man at a bachelor auction to help her daughter earn a wilderness badge, she gets a lot more than she bargained for…and is soon earning points toward her own romantic survival badge. Old sparks turn into an all-out blaze when the hero returns to the family ranch in Sometimes When We Kiss (#1800) by Linda Goodnight. Finally, Elise Mayr debuts with The Rancher’s Redemption (#1801) in which a widow, desperate to help her sick daughter, throws herself on the mercy of her commanding brother-in-law whose eyes reflect anything but the hate she’d expected.

And be sure to come back next month for more great reading, with Sandra Paul’s distinctive addition to the PERPETUALLY YOURS trilogy and Judy Christenberry’s new madcap mystery.

Have a very happy and healthy 2006.

Ann Leslie Tuttle

Associate Senior Editor

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Books by Linda Goodnight

Silhouette Romance

For Her Child… #1569

Married in a Month #1682

Her Pregnant Agenda #1690

Saved by the Baby #1709

Rich Man, Poor Bride #1742

The Least Likely Groom #1747

Sometimes When We Kiss #1800

A romantic at heart, Linda Goodnight believes in the traditional values of family and home. Writing books enables her to share her certainty that, with faith and perseverance, love can last forever and happy endings really are possible.

A native of Oklahoma, Linda lives in the country with her husband, Gene, and Mugsy, an adorably obnoxious rat terrier. She and Gene have a blended family of six grown children. An elementary school teacher, she is also a licensed nurse. When time permits, Linda loves to read, watch football and rodeo, and indulge in chocolate. She also enjoys taking long, calorie-burning walks in the nearby woods. Readers can write to her at linda@lindagoodnight.com, or c/o Silhouette Books, 233 Broadway, Suite 1001, New York, NY 10279.

To Western artist and horse trainer Nadine Meade

for inspiration, advice and just plain old

being a good neighbor.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Riding a horse was like riding a bicycle. If you fell off, you had to get right back on again.

Backhanding the dirt from her eyes, Shannon Wyoming stuck one booted foot into the stirrup, grabbed the saddle horn and vaulted onto one of the few horses that did not understand that she could—and would—break him to ride.

Never mind that her backside would be black and blue, Shannon never allowed anything to get the best of her.

For one glorious moment Shannon thought she had finally succeeded, that Domino’s stubborn spirit had broken. He crow-hopped across the sunlit arena, all four legs stiff, back arched higher than a Halloween cat as he bounced. Crow-hopping was a piece of cake to an experienced trainer like Shannon. No problem. He’d settle down in a minute.

Fifteen seconds into the ride, Domino changed tactics. His hind legs shot out behind him and the bronc went into a wild bucking exposition that would have unseated a rodeo champ. When Shannon leaned back to compensate, he yanked his head down hard, unbalancing her. One more wild gyration and she flew off with all the projection of a human cannonball, but with considerably less grace.

She landed facedown, the hard-packed dirt of the arena knocking the breath from her. No belly buster from a rope swing at Coyote Creek ever hurt this bad.

She lay there in the Texas sun with not a desire in the world to get up, hoping breath would return before her heart stopped. Domino, as she well knew, wouldn’t come anywhere near for a while. He was likely in the corner of the lot, sulking.

Gnats buzzed around her ears and one pesky horsefly threatened to add insult to injury, so she had to get up. She sucked in a mouthful of arena dirt, then opened her eyes. The first thing she saw was a pair of dusty, well-worn boots—snakeskin boots—crossed at the ankle in a posture of total relaxation. Equally worn blue jeans, made long the way cowboys like them, bunched softly atop the brown boots.

Great. She’d not only been thrown like a greenhorn, but she had a witness to verify her humiliation.

Stifling an inward groan that had as much to do with her unwanted visitor as with her state of breathlessness, Shannon pushed up from the ground. She slapped at her jeans and shirt, loosing a dust storm that obscured her vision and threatened her already tortured air passages. She wiped a dirty sleeve across her face and squinted toward the fence rail where a cowboy leaned, indolently watching her.

Every nerve in Shannon’s body sprang to full alert. A lightning strike would not have shocked her more.

Jackson Kane. When had he come back to Rattlesnake? And what was he doing here, on her ranch, where he was not a welcome guest?

He didn’t look much different than he had the last time she’d seen him, though her carefully preserved pride would not let her go there again, even in memory. Tall and wide-shouldered, his dark and sexy looks still did funny things to her insides and infuriated her to the point of rudeness. She didn’t want to talk to him, even now, didn’t want to notice the way his incredibly sexy mouth wallowed a narrow piece of straw, didn’t want to notice the new age lines around his Cajun black eyes.

But she noticed. Darn it. She noticed.

“What do you want?” She slammed her hands on her hips in a fit of annoyance.

He grinned then, slow and lazy and insolent, as if he knew how much he affected her by showing up out of the blue after all this time.

Taking the straw from between his teeth, he studied her long enough to set her heart to racing and to send the heat of a blush creeping up her neck.

He aimed the piece of straw at her, and she saw then that what she’d thought was straw was actually a tiny lollipop.