Bj James - Night Music

Music Washed Over Him, Ebbing

And Flowing Like The Tide.

As the piano fell silent, one note lingering in the night, Devlin knew he’d been given a rare insight into the heart of Kathleen Moira Gallagher, agent of the Black Watch, now simply a grieving woman whose soul stumbled.

When he had followed her to Summer Island, it was to quiet a need he thought had died forever. To subdue a faltering, resurrected impulse to ease the hurts of others, to make himself believe that he could lead her back to the life she should have.

And without intending it, he’d found himself on this part of the shore, sitting at the base of zigzagging steps leading where he’d never meant to go.

To Kate…

Dear Reader,

This April of our 20th anniversary year, Silhouette will continue to shower you with powerful, passionate, provocative love stories!

Cait London offers an irresistible MAN OF THE MONTH, Last Dance, which also launches her brand-new miniseries FREEDOM VALLEY. Sparks fly when a strong woman tries to fight her feelings for the rugged man who’s returned from her past. Night Music is another winner from BJ James’s popular BLACK WATCH series. Read this touching story about two wounded souls who find redeeming love in each other’s arms.

Anne Marie Winston returns to Desire with her emotionally provocative Seduction, Cowboy Style, about an alpha male cowboy who seeks revenge by seducing his enemy’s sister. In The Barons of Texas: Jill by Fayrene Preston, THE BARONS OF TEXAS miniseries offers another feisty sister, and the sexy Texan who claims her.

Desire’s theme promotion THE BABY BANK, in which interesting events occur on the way to the sperm bank, continues with Katherine Garbera’s Her Baby’s Father. And Barbara McCauley’s scandalously sexy miniseries SECRETS! offers another tantalizing tale with Callan’s Proposition, featuring a boss who masquerades as his secretary’s fiancé.

Please join in the celebration of Silhouette’s 20th anniversary by indulging in all six Desire titles—which will fulfill your every desire!

Enjoy!

Joan Marlow Golan

Senior Editor, Silhouette Desire

www.millsandboon.co.uk

BJ JAMES

married her high school sweetheart straight out of college and soon found that books were delightful companions during her lonely nights as a doctor’s wife. But she never dreamed she’d be more than a reader, never expected to be one of the blessed, letting her imagination soar, weaving magic of her own.

BJ has twice been honored by the Georgia Romance Writers with their prestigious Maggie Award for Best Short Contemporary Romance. She has also received the following awards from Romantic Times Magazine: Critic’s Choice Award of 1994-1995, Career Achievement Award for Series Storyteller of the Year and Best Desire of 1994-1995 for The Saint of Bourbon Street.

Foreword Foreword In desperate answer to a need prompted by changing times and mores, Simon McKinzie, dedicated and uncompromising leader of The Black Watch, has been called upon by the president of the United States to form a more covert and more dangerous division of his most clandestine clan. Ranging the world in ongoing assembly of this unique unit, he has gathered and will gather in the elite among the elite—those born with the gift or the curse of skills transcending the norm. Men and women who bring extraordinary and uncommon talents in answer to extraordinary and uncommon demands. They are, in most cases, men and women who have plummeted to the brink of hell because of their talents. Tortured souls who have stared down into the maw of destruction, been burned by its fires, yet have come back, better, surer, stronger. Driven and colder. As officially nameless as The Black Watch, to those few who have had misfortune and need of calling on their dark service, they are known as Simon’s chosen… Simon’s Marauders.

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Epilogue

In desperate answer to a need prompted by changing times and mores, Simon McKinzie, dedicated and uncompromising leader of The Black Watch, has been called upon by the president of the United States to form a more covert and more dangerous division of his most clandestine clan. Ranging the world in ongoing assembly of this unique unit, he has gathered and will gather in the elite among the elite—those born with the gift or the curse of skills transcending the norm. Men and women who bring extraordinary and uncommon talents in answer to extraordinary and uncommon demands. They are, in most cases, men and women who have plummeted to the brink of hell because of their talents. Tortured souls who have stared down into the maw of destruction, been burned by its fires, yet have come back, better, surer, stronger. Driven and colder.

As officially nameless as The Black Watch, to those few who have had misfortune and need of calling on their dark service, they are known as Simon’s chosen… Simon’s Marauders.

Out of the dawn a screaming wind snaked over frigid mountain slopes. A faceless, formless leviathan hurling snow and ice with the force to flay skin and flesh to the bone.

A killing madness.

Death, dressed in white.

Within a bulwark of twisted metal and scorched canvas, sheltered by ramparts of boulders, a man and a woman lay prone, bodies entwined. She was fragile. Her hair, a mass of auburn falling from a knitted cap, trailed over his arm to mingle like fire into ice. He was lean and rugged, his skin darkened by wind and weather. His hair, thick and close-cut, was as black as snow was white.

Holding her, offering what warmth he could, he whispered to her. His lips moving against bright curls, his breath skimming a waxen cheek. While he soothed her with nonsense and promises, a wall of snow built slowly at their backs. The malicious gift of a monster, bringing a modicum of protection, even as it concealed evidence of the charred, shattered plane, its pilot, and his sole passenger.

Yet, the wall would be one more buffer of hope against the storm. Hope, buying time. Time to survive, perhaps time to die.

She was a stranger to the mountain. Content to stay behind each time a plane lifted off filled with climbers her husband hoped to guide to the summit, she couldn’t know the gravity of their situation. For as long as he could keep it that way, she wouldn’t. This he’d promised from the first. Not as her pilot, but as a friend.

For three days, he’d kept his promise. He would keep it to the end. As long as there was a shred of hope, she, above all, would cling to the will to live.

“Maybe long enough for a miracle.” He didn’t realize he’d fallen silent, listening to the wind. Or that he’d spoken again. His voice was rough, but something in it touched a chord.

Rousing, she looked at him through feverish eyes. Struggling to one elbow, she tried to concentrate. “Jock?”

The mistake sent an icy dread through him. Hallucination; she was deteriorating more than he feared. But he wouldn’t give up hope. Not yet. “Shh.” With the back of a hand whitened by cold he traced the curve of her cheek. “We’ll talk when the storm calms.”

As if she didn’t hear him, catching his hand, turning his palm to her glazed gaze, she whispered, “You’re hurt?”