Jo Leigh - Catching His Eye

“You’re kidding. How? Where? What did he say? Did he notice your gorgeous new look?” Hope grabbed Emily’s shirt and pulled her toward the track. There were quite a few people running, even at six in the morning.

Emily started jogging. If you could call it that. “It wasn’t pretty, Hope. I’d fallen flat on my rear in the middle of the hallway outside my classroom. He helped me up.”

“Was it incredible? Did your eyes meet and—”

“I looked like death warmed over, and he didn’t blink an eye.”

They jogged in silence for a while. “I bet there was more. You probably just didn’t see it.”

Emily didn’t argue. She wiped the sweat from her eyes, pulled up her sagging sweats and moved aside as she heard a runner approaching from behind.

“Hey!” the runner said as he reached her side.

“Emily, I didn’t know you ran.”

Oh no.

Emily smiled at the man, with his windswept hair and perfectly muscled chest. Perfect.

Scott Dillon.

Dear Reader,

November is an exciting month here at Harlequin American Romance. You’ll notice we have a brand-new look—but, of course, you can still count on Harlequin American Romance to bring you four terrific love stories sure to warm your heart.

Back by popular demand, Harlequin American Romance revisits the beloved town of Tyler, Wisconsin, in the RETURN TO TYLER series. Scandals, secrets and romances abound in this small town with fabulous stories written by some of your favorite authors. The always wonderful Jule McBride inaugurates this special four-book series with Secret Baby Spencer.

Bestselling author Muriel Jensen reprises her heartwarming WHO’S THE DADDY? series with Father Fever. Next, a former wallflower finally gets the attention of her high school crush when he returns to town and her friends give her a makeover and some special advice in Catching His Eye, the premiere of Jo Leigh’s THE GIRLFRIENDS’ GUIDE TO…continuing series. Finally, Harlequin American Romance’s theme promotion, HAPPILY WEDDED AFTER, which focuses on marriages of convenience, continues with Pamela Bauer’s The Marriage Portrait.

Enjoy them all—and don’t forget to come back again next month when another installment in the RETURN TO TYLER series from Judy Christenberry is waiting for you.

Wishing you happy reading,

Melissa Jeglinski

Associate Senior Editor

Harlequin American Romance

Catching His Eye

Jo Leigh

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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To Trysa, who lights the night with her smile. Who holds us all in her heart.

Jo Leigh currently lives just outside Las Vegas, Nevada, where she still can’t get used to the slot machines in the grocery stores. Storytelling has always been a part of her life, whether as a producer in Hollywood, a screenwriter or a novelist. It probably began when she told her third grade teacher that elephants ate her homework.

695—QUICK, FIND A RING!

731—HUSBAND 101

736—DADDY 101

749—IF WISHES WERE…DADDIES

768—CAN’T RESIST A COWBOY

832—DOCTOR, DARLING

851—CATCHING HIS EYE*

568—LITTLE GIRL FOUND

774—ONE WICKED NIGHT

799—SINGLE SHERIFF SEEKS…

827—TANGLED SHEETS

856—HOT AND BOTHERED

Specially created for Emily Proctor by The Girlfriends

“Whatever you do, don’t say yes on the first date!”

Samantha Barnett

“Be mysterious. Don’t finish sentences.

Look off in the distance as if a faraway lover is calling you. Let him wonder and make him wait.”

Julia Carey

“For heaven’s sake, go out and buy new under wear.”

Lily Graham

“Don’t play games. Just walk right up to him and tell him every time you look at him yous get all hot and bothered. For once in your life, say yes!”

Hope Francis

“Take it slowly. Use your head.

It's too easy to make a mistake that will cost you every thing. This is serious.”

Zoey Hoffman

“Help!”

Emily Proctor

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

Epilogue

The Girlfriends’ Sixteenth Anniversary

Emily Proctor poured each of her girlfriends another frozen daiquiri. Midori daiquiris, to be precise. And, if one was getting picky about such things, they weren’t really just girlfriends, they were The Girlfriends. Sworn to be there for each other through thick and thin. Together by choice, forged by sixteen years of school and parents and boyfriends and…oh, just everything.

“I shouldn’t be drinking this,” Lily said, but only after she’d taken a really big swallow. “I have to take JT to soccer at eight in the morning.” She shuddered dramatically, making her impromptu ponytail wave back and forth. “The sitter can’t. She’s going to Dallas first thing tomorrow.”

“Why don’t you call Glen Cassidy…? He has to take Cody, so maybe he’ll pick up JT, too.”

Lily turned to Hope Francis. The polar opposite of Lily, Hope was five foot one to Lily’s five foot seven, and Hope had dark hair, almost black. It was trimmed in a dramatic sort of pageboy. Really angular, though. On her, it worked. She looked exotic, especially with her Winona Ryder eyes, made smoky by the liberal use of black kohl and powder. Not to mention the fire-engine red lipstick, which was mostly on the rim of her glass. The problem with Hope, at least in her own eyes, was that she looked about seventeen, and it drove her insane.

Lily smiled broadly as she uncurled her legs and got up off the couch to follow up on that excellent advice. “That’s why we keep you here, Hope. Because you’re beautiful and brilliant.”

Hope smiled demurely. Then she burped. Loudly.

Everyone cracked up as Emily crawled back on the hotel room bed and scrunched the pillow beneath her. It was so good to be together like this. All of them. Hope, Lily, Sam, Zoey and Julia. The Girlfriends.

They’d met in Mrs. Mann’s fifth-grade class, at Sheridan elementary school. They’d bonded over their outrage at Paul Morrison’s obnoxious game of pulling up their dresses on the playground.

Emily wondered for a moment what had happened to Paul. But that wasn’t important. What was important was that the six of them had come together like pieces of a puzzle. They’d all fit.

As she sipped her drink, Zoey turned the topic to her hair, as she did every year, complaining that it was too red, too curly, too hideous to be shown in public. It was utter nonsense, and the rest of the girls told her so. Every year.