Jennifer Greene: Rock Solid

A macho pass suddenly had a complete shift of power, and became her kiss instead of his. Her taking a mood out on him, instead of the other way around. His knees knocking. His hands unsteady. His lungs begging for oxygen in gulps…when it was supposed to be her, bowled over by his experienced sexual prowess.

The damn woman didn’t have any prowess.

But man…could she kiss! Lexie could make a man believe he was the hottest thing ever to emerge from a Y chromosome. The only guy in her universe. The only man she ever needed or ever wanted in her universe. The only man…

Aw, hell.

Dear Reader,

As we celebrate Silhouette’s 20 thanniversary year as a romance publisher, we invite you to welcome in the fall season with our latest six powerful, passionate, provocative love stories from Silhouette Desire!

In September’s MAN OF THE MONTH, fabulous Peggy Moreland offers a Slow Waltz Across Texas. In order to win his wife back, a rugged Texas cowboy must learn to let love into his heart. Popular author Jennifer Greene delivers a special treat for you with Rock Solid, which is part of the highly sensual Desire promotion, BODY & SOUL.

Maureen Child’s exciting miniseries, BACHELOR BATTALION, continues with The Next Santini Bride, a responsible single mom who cuts loose with a handsome Marine. The next installment of the provocative Desire miniseries FORTUNE’S CHILDREN: THE GROOMS is Mail-Order Cinderella by Kathryn Jensen, in which a plain-Jane librarian seeks a husband through a matchmaking service and winds up with a Fortune! Ryanne Corey returns to Desire with a Lady with a Past, whose true love woos her with a chocolate picnic. And a nurse loses her virginity to a doctor in a night of passion, only to find out the next day that her lover is her new boss, in Doctor for Keeps by Kristi Gold.

Be sure to indulge yourself this autumn by reading all six of these tantalizing titles from Silhouette Desire!

Enjoy!

Joan Marlow Golan

Senior Editor, Silhouette Desire

www.millsandboon.co.uk

lives near Lake Michigan with her husband and two children. Before writing full-time, she worked as a teacher and a personnel manager. Michigan State University honored her as an “outstanding woman graduate” for her work with women on campus.

Ms. Greene has written more than fifty category romances, for which she has won numerous awards, including two RITAs from the Romance Writers of America in the Best Short Contemporary Books category, and a Career Achievement award from Romantic Times Magazine.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

The Idaho sky was a brilliant blue, the mountain scenery breathtaking, the spring afternoon as seductive as a lover’s kiss…and Lexie’s heart was slamming with panic.

She’d always loved flying, and this bitsy single-engine Piper was more fun than a roller-coaster ride. Flying wasn’t the problem. Her recent bout with insanity was.

For several months now, she’d tolerated these silly symptoms. She was old friends with insomnia; that wasn’t new. It was this other stuff. On a perfectly wonderful day, her heart would suddenly pound, her palms turn cold and clammy, her stomach twist and tangle up with nerves. Her doctor had diagnosed the symptoms as an anxiety attack—which was total bullcracky.

She had nothing to be anxious about. At twenty-eight, her life was luckier than a dream—she was making money hand over fist, success charging her way faster than she could keep up with it, her work a joy and challenge both. Every day was filled with a frenzy of excitement, commotion, risk, everything she loved. There was no excuse whatsoever for these sudden attacks of panic…yet she could feel it starting again—the lump of anxiety welling up in her throat, the stupid roiled-up feeling in her stomach, the loneliness of fear nipping and nagging at her normally cheerful nature.

“Hey, you okay, Ms. Woolf?” The pilot of the Piper Cub was named Jed Harper. Jed was quite a character, with his unshaven white whiskers and wrinkled face and Hawaiian shirt. She strongly suspected that the wad in his cheek was tobacco.

“Just fine,” she assured him. Or she would be. She’d signed up for a month at Silver Mountain specifically to solve these idiotic health problems of hers.

“Well, we’re headed down, ma’am. Be on the ground in five more minutes, now. Silver Mountain’s one of the most beautiful places on earth. You’re gonna love it.”

“Uh-huh.” Mountains. Trees. Fresh air. It was enough to make a girl nauseous. Momentarily Lexie closed her eyes, fantasizing about her Victorian office with the red velvet office chair and the draperies dripping fringe and the billowing, delicate Boston fern…and the giant TV in the background with nice, soothing CNBC shooting the ticker tape past every second of the stock market day.

Perhaps this particular anxiety attack was justifiable, Lexie considered. Not only was she suffering from Dow Jones withdrawal, but she considered a stay in the country on a par with grape cough syrup. A tough, strong woman, of course, bit the bullet and took her medicine without whining…but that didn’t mean she had to like it.

The baby-size plane hit the grass landing strip, bounced, hit the ground again and finally settled into a jog-skipping-pace before wheeling into a turn. God knew where it was turning. There was nothing in sight but endless sharp, spiked pine trees covering endless sharp, spiked mountains. She saw no buildings, no telephone poles, no asphalt—nothing comforting or familiar.

The wizened-faced Mr. Harper—Jed—turned off the engine, grinned at her and then hustled to open the door. “Now don’t you worry about a thing, Ms. Woolf. We handle city folks like you all the time. You’ll feel like a new person after a month here. I guarantee it…and here comes Cash now. You’re going to love Cash. All the women do.”

Lexie ducked under the door frame and climbed down. She wasn’t here to love anyone. She was here to get over these anxiety attacks—or die trying—yet her first second in all the blasted fresh air made her stomach buck uneasily. Everything smelled…green. Suspiciously, verdantly green. As if she were in the middle of a jungle of overgrown Christmas trees that just went on forever. This high, this far from anything civilized, the air was so pure it stung the lungs. How was a woman supposed to breathe without pollution? Where was the comforting carbon monoxide, the diesel fumes, the traffic stinks? Where were the malls?

“Hey, Jed. You made record time. And we’ve been waiting for you, Alexandra—welcome to Silver Mountain.”

It wasn’t that she didn’t hear the warm masculine tenor. For a couple of seconds, though, she was so distracted by the view of all that appalling, petrifying green that she couldn’t seem to look away. Swiftly she reminded herself that she was not only willing to be here—she’d paid a fortune to be here—so it was no one’s fault but her own if she felt plunked down on an alien planet in the middle of a Star Trek episode. Quickly she spun around with her smile on and her hand out. “Thanks, Mr. McKay—Cash. And let’s forget that Alexandra business. No one calls me that. It’s either Lexie or Lex…”

Her voice petered out faster than a stalled engine. She knew the man reaching out to shake her hand was Cashner Aaron McKay, the owner of Silver Mountain. She’d have known his voice from their telephone calls even if the pilot hadn’t identified him, and he’d been so natural and easy to talk with that Lexie had been looking forward to meeting him. Still was. It was just that the blazing sun had first shadowed his face, and from their phone calls, she’d just assumed that McKay would be someone like Jed Harper—someone older. Someone with skin leathered by a hundred million years in the sun who wore cowboy boots. Someone who didn’t slap her snoozing female hormones wide-awake.