Diana Palmer - Fire Brand

He’ll risk his whole heart to save her from the past

Gaby Cane was always a bit afraid of her attraction to Bowie McCayde. Even when she was fifteen and Bowie’s family took her in, she had sensed his simmering resentment. Now ten years later, she’s an aspiring journalist who can hold her own with any man professionally, the dark shadows of years gone by far behind her. Then Bowie strides back into her life—only this time, he needs her, and the pull of loyalty to his family is too strong to ignore.

When Bowie asked Gaby to help save his family’s Arizona ranch, he never expected the girl he once knew to return transformed into a stunning, successful woman. As they work together, Bowie is shocked to find that her innocence and beauty stir a hunger he can’t deny. But the rogue rancher can sense something holding her back, and he’s determined to uncover the terrible secret Gaby is fighting to keep hidden...

Praise for the novels of

New York Times and USA TODAY

bestselling author Diana Palmer

“Diana Palmer is a mesmerizing storyteller who captures the essence of what a romance should be.”

—Affaire de Coeur

“The popular Palmer has penned another winning novel, a perfect blend of romance and suspense.”

—Booklist on Lawman

“Readers will be moved by this tale of revenge and justice, grief and healing.”

—Booklist on Dangerous

“Diana Palmer is one of those authors whose books are always enjoyable. She throws in romance, suspense and a good story line.”

—The Romance Reader on Before Sunrise

“Lots of passion, thrills, and plenty of suspense... Protector is a top-notch read!”

—Romance Reviews Today

“A delightful romance with interesting new characters and many familiar faces.”

—RT Book Reviews on Wyoming Tough

Fire Brand

Diana Palmer

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Dear Reader,

It is so fascinating to read a book that I wrote over thirty years ago and to see firsthand how much the world has changed in that time.

When this book was written, I was working for a weekly newspaper and stringing (doing local news and features) for a daily newspaper. What you read is how newspaper reporting was done thirty years ago. The terminology, the way people dress, even the cars they drove, like Bowie’s Scorpion—which was a fantastic, and expensive, new car in the 1980s—is all history now.

Smoking was also a daily habit for me and millions of other people. We smoked in restaurants, in hospital rooms, in emergency rooms, on airplanes, anywhere we liked to. I smoked at my desk in the newspaper office. Everyone that I knew also smoked, including both my parents. These days, smoking is so taboo that I’m not even allowed to have a character who smokes in my books. However, I was adamant to leave this element in the book, to show things as they truly were back in the eighties, and my publisher obliged.

I hope you enjoy this walk through time in this early work of mine. It serves as a lesson in how life has changed, and changed us. I am a person out of place and time. The world I knew, and grew up in, is gone. I have to live in the one that exists, but I am not really happy in it. My grandfather saw the Rockettes on television when he was seventy years old. He rushed to shut it off. It offended him that women showed so much of their bodies. It amused me at the time—I was sixteen—but I am now nearing seventy, and I understand how he felt.

For better or worse, here is the book. Thanks for taking the time to read this. I hope you enjoy it. And God bless everyone!

For Ann and Muriel, who shared Arizona with me—and for Stephanie—with thanks and love.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Praise

Title Page

Dear Reader

Dedication

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

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

JUST WHEN GABY thought it couldn’t get worse, it started to rain. She groaned as she tried to adjust part of her raincoat over the lens of her .35 mm camera, and kept shooting, aiming away from the red and blue flashing lights and the spotlights so that she wouldn’t spoil the shot.

“Are you out of your mind?” the thin man beside her grumbled, jerking her back down just as a bullet whizzed past her ear. “Gaby, that was stupid!”

“Shut up and keep taking notes,” she told him absently. The whir of the camera shutter was lost amid the renewed firing. It sounded like an automatic, which it probably was. The armed robber holed up in the old department store building was known to have one. He’d already killed the store manager and negotiations had broken down before they had even begun. “There’s a pregnant hostage in there with him. See if you can find out her name.”

“Will you stop slinging out orders?” he grumbled. “I know how to cover a story.”

Oh, sure you do, Gaby thought irritably, as long as it’s in a boardroom or a good restaurant. Only fate could have managed to leave Harrington alone in the newsroom when she had needed a photographer. And once the shooting in the street started, Harrington had plastered himself against a police car and refused to move. Gaby had no choice but to give him the note pad.

She pushed back her long black hair and snapped the camera lens cap on to keep the rain out of it. She was drenched already, her jeans and bulky pink knit top plastered to her skin under the concealing folds of the beige raincoat. And while she could take a photograph, Harrington’s were better—if he just had the nerve to go with his talent. He was a photojournalist and sometimes did interviews, to fill in for other reporters. He hated taking crime photos.

“I never should have let Johnny talk me into coming with you, you maniac,” Fred Harrington muttered. He glared at her through thick lenses that were spotted with drops of rain. She wondered if he knew how big they made his dark eyes look.

“If Johnny were here, he’d be out there where the Bulletin guy is right now,” she returned, nodding toward a beanpole in baggy jeans with a long ponytail and glasses, wandering into the line of fire. “For God’s sake, Wilson, get out of there!” she yelled across the police car she and Fred were crouched behind.

Wilson glanced her way and raised his hand in a friendly salute. “That you, Cane?” He grinned.

About that time, a disgruntled police officer tackled him and took him down, right on top of his camera.