Christine Rimmer - Mercury Rising

She was looking at his mouth. So dangerous. So exactly what she longed for. She realized she was biting the inside of her lower lip. She made herself stop. “It’s not only my mother.”

“What else?”

“You know what,” Jane answered. “We don’t want the same things.”

“That’s right.” The very sound of Cade’s voice was like a tender hand, stroking. “We do want different things. I want you. You want me.”

“Very funny.” She wasn’t laughing. “I mean we want different things in life. So this can’t go anywhere.”

“Is it so necessary for a love affair to go somewhere?” Cade asked.

“Not as long as you’re having that love affair with someone who isn’t me.”

“But, Jane,” he answered, “I thought you understood. I don’t want to have a love affair with someone who isn’t you.”

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For my nieces, Lily and Tessa and Morgan, with all my love.

came to her profession the long way around. Before settling down to write about the magic of romance, she’d been an actress, a salesclerk, a janitor, a model, a phone sales representative, a teacher, a waitress, a playwright and an office manager. She insists she never had a problem keeping a job—she was merely gaining “life experience” for her future as a novelist. Christine is grateful not only for the joy she finds in writing, but for what waits when the day’s work is through: a man she loves, who loves her right back, and the privilege of watching their children grow and change day to day. She lives with her family in Oklahoma.

THE NINE-MONTH MARRIAGE (SSE#1148)

—Cash Bravo and Abby Heller

MARRIAGE BY NECESSITY (SSE #1161)

—Nate Bravo and Megan Kane

PRACTICALLY MARRIED (SSE #1174)

—Zach Bravo and Tess DeMarley

MARRIED BY ACCIDENT (SSE #1250)

—Melinda Bravo and Cole Yuma

THE MILLIONAIRE SHE MARRIED (SSE #1322)

—Jenna Bravo and Mack McGarrity

THE M.D. SHE HAD TO MARRY (SSE #1345)

—Lacey Bravo and Logan Severance

THE MARRIAGE AGREEMENT (SSE #1412)

—Marsh Bravo and Tory Winningham

THE BRAVO BILLIONAIRE (single title)

—Jonas Bravo and Emma Hewitt

MARRIAGE: OVERBOARD

—Gwen Bravo McMillan and Rafe McMillan

(Weekly Serial at www.eHarlequin.com)

THE MARRIAGE CONSPIRACY (SSE #1423)

—Dekker (Smith) Bravo and Joleen Tilly

HIS EXECUTIVE SWEETHEART (SSE #1485)

—Aaron Bravo and Celia Tuttle

MERCURY RISING (SSE #1496)

—Cade Bravo and Jane Elliott

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

Epilogue

“M om?”

Virginia Elliott turned from the window. “Ah. Thank you, dear.” Jane gave her the fresh-cut blush-pink roses she’d just wrapped in a cone of newspaper. “So lovely…” Virginia brought them close, breathed in their scent. “You do have a way in the garden. Your aunt Sophie would be proud.”

Jane’s beloved Aunt Sophie Elliott had been a single lady all her life. When she’d died, nearly three years ago now, she left Jane her beautiful old house and the gorgeous garden surrounding it.

Her mother turned back to the window. “I notice your new neighbor is at home.”

“Yes.” Jane kept her voice and her expression as bland as a clean white sheet. “He does travel a lot, though.”

Virginia had the roses in her left hand. Her right strayed to the pearls at her throat. She fondled them, ticking them off like the beads of a rosary. “He was out there, on the side porch, just a moment ago.” Each word was heavy with disdain.

Jane resisted the urge to say something sarcastic. Well, Mother. It is his house. I suppose he has the right to be out on the porch.

Word around town was that Cade Bravo owned an ostentatious new house in Las Vegas and a condo in nearby Lake Tahoe. He’d taken the small town of New Venice completely by surprise when he’d bought the Lipcott place next-door to Jane’s. A run-down farmhouse-style Victorian seemed the last place he would ever want to live.

But the house wasn’t run-down anymore. Renovations had gone on for months. Finally the various work crews had picked up and moved on and the new owner had taken up residence.

“At least he had the grace to respect the integrity of the original home,” Virginia said grudgingly, hand still at her pearls.

Jane thought he had done a beautiful job with the old house. It looked much as it must have when it was first built, at the turn of the last century, a house a lot like Jane’s house, one that harkened back to simpler, more graceful times, with an inviting deep wraparound porch and fish scale shingles up under the eaves.

Virginia muttered, “Still. One of those Bravo boys living on Green Street. Who ever could have imagined such a thing?” Green Street was wide and tree-lined. The charming old houses on it had always been owned by respectable and prosperous members of the New Venice community, people from well-established local families—the Elliotts and the Chases, the Moores and the Lipcotts.

True, Cade Bravo had surprised everyone by prospering. In that sense, he fit the profile for a resident of Green Street. Was he respectable? Not by Virginia Chase Elliott’s exacting standards. But then, in Virginia’s thoroughly biased opinion, no Bravo was—or ever could be—considered respectable.

“Does he bother you, honey?” Her mother was looking right at her now.

“Of course not.”

“He was always such a wild one—the worst of the bunch, everyone says so. Takes after that mother of his.” Virginia’s gray eyes narrowed when she mentioned Caitlin Bravo. Her hand worried all the harder at her pearls. “I suppose he’s got the women in and out all the time.”

“No. He’s very quiet, actually, when he’s here—and you should get those roses home. Cut an inch off the stems, at a slant, and—”

Her mother waved the hand that had been so busy with the pearls. “I know, I know. Remove any leaves below the waterline.”

Jane smiled. “That’s right. And use that flower food I gave you.”

Virginia sighed. “I will, I will—and how is Celia?”

Celia Tuttle was one of Jane’s two closest friends. Her name was Celia Bravo now. A little over two months ago, at the end of May, Celia had married Cade’s oldest brother, Aaron.

“Happy,” said Jane. “Celia is very, very happy.”

One of Virginia’s eyebrows inched upward. “Pregnant, or so I heard.”