Darlene Scalera - Help Wanted - Husband?

She wanted him.

It had begun before the kiss, but after, there was no denying her desire. She grew fascinated with him. The width of his hands, the thickness of his fingers, the sturdy curve of his shoulder. She would gaze too long at his face, the blue eyes that always startled her, the broad cheekbones, the hard chin, until he slowly swung his gaze to her. Even then, she’d last only three seconds more before she looked away, leaving him amused.

She was fascinated by him.

She’d sit past dark and think of Julius. He’d taught her all the things she needed to learn on the farm, but she decided, she would ask him to teach her one more lesson….

Dear Reader,

Welcome to Harlequin American Romance, where our goal is to give you hours of unbeatable reading pleasure.

Kick starting the month is another enthralling installment of THE CARRADIGNES: AMERICAN ROYALTY continuity series. In Michele Dunaway’s The Simply Scandalous Princess, rumors of a tryst between Princess Lucia Carradigne and a sexy older man leads to the king issuing a royal marriage decree! Follow the series next month in Harlequin Intrigue.

Another terrific romance from Pamela Browning is in store for you with Rancher’s Double Dilemma. When single dad Garth Colquitt took one look at his new nanny’s adorable baby girl, he knew there had to be some kind of crazy mixup, because his daughter and her daughter were twins! Was a marriage of convenience the solution? Next, don’t miss Help Wanted: Husband? by Darlene Scarlera. When a single mother-to-be hires a handsome ranch hand, she only has business on her mind. Yet, before long, she wonders if he was just the man she needed—to heal her heart. And rounding out the month is Leah Vale’s irresistible debut novel The Rich Man’s Baby, in which a dashing tycoon discovers he has a son, but the proud mother of his child refuses to let him claim them for his own…unless love enters the equation.

Best,

Melissa Jeglinski

Associate Senior Editor

Harlequin American Romance

Help Wanted: Husband?

Darlene Scalera

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Darlene Scalera is a native New Yorker who graduated magna cum laude from Syracuse University with a degree in public communications. She worked in a variety of fields, including telecommunications and public relations, before devoting herself full-time to romance fiction writing. She was instrumental in forming the Saratoga, New York, chapter of Romance Writers of America and is a frequent speaker on romance writing at local schools, libraries, writing groups and women’s organizations. She currently lives happily ever after in upstate New York with her husband, Jim, and their two children, J.J. and Ariana. You can write to Darlene at P.O. Box 217, Niverville, NY 12130.

HARLEQUIN AMERICAN ROMANCE

762—A MAN FOR MEGAN

807—MAN IN A MILLION

819—THE COWBOY AND THE COUNTESS

861—PRESCRIPTION FOR SEDUCTION

896—BORN OF THE BLUEGRASS

923—HELP WANTED: HUSBAND?

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

He was the largest man Lorna had ever seen. Not that she’d seen that many, having spent three-quarters of her life at the Sacred Heart Academy for Girls, and the other quarter within these county lines. But she’d seen enough. One too many, the population of Hope, Massachusetts, was still saying, and if anyone was bold enough to say it to her face, Lorna would have to agree.

Standing behind the trees she’d been pruning, she watched the mountain of a man as he rounded the rusty pickup. His jeans were worn white, emphasizing sturdy Viking legs. His shoulders were a yard wide. The faded denim jacket stretched across their width normally would be too thin for this time of year, but today’s weather was good. Only the old snow in the woods remembered winter. The man crossed onto her property and with each heavy step, she waited for the ground to give a fine tremble.

He stopped, his gaze on her house. It was an upright saltbox, formerly New England austere until five days ago when Lorna had found some old shutters in the shed and painted them yellow. Not a polite yellow. A screaming yellow. She suspected it was this trimming that held the stranger’s eye. She was going to paint the weathered door next. Blue—a brilliant, peacock-strutting blue. No more somber colors. That was one thing she’d sworn off when she’d buried her husband less than six weeks ago. Life was too short and too brazen for grim colors. Good to her new vow, she’d worn chartreuse to the funeral. She’d sashayed past the pews, the murmurs soft as pillow talk. Still Lorna knew what they whispered. A madness born from grief. Craziness was expected, even excused, when two days earlier your husband had been surprised by a shotgun while in bed with another man’s wife and shot in an area of the anatomy unmentionable in mixed company. Suffice it to say, the tale would never be told without men wincing and women nodding in silent satisfaction that God does indeed work in mysterious ways.

But there’d been no madness for Lorna that day her philandering husband was laid to his eternal rest. If she’d ever been crazy, it was three months before when she’d actually believed her husband had married her for love instead of her family’s money. No, that day as she’d moved past the murmuring congregation, her clarity was as vivid as the casket’s polished brass.

She had made her way down the aisle, squinting at her father already in the front pew, which had always belonged to McDonoughs. Her ancestors had founded Hope, each generation adding acquisitions and properties until today, the family was the richest in the county and its head, Axel McDonough, known to one and all—even his only daughter—as simply “the Boss.”

But that day, as her father had turned to his daughter coming up the aisle, she’d seen the always-present disapproval on his face deeper than the ruts still frozen in the road. And in that moment, sashaying in her chartreuse A-line, with her wonderful clearheadedness, Lorna had known she would never call him or any man “the Boss” again.

The giant hadn’t moved. Lorna levered her arm, testing the weight of the hand cutters. Without a doubt, the stranger had the meat and the muscle, but she had her newly earned lucidity. No man would ever get the best of her again.

The stranger staring at the house suddenly smiled, releasing the years from his face, adding devilish lights. Lorna locked her knees, the pad of her index finger testing the pruners’ pointed tips. She’d seen smiles come easily like that before.