Sharon Mignerey - Too Close For Comfort

Rosie turned around to face Ian, tipping her head back so she could meet his gaze.

He grazed the back of a finger down the side of her face, a touch he couldn’t have stopped if his life had depended on it. He bent and pressed a kiss against her temple. “Go get some sleep, Rosie. You’re safe, I promise.”

Her heart thudding, Rosie walked toward the ladder. She turned around and found his attention on the water ahead of them. She watched him, wishing she understood what had just happened between them.

Moments later she collapsed on the bed. More tired than she cared to acknowledge, she admitted how much Ian had made her relax. She would never have imagined he could be so gentle.

And so the day ended as unusually as it had begun, her thoughts on a stranger—a man who felt oddly safe in spite of all that he was.…

Dear Reader,

As always, Intimate Moments offers you six terrific books to fill your reading time, starting with Terese Ramin’s Her Guardian Agent. For FBI agent Hazel Youvella, the case that took her back to revisit her Native American roots was a very personal one. For not only did she find the hero of her heart in Native American tracker Guy Levoie, she discovered the truth about the missing child she was seeking. This wasn’t just any child—this was her child.

If you enjoyed last month’s introduction to our FIRSTBORN SONS inline continuity, you won’t want to miss the second installment. Carla Cassidy’s Born of Passion will grip you from the first page and leave you longing for the rest of these wonderful linked books. Valerie Parv takes a side trip from Silhouette Romance to debut in Intimate Moments with a stunner of a reunion romance called Interrupted Lullaby. Karen Templeton begins a new miniseries called HOW TO MARRY A MONARCH with Plain-Jane Princess, and Linda Winstead Jones returns with Hot on His Trail, a book you should be hot on the trail of yourself. Finally, welcome Sharon Mignerey back and take a look at her newest, Too Close for Comfort.

And don’t forget to look in the back of this book to see how Silhouette can make you a star.

Enjoy them all, and come back next month for more of the best and most exciting romance reading around.

Yours,

Leslie J. Wainger

Executive Senior Editor

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To Anne, Judy, Robin and Steven

My own personal Fab Four

lives in Colorado with her husband and two dogs, Angel and Squirt. From the time she figured out that spelling words could be turned into stories, she knew being a writer was how she wanted to spend her life. She won RWA’s Golden Heart Award in 1995, validation that she was on the right path.

When she’s not writing, she loves puttering around in her garden, walking her dogs along the South Platte River and spending time at the family cabin in Colorado’s Four Corners region.

She loves hearing from readers, and you can write to her in care of Silhouette Books, 300 East 42 ndStreet, 6 thFloor, New York, NY 10017.

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

The touch of a cold, wet nose against Rosie Jensen’s neck brought her wide awake. In the next heartbeat, the telephone on the nightstand rang. She pushed the dog’s muzzle away and reached for the phone.

‘‘Hello.’’ She eyed the bedside clock. Four-seventeen. Only bad news came in the middle of the night. Sudden fear lodged in her throat. One of her sisters. Her parents.

‘‘Sorry to wake you,’’ came the calm voice of her close friend, Hilda Raven-in-Moonlight, over the line.

‘‘This better be good,’’ Rosie grumbled, the band of apprehension around her heart easing. Hilda was the island’s constable, not to mention head nurse of a tiny clinic, and the first to sound the alarm when a tourist got lost in the deceptively rugged interior of the island or tangled up with a bear. Tourists, however, wouldn’t arrive at this remote island in the Alaska inside passage for at least another month.

‘‘It is. A child has been reported lost.’’

Rosie cast the clock another glance. ‘‘At this time of night?’’ She sat up in bed. ‘‘Where? Whose?’’

‘‘That’s where this gets a little strange,’’ Hilda said after an almost imperceptible pause. ‘‘Apparently somewhere close to you. As for who—the man said they were from San Francisco. Yesterday, he somehow got separated from his little girl.’’

‘‘So why didn’t he get help then?’’

‘‘That’s what I asked,’’ Hilda returned. ‘‘The father said he just kept looking—that he didn’t want to think she was lost.’’

‘‘So you haven’t seen the guy. Just talked to him?’’

‘‘That’s right.’’

‘‘Which means we don’t have a specific scent.’’

‘‘Don’t tell me I’m asking the impossible. I know.’’

‘‘You haven’t asked anything. Yet.’’

‘‘If there’s a chance a child is lost…’’ Hilda cleared her throat. ‘‘It still gets pretty cold at night.’’

That was putting it mildly. During the first week in April, the nighttime temperatures regularly dropped to freezing. Rosie pushed the covers aside, got out of bed and peered outside, where dawn was still a promise.

‘‘We’ll have daylight in another hour. I’ll check along the road,’’ Hilda added.

‘‘Oh, sure,’’ Rosie quipped. ‘‘Leave me and Sly with the coastline. This is all pretty fishy, my friend.’’

‘‘Don’t forget your radio,’’ Hilda responded. ‘‘And take good care of you.’’

‘‘Don’t hang up yet,’’ Rosie said, vaguely alarmed that her friend hadn’t responded with the normal banter that lightened the tension of the job at hand. ‘‘What’s the kid’s name?’’

This time Hilda’s pause was long enough to heighten Rosie’s uneasiness another notch.

‘‘Annmarie,’’ she finally said.

The name wound through Rosie’s chest, leaving behind a gaping ache. No wonder Hilda hadn’t wanted to tell her. Memories washed over Rosie, the events of five years ago nearly as painful now as then. Three people alive knew the whole story—Rosie, her sister Lily and their mutual best friend since childhood, Hilda.

‘‘At least, that’s what it sounded like,’’ Hilda added. ‘‘The man had an accent, and he might have been saying Annie.’’

‘‘It’s probably just a stupid coincidence.’’

‘‘Yeah. Talk to you in a few.’’ Hilda broke the connection.

Rosie replaced the receiver on the phone and stared through the darkness for a moment. Lily’s daughter wasn’t the only Annmarie in the world. If there was ever a protective mother who wouldn’t have lost a child for the better part of a day, it was her sister Lily. Further, Lily’s husband had died two years ago, so no man would have lost her, either, accent or not.