Gail Barrett - A Kiss to Die for

The second Buried Secrets romance in Gail Barrett’s compelling new trilogy!

Sullivan Turner doesn’t see a hero when he looks in the mirror—he sees only a hollow shell of the man he used to be. But redemption comes when he rescues a woman with a dark secret. Teenage-runaway-turned-social-worker Haley Barnes knows firsthand how savage Baltimore’s streets can be.

Years ago, Haley witnessed an event that changed her life. Now, when the teenagers she guards are targeted, she seeks protection from a cynical army veteran. It isn’t long before passions ignite between Haley and “Sully.” Can he be the hero Haley needs, the hero who will protect her when a ruthless murderer comes calling?

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what got into me. I never cry.”

Haley wiped her eyes on her shirtsleeve, but tears still beaded in her long lashes.

“You deserve to cry. What they did to you…” Sully clenched his jaw against the reckless words crowding his throat.

“It happened a long time ago. I never think about them anymore. And the baby…” A sheen of tears sprang to her eyes again. “That was…hard. But I can’t change the past. I’ve had to accept it and move on.”

He reached out and smudged away a tear. She was amazing, the most courageous woman he knew. She’d fought for her sister, the teenagers in her shelter, even him.

But who had fought for her?

“Sully.” Her whisper whipped through him.

His body went taut, the invitation in her eyes impossible to miss. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him, her lips soft, almost tentative, a benediction to his aching soul.

Shuddering, he deepened the kiss….

Dear Reader,

I have the utmost admiration for the members of our armed forces. My husband was a career military officer. My father served in World War Two, and my youngest son is on active duty right now. I appreciate their sacrifices, including the time they spend away from their families, and the risks they take to keep us safe.

But my heart really aches for those men and women who come back damaged from their experiences, lost in horrific memories they can never escape. Sullivan Turner, the hero of A Kiss to Die For, is one such tortured man. Sully went to war with the idealism of youth, hoping to make a difference in the world, but returned a broken man, his failures made worse by addiction and guilt. I hope you enjoy his journey as he meets the woman who has the power to heal him and finds the redemption he desperately needs.

Happy reading!

Gail Barrett

A Kiss to Die for

Gail Barrett

www.millsandboon.co.uk

GAIL BARRETT

always knew she’d be a writer. Who else would spend her childhood grinding sparkling rocks into fairy dust and convincing her friends it was real? Or daydream her way through elementary school, spend high school reading philosophy and playing the bagpipes, then head off to Spain during college to live the writer’s life? After four years she straggled back home—broke, but fluent in Spanish. She became a teacher, earned a master’s degree in linguistics, married a Coast Guard officer and had two sons.

But she never lost the desire to write. Then one day she discovered a Silhouette Intimate Moments novel in a bookstore—and knew she was destined to write romance. Her books have won numerous awards, including a National Readers’ Choice Award and Romance Writers of America’s prestigious Golden Heart.

Gail currently lives in Western Maryland. Readers can contact her through her website, www.gailbarrett.com.

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Dedication

To Karen Anders, a wonderful friend.

Acknowledgments

I’d like to thank Gail Reinhart and Monique Sherman Hannigan for answering my questions about the Georgetown Law Center. I also owe enormous thanks to my sister, Mary Jo Archer, for her emergency proofreading sessions and unending support.

You’re the best!

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Excerpt

Chapter 1

Trouble was brewing. Haley Barnes could feel it. She’d spent enough years living on the streets to know.

She stood on the steps of her shelter for pregnant teenagers, her gaze on the dusky street. No traffic rumbled by. No D.C. commuters hurried past, despite the evening hour. Even the homeless man who’d taken up residence in the empty row house several doors down had gone to ground, drowning who-knew-what demons in a bottle, no doubt. And her teenagers were safe inside the shelter, warming themselves before the fire.

Except for one. The one who worried her the most.

Ignoring the premonition of danger stirring inside her, Haley hurried down the steps to the sidewalk, then started up the empty street, heading toward the metro station where the runaways sometimes hung out. She should have watched Lindsey more closely. The teen had exhibited the classic signs of depression—refusing to eat, unable to sleep, rebuffing Haley’s attempts to talk. Instead, she’d withdrawn into a sad kind of silence, slipping outside when no one was looking, and nine hours later, she hadn’t come back.

Not that Haley blamed her for feeling depressed. Lindsey was fourteen and pregnant. Her boyfriend had dumped her, her family disowned her—and Haley knew exactly how that felt. She understood the despair that threatened to engulf her, the terror of her unknown future, the knowledge that her childhood had abruptly ended in the most fundamental of ways.

Haley had tried to offer her comfort, to give her a shoulder to lean on and pull her back from the brink. But the girl had rejected every overture of help. She’d retreated into moroseness, into the overwhelming dejection of someone who’d given up hope. Haley just prayed she hadn’t done anything drastic—to herself or that unborn child.

Her sense of urgency mounting, Haley hurried down the cracked sidewalk, the low drumming of subwoofers a block away quickening her pulse. Trouble was right. The Ridgewood gang was on the prowl. No wonder everyone had fled the street. No one with any sense would risk confronting that violent group.

But she refused to give up. She’d made it her life’s mission to help these troubled girls, to give them the acceptance and safe haven she’d lacked. She knew the desperation that drove them, the terrible dangers that awaited them on D.C.’s brutal streets.

And she didn’t intend to lose one now.

The wind gusted hard, pushing loose strands of hair into her eyes, and she paused to shove them back. She scanned the row houses bordering the street, the late-model cars lined up along the curb, and searched for the missing girl. Her gaze landed on the dilapidated row house where the homeless man holed up. Another wounded soul. Another loner adrift in an uncaring world. Another stray she wanted to save.

One stray at a time. She had Lindsey to worry about first.

She just prayed she could find her in time.