Candace Havens - Truth and Dare

“But to be honest, where you’re concerned my thoughts aren’t very gentlemanly,” Cade continued, before leaning in and kissing Patience. He meant it to be a soft taste, but at first contact she pressed herself into him, and Cade’s instincts took over. He gently twisted a hand in her hair so he could tilt her head to better explore her mouth.

“Cade,” she whispered against his lips.

“Yes.” His breathing was heavy. All he wanted to do was take her upstairs and make love to her until the morning. For a moment, her hand traveled down his hip and he thought she might cup him. The mere hint of her touch made him harden into a brick.

When Patience suddenly stepped away from him, he groaned.

“Didn’t we promise your grandmother we’d be there by eight?”

He grunted and leaned his forehead against hers. “You don’t play fair.”

“Oh, I can think of all kinds of games we can play later. And none of them will be fair,” she promised.

Dear Reader,

I used to spend a great many of my summers in East Texas where my grandparents had a farm. It was a way for my parents to get cheap summer babysitting, but I also learned useful skills like how to ride a horse, shell peas, oh, and the most important one, how to flirt with boys.

When I decided to write my first cowboy story, Truth and Dare, I looked back to those country summers. Skiing on the lake, dances where the whole town turned out and there were so many handsome cowboys. Cade, my hero, is an amalgamation of those guys, with a little bit of my husband thrown in. He’s from good solid stock and he’s a man who goes after what he wants.

And he wants Patience.

She isn’t sure what to make of Cade. All she wants to do is solve her first case and get back to her nice safe lab. Cade is anything but safe, and the more she gets to know him, the tougher it is for her to keep up her emotional walls. Will she be able to step out of her shell to be with this incredible guy? The answer awaits you in Truth and Dare.

Please email me at candacehavensbook@gmail.com and tell me what you think about the book. You can also find me on Twitter.com/candacehavens and MySpace, Facebook and Live Journal, all of which you can find on www.candacehavens.com.

Enjoy!

Candace Havens

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Award-winning author and columnist Candace “Candy” Havens lives in Texas with her mostly understanding husband, two children and two dogs, Scoobie and Gizmo. Candy is a nationally syndicated entertainment columnist for FYI Television. She has interviewed just about everyone in Hollywood from George Clooney and Orlando Bloom to Nicole Kidman and Kate Beckinsale. You can hear Candy weekly on The Big 96.3 in the Dallas–Fort Worth Area. Her popular online writer’s workshop has more than thirteen hundred students and provides free classes to professional and aspiring writers.

To my husband, Steve,

thank you for believing in my dreams

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

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Epilogue

“YOUR FATHER IS DEAD.”

It took a few seconds for the Phosphor County sheriff’s cautious words to register. Cade Randall’s chest tightened with pain, but he pushed the emotion away.

Figures the old man would show up today, of all days. Even dead he still caused trouble.

Cade didn’t want to care about the man who abandoned his family twenty years ago. He glanced around the offices of Stonegate Investigative Agency wondering why the sheriff brought him here to tell him the news when a simple phone call would have sufficed.

The woman behind the desk watched him carefully. He struggled to remember her name—Patience something. He didn’t know who she was, exactly. She was beautiful. A professor type, with long blond hair that framed a perfect face featuring high cheekbones and nearly translucent green eyes. She wore a suit jacket over a miniskirt, he recalled her legs were the kind men dreamed about. And she smelled like honeysuckle, which for some reason was the most distracting thing about her.

His father was dead.

Judging from the looks on the sheriff’s face and Patience’s, they were waiting for him to respond.

“Sheriff, I appreciate you letting me know.”

He checked his phone. There were six messages from his executive assistant. “I’m sorry, but I need to go.” The merger was happening today, and he couldn’t be late for his next meeting. Cade rose to leave.

“Wait.” Patience held out a hand as she stood. “Don’t you want to know what happened to your father?” Her eyes narrowed with recrimination. To her, Cade probably looked like a heartless bastard.

“Ma’am, he left our family many years ago without so much as a goodbye. He just didn’t come home one night. So, no, I don’t care how he died, or where he was when you found him.” He paused reflecting for a moment. There was someone who would care. “Though I’m certain my grandmother would like to give her son a proper burial.”

“Please, hear me out.” Her voice was firm. “I promise you I won’t take more than two more minutes to explain.”

Stubborn woman.

Cade didn’t have time for any of this. He had to get back to the office. Though something in her eyes compelled him to stand still. “Fine. You have my attention.” He crossed his arms over his chest.

She didn’t bother sitting down. “As the sheriff said, I’m Dr. Patience Clark, Stonegate’s forensic anthropologist. Your father’s remains were brought to Austin by the sheriff for identification.”

Cade inclined his head slightly to let her know he understood.

“I’ll cut to the chase, since you have no interest in what happened to him. I felt you should know your father was murdered about twenty years ago on some land just outside of your hometown.”

Murdered?

In Phosphor?

The knot in Cade’s chest tightened even more. That meant… No, she had to be wrong. Why was this happening now? His phone vibrated again and Cade took it out and glanced at it as the sheriff and Patience watched him.

His father didn’t leave the family, after all. Cade rubbed his forehead and tried to process the information, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t deal with this today.

Cade shoved what Patience told him on a mental shelf. He’d deal with it after the merger. His employees were depending on him making this deal work.

“I apologize for my behavior and I appreciate you bringing this to my attention. Unfortunately, I have to go.” He started to back out the door.