Cait London - Total Package

Safe, big, strong, masculine…sensual, hot, hungry…fierce lover, taking, giving…tender friend, sharing…

Flipside: Brooding, arrogant, traditional, a family man if ever there was one. Worse, he cooked and cleaned and washed her clothing and seemed content that she had no housekeeping skills whatsoever.

The whole tall, muscular, good-looking package was irritating, unsuitable for the lifestyle that she had wanted.

I love you, he’d said.

Just maybe she’d been on the rebound and had gotten blindsided by Danya.

Who was he, anyway?

But she knew. Danya was a part of her now, a man who had shared her body, making love, not having sex with her. Now that was scary. Lovemaking was more than sex and now, no thanks to Danya, she knew the difference.

It would probably haunt her forever.

Dear Reader,

Welcome to another scintillating month of passionate reads. Silhouette Desire has a fabulous lineup of books, beginning with Society-Page Seduction by Maureen Child, the newest title in DYNASTIES: THE ASHTONS. You’ll love the surprises this dynamic family has in store for you…and each other. And welcome back New York Times bestselling author Joan Hohl, who returns to Desire with the long-awaited A Man Apart, the story of Mitch Grainger—a man we guarantee won’t be alone for long!

The wonderful Dixie Browning concludes her DIVAS WHO DISH series with the highly provocative Her Fifth Husband? (Don’t you want to know what happened to grooms one through four?) Cait London is back with another title in her HEARTBREAKERS series, with Total Package. The wonderful Anna DePalo gives us an alpha male to die for, in Under the Tycoon’s Protection. And finally, we’re proud to introduce author Juliet Burns as she makes her publishing debut with High-Stakes Passion.

Here’s hoping you enjoy all that Silhouette Desire has to offer you…this month and all the months to come!

Best,

Melissa Jeglinski

Senior Editor

Silhouette Desire

www.millsandboon.co.uk

is an avid reader and an artist who plays with computers and maintains her Web site, www.caitlondon.com. Her books reflect her many interests, including herbs, driving cross-country and photography. A national bestselling and award-winning author of category romance and romantic suspense, Cait has also written historical romances under another pseudonym. Three is her lucky number; she has three daughters, and her life events have been in threes. Cait says, “One of the best perks about this hard work is the thrilling reader response.”

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Epilogue

The midnight moon hung over the Pacific Ocean’s black swells like a sly curse waiting to fall. Thickening clouds slid across that silvery surface, foretelling rain.

Below the cliff on which Danya Stepanov stood, the waves caressed the smooth silvery strip of sandy beach. Alone and brooding, Danya stared at the small cluster of lights that signified Amoteh, the town in southwest Washington State.

In the distance, jutting out into the darkness was the Amoteh Resort, managed by Danya’s cousin, Mikhail. The lush resort, one of a worldwide chain, offered tourists rest and businesses convention facilities. It also supplied many of the residents in town with an income from their crafts. Within the huge resort was a display room for Stepanov Furniture; the pieces were crafted by Danya’s uncle Fadey, his cousin, Jarek, and others.

Winds swept up from the shoreline below the cliff, tearing at Danya’s hair. Carrying the fresh bite of salt and the earthy fragrances of mid-June, the mist stirred around his body.

He turned to the ancient rocky grave, no more than a weathered mound behind him and walked to it.

The wind stirred the grass at his work boots, as if the Hawaiian chieftain who had died there recognized another lonely male. Danya understood the Hawaiian chieftain’s curse upon the land, a dying man damning his fate. Kamakani had been captured by whalers over a century and a half ago, and he’d been stranded on a land that wasn’t his, missing a woman who belonged to him.

Danya knew what it was to miss part of his heart and soul, his love, a wife who had died too young.

Familiar with brooding and loneliness at midnight, Danya looked around him. Strawberry Hill, a peninsula jutting out into the Pacific Ocean, was windswept and accessed by a rocky path. During high tide the waterway passage from the peninsula to the small town of Amoteh was dangerous. The huge deadly stone rising out of the crashing waves had already caused many boaters’ deaths. At low tide, Strawberry Hill could be reached by a long walk along the shoreline and a hike up that rocky path.

Danya found what he wanted—a small stand of wind-whipped trees, nothing like the soaring straight pines of his native Wyoming mountains—but it held the scent and feel of home.

An experienced woodsman, Danya moved into the shadows of the trees to brood.

Nine years ago, a drunken driver had taken the life of Danya’s young wife. Danya had been driving—how could he have avoided the crash, those headlights crossing the road?

Danya had lived that nightmare many times—what could he have done?

He inhaled the salty air and felt his heart twist, as if part of it had been wrenched away. His brother, Alexi, had also been a rancher, starting a new life in Amoteh. Now, over a year later, he was married and a father. Would it actually help Danya’s empty heart to relocate with his father, Viktor?

Last year, Danya had desperately needed the change from his father’s Wyoming ranch, where everything reminded him of his wife. Jeannie would have liked Amoteh, a Chinook name for the wild strawberries growing in the southwest Washington State coastal area. She would have liked the tourist pier, the sailboats skimming along the horizon, and digging in the sand for razor back clams.

She would have loved raising children amid their Stepanov cousins.

He inhaled unevenly and wondered if she was there with him, swirling around in the mist, waiting….

Danya turned his thoughts to what he did have—a family surrounding him, children to hold, a growing building and remodeling business with his brother—

The sound of a stick breaking caused him to tense—someone walked through the grass. The steady sounds said that one person had purpose, tramping to a familiar destination without the use of a flashlight.

He smiled grimly; there were others walking in the night, shielding their loneliness from those who cared and worried about them.

A high loud howl broke the night—a frustrated sound too high for a man, but still a howl. Danya eased aside in the shadows, watching the small shadow cross in front of him. It tossed a bulky object to the ground in front of Kamakani’s grave.

The person turned and lifted arms high—and a woman removed her top, bending to shimmy out of her loose pants.

A woman with hair too short to be caught by the wind stood, her legs braced apart, a small curvy silhouette, but definitely a woman. Outlined by the moon peeking through the clouds, she seemed almost mystical, a goddess coming to court the night.

Then she raised her hands high and yelled angrily, “Dammit, what’s wrong with me? Look at me, will you, Chief? I’ve got everything any other woman has—maybe less in some places, but the basic equipment is there. So why did Ben marry some little fluff-cake and not me? Fluffy hasn’t got a brain in her head. So why did he pick her over me?”