Ann Major - Shameless

Where Texas society reigns supreme—and appearances are everything.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Phillip Westin joined the Lone Star Country Club to meet nice girls and to forget about the not-so-nice one who broke his heart years ago. But when his ex comes to town, trouble isn’t far behind. To keep her safe, Westin must rely on his tough-guy instincts to discern truth from lie, and his friends from his enemies.

Celeste Cavanaugh, aka Stella Lamour, can’t remember a time when she didn’t have stars in her eyes. These days, though, the stars are pretty tarnished, and a happily-ever-after in the sizzling embrace of her personal hero, Phillip Westin, doesn’t sound so bad.

Cole Yardley had only met Celeste once, but he’d remember her anywhere. When the shadowy ATF agent comes to town to investigate a gun-smuggling ring in quiet little Mission Creek, Texas, he threatens to blow Celeste’s secrets and her chances with Phillip away.

Dear Reader,

Top off your summer reading list with six brand-new steamy romances from Silhouette Desire!

Reader favorite Ann Major brings the glamorous LONE STAR COUNTRY CLUB miniseries into Desire with Shameless (#1513). This rancher’s reunion romance is the first of three titles set in Mission Creek, Texas—where society reigns supreme and appearances are everything. Next, our exciting yearlong series DYNASTIES: THE BARONES continues with Beauty & the Blue Angel (#1514) by Maureen Child, in which a dashing naval hero goes overboard for a struggling mom-to-be.

Princess in His Bed (#1515) by USA TODAY bestselling author Leanne Banks is the third Desire title in her popular miniseries THE ROYAL DUMONTS. Enjoy the fun as a tough Wyoming rancher loses his heart to a spirited royal-in-disguise. Next, a brooding horseman shows a beautiful rancher the ropes…of desire in The Gentrys: Abby (#1516) by Linda Conrad.

In the latest BABY BANK title, Marooned with a Millionaire (#1517) by Kristi Gold, passion ignites between a powerful hotel magnate and the pregnant balloonist stranded on his yacht. And a millionaire M.D. brings out the temptress in his tough-girl bodyguard in Sleeping with the Playboy (#1518) by veteran Harlequin Historicals and debut Desire author Julianne MacLean.

Get your summer off to a sizzling start with six new passionate, powerful and provocative love stories from Silhouette Desire.

Enjoy!

Melissa Jeglinski

Senior Editor, Silhouette Desire

www.millsandboon.co.uk

This book is dedicated to Ella Mae Lescuer for all her hard work.

lives in Texas with her husband of many years and is the mother of three grown children. She has a master’s degree from Texas A&M at Kingsville, Texas, and is a former English teacher. She is a founding board member of the RWA and a frequent speaker at writers’ groups.

Ann loves to write; she considers her ability to do so a gift. Her hobbies include hiking in the mountains, sailing, ocean kayaking, traveling and playing the piano. But most of all she enjoys her family.

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Epilogue

Mezcaya, Central America

El Jefe terrorist compound

Lt. Col. Phillip Westin, burly ex-Marine, wasn’t dead.

Hell. He almost wished he was. Solitary confinement—it made you crazy.

Groggily, he chafed at the ropes binding his wrists and ankles. Beneath the restraints his skin burned from too much rubbing.

He tried to roll over but he was so weak he could only lie facedown in the dark, gasping. The windowless walls seemed to close in upon him. He wanted to scream…or worse…to weep. One minute he was burning up, the next he was shivering and whimpering on his cot like a baby. The cramps in his legs and arms knifed through him constantly.

Where the hell was he? Remember! Try to remember. His thoughts were slow and tortured. It took him a while to realize that he was lying on a dirty canvas cot deep in The Cave that served as the dungeon underneath Fortaleza de la Fortuna. The fortaleza was a terrorist compound in Mezcaya run by a particularly dangerous group of thugs who went by the name El Jefe.

Westin had been captured a few weeks ago shortly after he’d run Jose Mendoza, one of the terrorist ring-leaders, off a mountain road and killed him. Too bad Mendoza’s illegitimate son, Xavier Gonzalez, didn’t have a forgiving nature.

Westin blinked but couldn’t see a thing. The damned dungeon was blacker than the inside of an ape’s behind.

His head throbbed where Xavier had smacked him with a rifle butt yesterday. His throat was dry. He was thirsty as hell. Dehydrated probably.

Xavier and his unkempt dirty bunch of thugs had captured him and beaten him senseless and then gleefully trussed him like a pig for slaughter.

He was going to die. At dawn. A single bullet to the head, the final coup de grace. An hour ago Xavier and a couple of short, teenage captors reeking of body odor had strutted inside The Cave like a bunch of bantam cocks in a barnyard and kicked him with their black, muddy combat boots.

“Gringo. ¿Cómo estás?” They’d prodded him with their assault rifles and made cruel jokes in Spanish rather than in their Mezcayan dialect. They’d flipped coins to see who’d get lucky enough to pull the trigger. Xavier, the youngest and the most lethally handsome, had slid a .45 out of a black holster and dried it off on his sleeve.

“You kill my father, so you die, gringo. You have no right to be in my country.”

“Your drug and gun money was making inroads in my town, bastardo. My town.”

The kid was dark with a permanent Mezcayan tan. With one brown hand he’d lifted a cigarette to his pretty mouth; with the other he’d carefully centered the cold barrel on Phillip’s forehead.

“Your town?”

Xavier’s eyes were scarily irrational in his pretty-boy face. His finger had pulled back the trigger ever so slightly. “Bang. Bang, gringo. Your town is going to be my town.”

Before Phillip could argue, the thick, acrid cigarette smoke from the kid’s cigarette had made him wretch. Hell, maybe puking up his guts had saved him. Instead of firing his gun, Xavier had burst out into hysterical laughter and shrieked, “Cobarde. Coward.”

Then the bastardo had danced a little jig.

“Tengo sed. I’m thirsty,” Phillip had said.

Xavier had smiled that pretty smile. “So—drink this!” He’d pitched the cigarette into the vomit in front of Phillip’s face.

Bastardos. His death was a game to them. Phillip Westin, ex-Marine, had been handpicked for the Alpha Force. His usual style was spit-and-polish perfect.

He wouldn’t be a pretty corpse. He wouldn’t even rate a body bag in this hellhole compound that was hidden deep in Mezcayan mountains and rain forest.

There’d be no military honors at his funeral. No funeral, period. No beautiful woman to weep over his grave back home in south Texas.

Suddenly a blond goddess, no a witch, seemed to float above him in the misty black.