Pat Warren - Doctor And The Debutante

Laura shivered.

Sean caught that and said slowly, “Why don’t you snuggle down and get some rest? I’ll stay until you fall asleep.”

Laura marveled at how easily he’d read her mind, that she dreaded being alone after a nightmare. Scooting down inside the covers, she let him arrange her pillows more comfortably. “Thank you,” she whispered, and closed her eyes.

Sean lay gazing at her in the dim glow of the night-light. She was every bit as lovely as he’d said she was. And she was going through a bad time. She needed someone to help her through it. And as he settled in with his arms around her, he thought that maybe he was that someone.

There was that protective urge again. He hadn’t felt that way in a very long time.

Maybe it was a good sign.

Dear Reader,

During the warm days of July, what better way to kick back and enjoy the best of summer reading than with six stellar stories from Special Edition as we continue to celebrate Silhouette’s 20th Anniversary all year long!

With The Pint-Sized Secret, Sherryl Woods continues to delight her readers with another winning installment of her popular miniseries AND BABY MAKES THREE: THE DELACOURTS OF TEXAS. Reader favorite Lindsay McKenna starts her new miniseries, MORGAN’S MERCENARIES: MAVERICK HEARTS, with Man of Passion, her fiftieth book. A stolen identity leads to true love in Patricia Thayer’s compelling Whose Baby Is This? And a marriage of convenience proves to be anything but in rising star Allison Leigh’s Married to a Stranger in her MEN OF THE DOUBLE-C RANCH miniseries. Rounding off the month is celebrated author Pat Warren’s Doctor and the Debutante, where the healthy dose of romance is just what the physician ordered, while for the heroine in Beth Henderson’s Maternal Instincts, a baby-sitting assignment turns into a practice run for motherhood—and marriage.

Hope you enjoy this book and the other unforgettable stories Special Edition is happy to bring you this month!

All the best,

Karen Taylor Richman,

Senior Editor

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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This book is dedicated to Brooks Rector, a dear friend of my husband’s for years, and now mine, too.

Happy reading!

Silhouette Special Edition

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Silhouette Books

Montana Mavericks

Outlaw Lovers #6

mother of four, lives in Arizona with her travel agent husband and a lazy white cat. She’s a former newspaper columnist whose lifetime dream was to become a novelist. A strong romantic streak, a sense of humor and a keen interest in developing relationships led her to try romance novels, with which she feels very much at home.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

The snow had been coming down for at least three hours, lightly at first, then more heavily. Hands in the back pockets of his corduroy slacks, Sean Reagan stood looking out the front window of his cabin in the Gray Mountains of Arizona, a frown on his face as he watched the wind hurl a mound of snow onto the porch. The temperature had undoubtedly dropped since he’d taken a walk several hours ago. It never ceased to amaze him how quickly the weather could change in winter this far north.

Then again, what difference did the weather make? Sean thought as he crossed the big open room and bent to throw another log into the fireplace. He was inside, warm and safe. And alone, at least for this second week in February, a ritual he’d begun four years ago. Fortunately Dr. Jonah Evans, his partner in their busy OB-GYN medical practice, understood Sean’s need to get away at this particular time and covered for him.

It wasn’t a vacation, not really. The thing was Sean hadn’t much use for people who constantly felt sorry for themselves or grieved in public. So each year, he set aside this one week where he could weep in private if that’s how he felt, or rail at the fates for changing his life so radically. Alone up here, he could chop wood, take long walks, read a book and hopefully heal. Then he could go back and get on with his life. Or so the theory went.

Sean had built the cabin himself and knew it was rock solid. Some would call it rustic and remote, sitting as it was in the midst of evergreens and rocks large enough to be called boulders. There was a stream that ran along the back perimeter with water so pure and clean you could count every pebble. The evenings and early mornings he’d sat on his covered porch and listened to the birds and small wildlife scurrying about in the tall grass had been some of the happiest of his life.

But that had been then and this was now.

He’d learned the hard way that not everyone shared his pleasure in seclusion and solitude, in the simple life, in hard work and patiently moving toward a goal.

Straightening, he dusted off his hands and decided to warm some soup. But a loud crashing sound from outside had him stopping in his tracks and cocking his head to listen more closely. Was it just the wind and the storm escalating? Or could a tree limb have broken loose and fallen onto his attached garage where his Mercedes was parked? Moving to the window again, he tried to see out, but the snow was coming down thick and heavy. Reluctantly, he decided he’d better go check.

He tugged on his boots, then his sheepskin jacket, zipping it up against the swirling snow as he ventured out, pulling on his leather gloves before closing the door. The wind howled past, the snow blowing every which way. Stepping off the porch, he sank into a drift almost to his knees, making walking difficult. Squinting as he looked up along the roofline, he could see no damage to the garage. Still, something had made that noise. There were trees all around—pine and cottonwood and paloverdes—but he couldn’t spot any fallen limbs.