Tori Carrington - The P.I. Who Loved Her

“Wildly attracted?” Liz raised one eyebrow. “At one time, I might have been very attracted to you, Mitch McCoy….” She paused and looked him in the eye. “But now I wouldn’t even consider…”

“Sleeping with me?”

“You already missed your opportunity there. From here on out, something like that will only happen in your dreams.”

Mitch nodded. “Yep, there too.” He shook his head. “Only, I know for sure I’m not dreaming now. Because if I were, the diner would be empty. And you wouldn’t be standing there wearing that uniform, no matter how cute you look in it.”

“Oh, and where would I be?” she countered.

He gave her a sexy grin. “For starters, you’d be stretched across this counter, with those long legs of yours…”

Liz took a step back, her pulse leaping. “That’s enough. I think I get the picture.”

“But darlin’, you didn’t even let me get to the part about what I was doing….”

Dear Reader,

Ask and you shall receive. When we wrote License To Thrill, the first book in THE MAGNIFICENT MCCOY MEN miniseries, we were overwhelmed with requests for more stories about Marc and his sexy-as-sin brothers. So how could we resist?

In The P.I. Who Loved Her, restless Mitch McCoy comes face-to-face with his former fiancée, Liz Braden, on the side of a dark country road. Not only did Liz leave him at the altar seven years ago, but the wedding dress she’s wearing tells him she’s just left another poor fool in the same situation. Mitch’s dilemma: keeping his hands off the only woman he’s ever wanted—long enough to figure out what, or who, she’s running from.

We hope you enjoy watching Liz lead Mitch on a merry little dance that ends up where it should have seven years ago—in the bedroom! We’d love to hear what you think. Write to us at P.O. Box 12271, Toledo, OH 43612, or visit us at the web site we share with other Temptation authors at Temptationauthors.com. And be sure to keep your eyes peeled for the next MAGNIFICENT MCCOY coming your way….

Here’s wishing you many happy endings,

Lori and Tony Karayianni

aka Tori Carrington

www.millsandboon.co.uk

We lovingly dedicate this book to the memory of our fathers, Carl J. Schlachter and Vagelis Karayianni, two men who showed us what being a true hero is all about.

And to Kostoula Karayianni, a woman who would make any heroine envious.

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

Epilogue

“YOU KNOW, Mitch McCoy, you really need to get a life.”

Mitch downshifted as he neared the outskirts of Manchester County, Virginia, then tugged at his tie. Only the pickup’s headlights broke the inky darkness, his own voice broke the all-consuming silence. Still, he wouldn’t be surprised if Sheriff Mathison waited on the other side of the next cornfield, ready to nab him for speeding. Next to him, Goliath stared at the closed passenger window, a patch of coffee-colored fur disturbed by the air conditioner blower. The dog—a mammoth, butt-ugly husky and shepherd mix—whined and turned mournful eyes on him.

“I know what you mean, sport. I know what you mean.”

And he did know. In the past few months he’d come to know exactly what wanting an unnamed something meant. Waking up in the morning in a cold sweat, reaching for something—or someone—that wasn’t there. Speaking thoughts and ideas aloud only to discover there was no one around to hear. Living with an intangible hole in the vicinity of his chest—a hole that wasn’t going to be filled tonight by going home to an empty house.

The entire McCoy clan was still in Bedford, Maryland, celebrating his brother Marc’s marriage to Melanie Weber, even though the miserably happy couple had already left for their honeymoon cruise to the U.S. Virgin Islands. The Virgin Islands. Marc had said something about it being romantic. Maybe it was Marc and Mel’s idea of romance. A ship would be the last place he’d find romantic. All that…water. Garish tropical-print shirts. Food-laden buffet tables. Sunshine. Sex—

Mitch’s foot slipped from the gas pedal. Where had that thought come from?

It wasn’t that he begrudged his brother his happiness. It was a miracle Marc and Mel had finally sorted everything out, despite the drastic way in which they had. It was just that, of the five McCoy siblings, clueless Marc seemed like the last person who would stand at an altar, much less be the first.

Well, he hadn’t exactly been the first. But he had been the first to actually make it to the nuptials part.

That was it—the reason he was so agitated. All this talk of weddings…of the L word…of making promises and sticking to them. It should have occurred to him when he’d had to squirm in that uncomfortable pew for an hour, forced to watch Marc and Melanie complete what he had never had. Forced to remember the day he’d been left at the altar as if it were yesterday.

But it hadn’t been yesterday. He tugged at his tie again. It was seven years ago last month Liz Braden had left the town, and him, behind.

At any rate, his…restlessness hadn’t developed overnight. No, it had been months—if not years—in the making. He’d grown listless in his role as P.I., just as years before he’d grown frustrated at the rigmarole as an FBI agent. While he still shared an office in D.C. with his two partners, Mike Schaffer and Renee Delancy, he’d passed most of his clients over to them, keeping only those to whom he felt personally obligated. Then he’d returned home to Manchester to pursue a dusty old dream—a dream he’d secretly harbored since his mother had told him about the Connor tradition of horse-breeding. He’d readily abandoned the fantasy at eighteen when he’d followed in the footsteps of every other McCoy male for the past four generations and entered the military, then later, law enforcement.

But rather than his frustration abating as a result of the recent changes in his life, it had quadrupled. The crappy thing was he knew exactly when that had happened: the night Marc had asked him about Liz Braden.

What was it his brother had asked? He couldn’t remember the exact words, but he all too clearly remembered their meaning: Had he ever regretted not going after Liz?

If only Marc knew that he had gone after her. In a sense, anyway.

Goliath whined again, louder this time. Mitch frowned at him in the darkness. “What is it, G? Do you have to water the weeds?”

The mutt lumbered to an alert position, a line of slobber dropping from the side of his meaty mouth to his elephantine front paws, indented on the edge of the seat.

Mitch glanced in the rearview mirror to find the road behind him empty. He downshifted again and flicked on his high beams, illuminating the dark stretch of Route 28 in front of him.

Aw, who was he kidding? He was the last person to be applying armchair psychology to his life. In all likelihood, his agitated state was due to something far simpler. Say, lack of sex? It had been a long time since he’d buried himself in some prime, sleek, female flesh. Too long. He told himself that right now any female would do. But he knew that wasn’t true. He simply figured that’s how most men who hadn’t had any in awhile feel.