Heather Macallister - Falling for You

He pulled her back farther into their hiding place behind the bushes, burying his face in the side of her neck.

“Oh, Barry,” she moaned.

Hello? A moan? Already? He’d barely touched her. Still, he did have that effect on women…. “Did you miss me?”

“I feel so alive! I’m breaking rules…and I like it!” Megan shivered against him. “The adrenaline—my heart is pounding and all my nerves are hyper aware. This is what you feel, too, isn’t it?”

“I get a zing, yeah.”

She turned in his arms, which caused a zing of a different kind. “This is so much more than a zing! I feel hot. So, so hot.” She wrapped her arms around his neck and planted a quick, hard kiss on his open mouth as she ran her hands over his chest. “Why didn’t you tell me it was like this?”

Barry was dealing with his own heat issues. “Who knew breaking the law would be such a turn-on?” he quipped.

And who could have guessed, Barry thought as he bent to kiss her, that the biggest turn-on would be breaking the law…with a cop!

Dear Reader,

I’ve always felt that a fail-proof way to test whether you want to spend the rest of your life with someone is to go on a long car trip together. Even better if you can borrow two children under the age of five to take with you. Inevitably, something will go wrong and that will be when you truly get to know the other person.

Under pressure, relationships can develop quickly in a short time—say 24 HOURS—which is the idea behind this new miniseries from Harlequin Temptation. And what’s more stressful than a wedding? How about a wedding with a missing groom? Find out where he is, and join three couples who find love in a day beginning with Falling for You in March, followed by Kiss & Run by Barbara Daly in April, and Jane Sullivan’s One Night in Texas in May.

Also watch for my next Harlequin Temptation novel, Never Say Never, in June 2005, and visit my Web site, www.HeatherMacAllister.com, for news about other upcoming books.

Best wishes,

Heather MacAllister

HARLEQUIN TEMPTATION

785—MOONLIGHTING

817—PERSONAL RELATIONS

864—TEMPTED IN TEXAS

892—SKIRTING THE ISSUE

928—MALE CALL

959—HOW TO BE THE PERFECT GIRLFRIEND

981—CAN’T BUY ME LOVE

Falling for You

Heather MacAllister

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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To the Providence Bunco group with thanks for getting me out of the house

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

FOR A GUY WHOSE PARENTS named him after the male lead in the seventies’ sobfest Love Story, Barrett Sutton was not at all romantic. He could be if the situation called for it, but he had a talent for avoiding those kinds of situations.

Unfortunately, weddings were exactly those kinds of situations and Barry currently couldn’t avoid them, not after being busted from crime reporter to the society section or “Lifestyle” section as the staff there liked to call it. Whatever they called it, it was now his job to report every little freaking detail about society weddings. And in Dallas, Texas, the society types had big, detail-filled weddings.

He hated it. Even worse, he was good at picking just which details to write about. Really good at it. And why not? He was a professional. A professional who’d grown up with sisters. However, if he didn’t start misspelling some names or messing with the bridal-gown descriptions, he would never get back to reporting crime for the Dallas Press.

But this wedding wasn’t the place to start misspelling anything. This wedding was the Shipley-Hargrove wedding. Yeah, the bride was party girl Sarah, better known as Sally, Shipley—and try saying that three times fast. The society reporters had gone into mourning. Their favorite photo-op princess was settling down. Even worse, over the course of the year-long engagement, her posse of party-girl friends was settling down, too. Skirts were longer, tops were opaque, men were sober and parent-approved. Apparently this was round two for Miss Shipley, who'd actually been jilted before. Nobody was taking chances this time.

Barry hadn’t been reporting society doings during the Sally heydays so there was considerable resentment when he’d drawn her wedding and the rehearsal assignment.

Yes, his life had sunk to this: professional jealousy over writing about lace, flowers and cake.

Hang the self-respect, he had to get his old job back before he lost all his contacts. It had taken him years to slide into a world where informants would trust him enough to talk. Now, instead of spending his nights buying rounds of the hard stuff in bars, he drank warm leftover champagne and tried to think up fresh ways to describe wedding cake and white dresses.

As he drove through Dallas, he gripped the steering wheel and allowed himself a moment of regret for the days of not so long ago, when a Saturday morning would find him finishing a story of murder and mayhem from the night before, and then heading home to sleep. Sure, some Friday wedding parties ran late, but stories about bacon-wrapped shrimp and “extravagantly massed nosegays of buff roses” didn’t have the same urgency, even if he did file them while wearing a tux.

Tonight’s Friday mayhem was nothing more than a bachelor party. But he would get back to reporting crime for the Press after this time-out in the penalty box. Usually reporters were honored for breaking a story. Barry’s only problem was breaking it before the police did. He’d made a lucky guess involving a congressman, but the Press was making an example of him—an example that had gone on way too long, in Barry’s opinion—but it was either suck it up, or quit.

The amount people spent on weddings was a crime in itself and in this case, the bride’s family was loaded. The groom’s, unknown. Barry could have some fun with that. He’d ask a few pointed questions and watch the spin over the groom’s background.

Yeah, whatever. He pulled up in front of good old St. Andrew’s. What was this, the twelfth wedding he’d been to here? And all in the daytime. From March until early June, the sun shone directly through the huge stained-glass windows. Apparently the architect had built it that way on purpose so that there could be some truly glorious Easter mornings. A number of brides chose daytime weddings to take advantage of the same effect.

Barry pulled into a parking place near the kitchen entrance. It made for a quick getaway if he needed one. Call it a holdover habit from his crime reporting days. Just because he’d been assigned to the society section—Lifestyle section—didn’t mean he couldn’t keep his skills sharp.

He turned off the ignition and swiped a stray pollen smear—pesky blooming trees—from the dash of his fully restored 1969 Ford Mustang Mach 1 351W. He needed wheels that blended in with the rich and famous. And since he couldn’t afford rich, he went for famous, or in this case a classic car. It was a good excuse to buy something he wanted to buy anyway. Auto therapy. After last fall’s public spanking, he’d needed a pick-me-up.