Jenna Mills - A Kiss In The Dark

“I don’t owe you any explanations.” Bethany said, trying to push past Dylan. She might as well have tried to move a boulder.

“If you think I’m going to let you walk out of here by yourself, you’re out of your mind. You told me yourself you’d do what it took to protect your child. No way am I going to risk you driving off into those mountains and never coming back.”

“I appreciate your concern, Dylan, but I’m not some fragile flower, and I don’t need you playing bodyguard or bounty hunter or whatever it is you think you’re doing.” Even if for a few dangerous moments she wanted to feel his arms close around her more than she’d ever wanted anything.

His expression darkened. “I’d call it father.”

Everything inside her went very still. “W-what?”

“This child you’re carrying, Bethany. This child is mine.”

Dear Reader,

A new year has begun, so why not celebrate with six exciting new titles from Silhouette Intimate Moments? What a Man’s Gotta Do is the newest from Karen Templeton, reuniting the one-time good girl, now a single mom, with the former bad boy who always made her heart pound, even though he never once sent a smile her way. Until now.

Kylie Brant introduces THE TREMAINE TRADITION with Alias Smith and Jones, an exciting novel about two people hiding everything about themselves—except the way they feel about each other. There’s still TROUBLE IN EDEN in Virginia Kantra’s All a Man Can Ask, in which an undercover assignment leads (predictably) to danger and (unpredictably) to love. By now you know that the WINGMEN WARRIORS flash means you’re about to experience top-notch military romance, courtesy of Catherine Mann. Under Siege, a marriage-of-inconvenience tale, won’t disappoint. Who wouldn’t like A Kiss in the Dark from a handsome hero? So run—don’t walk—to pick up the book of the same name by rising star Jenna Mills. Finally, enjoy the winter chill—and the cozy cuddling that drives it away—in Northern Exposure, by Debra Lee Brown, who sends her heroine to Alaska to find love.

And, of course, we’ll be back next month with six more of the best and most exciting romances around, so be sure not to miss a single one.

Enjoy!

Leslie J. Wainger

Executive Senior Editor

www.millsandboon.co.uk

grew up in south Louisiana, amid romantic plantation ruins, haunting swamps and timeless legends. It’s not surprising, then, that she wrote her first romance at the ripe old age of six! Three years later, this librarian’s daughter turned to romantic suspense with Jacquie and the Swamp, a harrowing tale of a young woman on the run in the swamp and the dashing hero who helps her find her way home. Since then her stories have grown in complexity, but her affinity for adventurous women and dangerous men has remained constant. She loves writing about strong characters torn between duty and desire, conscious choice and destiny.

When not writing award-winning stories brimming with deep emotion, steamy passion and page-turning suspense, Jenna spends her time with her husband, two cats, two dogs and a menagerie of plants in their Dallas, Texas, home. Jenna loves to hear from her readers. She can be reached via e-mail at writejennamills@aol.com, or via snail mail at P.O. Box 768, Coppell, Texas 75019.

A book about a woman who longs for the joys of motherhood deserves to be dedicated to the wonderful women who’ve loved, nurtured and supported me—my mother, Sharilynn Aucoin, my dear grandmothers, Rosemary Aucoin and the late Marie Allison, and my special mother-in-law, Judith Miller.

You’re the best!

Prologue

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

“Had laws not been, we never had been blamed; For not to know we sin is innocence.”

—William D’Avenant

“Stop!”

The broken cry shattered the silence of the night. He awoke abruptly, heart hammering, adrenaline surging. Disoriented, he sat upright on the sofa and blinked against the grainy dryness of his eyes, tried to focus. The cabin was dark, shadows blurring detail. Nothing moved save for the orgylike frenzy of snowflakes outside the window.

A dream, he told himself. Just another nightmare. They were stronger here in the cabin, where memories crowded in from every direction like ghosts in a desecrated cemetery.

He was a fool to keep coming back.

“D-don’t kill him!”

This time there was no mistake. He was on his feet in a heartbeat, running across the cold wood floor toward the hallway. She didn’t belong here. Not here. But the snowstorm had turned vicious, rendering the roads too treacherous for driving.

“S-stay away! Stay away from me!”

The pain in the voice he’d never forgotten, despite the passing of six long years, pierced deep.

“Don’t touch me…”

He reached the closed door at a dead run, knew it was locked before he tried the knob. He pulled back, then rammed his body against the wood, crashed inside the room.

The sight greeting him almost sent him to his knees. The need to protect, to comfort, reared up from somewhere dark and forgotten and sent him toward the bed, where she fought the tangled sheets, lost in a nightmare he knew too well.

“My baby…”

He reached the bed and pulled her to his body, holding her against his chest. “It’s just a dream,” he assured roughly, running his hands along her back. She was thinner than he remembered. And she was trembling. “Just a dream.”

Her arms twined around his waist, her soft palms stinging like ice against his bare back. “S-so real,” she murmured as he held her, rocked her. “Just like before.”

“It’s this place,” he reasoned, trying to ignore the feel of her soft breasts pressed against his chest. “Too many memories.”

“S-so c-cold.”

He pulled back to look at her and felt something deep inside splinter. Her sable hair was tangled, her devastated eyes an impossible shade of arctic blue, her skin like ice, the coral of her lips practically translucent. His threadbare black and blue flannel shirt had slipped over one shoulder, baring the curve he’d once loved to skim his mouth along.

A long time ago.

In the years since then, he’d lived without her. He hadn’t touched her, seen her, talked to her for six long years. She’d come to him only during the long, dark hours of the night, when his defenses lay in tatters and desire made him weak.

He’d always felt things intensely, passionately. He’d never been able to walk away from a fight. Or from her.

Except when she told him to go, to never come back.

Clenching his jaw, he reached for the comforter and draped it around her shoulders. “You should be fine now. I’ll be in the other room if you need me.”

She reached for him, curled cool fingers around his wrist. “Don’t go.”

He went very still. “You don’t know what—”

“I want to be warm again,” she said, lifting her eyes to his. They were huge, dark. “Is that so very wrong?”

A hard sound broke from his throat. In some hazy corner of his mind, he knew it was a mistake even as he reached for her. It was like throwing a lit match into a pile of dried leaves and expecting nothing to happen. But too much emotion burned inside him. Too much need. That had always been the problem. He’d never been able to care about nasty things like consequences.