Nikki Benjamin - The Secrets Between Them

Hannah had known he wasn’t a fool when she’d talked to him on the phone. She wouldn’t have invited him out to the house for an interview if she had. Mostly she thought he’d be a little older, and maybe just a little softer and wearier around the edges.

But the man now pausing on the porch seemed not only much too vibrant, but also much too accomplished to be truly interested in the type of work she had to offer him.

She was a thirty-two-year-old widow with a five-year-old son, looking to hire a gardener-slash-handyman to help out on her property, not hoping to snag a boyfriend.

But she couldn’t deny the sight of Evan Graham had awakened something in her.

Dear Reader,

June, the ideal month for weddings, is the perfect time to celebrate true love. And we are doing it in style here at Silhouette Special Edition as we celebrate the conclusion of several wonderful series. With For the Love of Pete, Sherryl Woods happily marries off the last of her ROSE COTTAGE SISTERS. It’s Jo’s turn this time—and she’d thought she’d gotten Pete Catlett out of her system for good. But at her childhood haven, anything can happen! Next, MONTANA MAVERICKS: GOLD RUSH GROOMS concludes with Cheryl St. John’s Million-Dollar Makeover. We finally learn the identity of the true heir to the Queen of Hearts Mine—and no one is more shocked than the owner herself, the plain-Jane town…dog walker. When she finds herself in need of financial advice, she consults devastatingly handsome Riley Douglas—but she soon finds his influence exceeds the business sphere….

And speaking of conclusions, Judy Duarte finishes off her BAYSIDE BACHELORS miniseries with The Matchmakers’ Daddy, in which a wrongly imprisoned ex-con finds all kinds of second chances with a beautiful single mother and her adorable little girls. Next up in GOING HOME, Christine Flynn’s heartwarming miniseries, is The Sugar House, in which a man who comes home to right a wrong finds himself falling for the woman who’s always seen him as her adversary. Patricia McLinn’s next book in her SOMETHING OLD, SOMETHING NEW… miniseries, Baby Blues and Wedding Bells, tells the story of a man who suddenly learns that his niece is really…his daughter. And in The Secrets Between Them by Nikki Benjamin, a divorced woman who’s falling hard for her gardener learns that he is in reality an investigator hired by her ex-father-in-law to try to prove her an unfit mother.

So enjoy all those beautiful weddings, and be sure to come back next month! Here’s hoping you catch the bouquet….

Gail Chasan

Senior Editor

www.millsandboon.co.uk

was born and raised in the Midwest, but after years in the Houston area, she considers herself a true Texan. Nikki says she’s always been an avid reader. (Her earliest literary heroines were Nancy Drew, Trixie Belden and Beany Malone.) Her writing experience was limited, however, until a friend started penning a novel and encouraged Nikki to do the same. One scene led to another, and soon she was hooked.

For Bert, Geri and Jill Church with deepest appreciation

for welcoming me so warmly into your

lovely Appalachian mountain home.

Special thanks, as well, to Geri and my son, Nick,

for all of your help with Hannah’s garden.

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

Epilogue

Hannah James heard the crunch of tires on the long, winding, gravel drive that connected her beloved North Carolina mountain home to the longer, even more winding road to Boone with an odd mixture of emotions. Certainly uppermost was a sense of relief.

The man with the pleasant voice who had called an hour earlier in response to her ad in the local paper had obviously followed through with his promise. He had come, as she’d hoped he would, to meet with her in person to discuss more fully the job she had on offer.

But a small measure of apprehension also made Hannah’s stomach flutter. Not all that long ago—almost a year to be exact—she had sworn that she would never allow another man into her life, much less onto her property.

Unfortunately, she had made that vow without taking into account the amount of work necessary to transform the run-down greenhouses and overgrown gardens into the kind of thriving business that had once provided her parents with a source of income. Nor had she fully acknowledged just how alone she was in the world following the death of her husband—she and her five-year-old son, Will.

Her parents had died within a few months of each other almost seven years ago, leaving her with no close family until her marriage to Stewart James. She’d had a small circle of friends in Boone, of course, and she’d always been on good terms with her nearby neighbors. But isolated as she’d been during the last two years of Stewart’s life, she had gradually lost contact with all of them.

She’d had no one to whom she could turn for help. At least no one to whom she could comfortably turn, Hannah amended, remembering the speculative glint she’d seen in Stewart’s father’s eyes whenever his gaze fixed on Will at the funeral service.

Stewart had thwarted his father’s wishes in many small ways over the years, starting long before she had met him. But Randall James had been most incensed by his son’s decision to marry someone as plain and as poor as he’d considered Hannah to be. He’d refused to attend their wedding ceremony and had followed through on his threat to cut off Stewart financially. To Stewart’s credit, he hadn’t minded in the least. He’d said more than once that they were better off estranged from the old man than living under his control.

Randall had chosen to keep his distance even after Will was born. Though Hannah had sent him a card announcing the arrival of his grandson, he hadn’t responded in any way. She hadn’t told Stewart about his father’s frigid indifference. But she’d remembered it well enough that she hadn’t gone to the man for help when Stewart first began to act irrationally. She’d been sure that if the old man acknowledged her at all, it would only be to blame her for his son’s violent mood swings—just as she’d blamed herself.

Hannah hadn’t been able to justify denying Randall’s right to know his son had died, however. Though she might have if she’d known how he’d treat her at the funeral service. He had spoken not a word to her until they were ready to leave the cemetery, but he didn’t once take his eyes off Will. Hannah had found his sudden, intense interest frightening, with good reason, as she’d soon discovered.

Grasping her arm roughly, he’d halted her progress to the waiting limousine. In a voice pitched too low to be heard by anyone else, he had quite calmly, yet quite forcefully told her just how much he was willing to pay her to hand over her son to be raised by him in the luxury of his stately home in Asheville.

His proposal had been so insane that Hannah had laughed in his face. In a fit of rage, Randall had accused her of using Stewart all along to gain financially. He even went so far as to say she had probably allowed him to die just so she could collect on his life insurance policy. Then he had questioned her mental stability in such a sinister manner that a chill had crept up her spine—