Sue Swift - The Ranger and The Rescue

Serenity sighed. Though he was inches away, his warmth enveloped her. His distinctive male scent filled her senses. She thrummed with delightful, forbidden longings. The memory of his recent kiss haunted her, branding her soul forever.

A fantasy of making love with him sneaked into her brain. She nearly groaned aloud, passion overtaking her.

Could she?

Would he?

What would be the harm?

Once his memory returned, he’d be leaving, wouldn’t he?

And didn’t they deserve some happiness until they learned who he was…and why he was here?

Dear Reader,

Brr…February’s below-freezing temperatures call for a mug of hot chocolate, a fuzzy afghan and a heartwarming book from Silhouette Romance. Our books will heat you to the tips of your toes with the sizzling sexual tension that courses between our stubborn heroes and the determined heroines who ultimately melt their hardened hearts.

In Judy Christenberry’s Least Likely To Wed, her sinfully sexy cowboy hero has his plans for lifelong bachelorhood foiled by the searing kisses of a spirited single mom. While in Sue Swift’s The Ranger & the Rescue, an amnesiac cowboy stakes a claim on the heart of a flame-haired heroine—but will the fires of passion still burn when he regains his memory?

Tensions reach the boiling point in Raye Morgan’s She’s Having My Baby!—the final installment of the miniseries HAVING THE BOSS’S BABY—when our heroine discovers just who fathered her baby-to-be…. And tempers flare in Rebecca Russell’s Right Where He Belongs, in which our handsome hero must choose between his cold plan for revenge and a woman’s warm and tender love.

Then simmer down with the incredibly romantic heroes in Teresa Southwick’s What If We Fall In Love? and Colleen Faulkner’s A Shocking Request. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll fall in love all over again with these deeply touching stories about widowers who get a second chance at love.

So this February, come in from the cold and warm your heart and spirit with one of these temperature-raising books from Silhouette Romance. Don’t forget the marshmallows!

Happy reading!

Mary-Theresa Hussey

Senior Editor

www.millsandboon.co.uk

The various details of the Texas Rangers

and their operations were the sole creation of the author.

This book is dedicated to my critique partners, Cheryl Vincent Clark

and Janet Shirah, who continued to believe when I didn’t.

I’d like to thank my critique partners and others who helped me with this book:

Judy Dedek, Jackie Hamilton, Celia Zweig and Colin Swift.

My editors, Darlene Winter, Diane Grecco, Kim Nadelson

and Mary-Theresa Hussey, have been enormously helpful.

As always, I depend upon the love and support of my husband.

Silhouette Romance

His Baby, Her Heart #1539

The Ranger & the Rescue #1574

A criminal defense attorney for twenty years, Sue Swift always sensed a creative wellspring bubbling inside her, but didn’t find her niche until attending a writing class with master teacher Bud Gardner. Within a short time, Sue realized her creative outlet was romance fiction. Since she began writing her first novel in November 1996, she’s sold three books and two short stories.

The 2001 president of the Sacramento Chapter of the Romance Writers of America, Sue credits the RWA, its many wonderful programs and the help of its experienced writers for her new career as a romance novelist. She also lectures to women’s and writers’ groups on various topics relating to the craft of writing.

Her hobbies are hiking, bodysurfing and kenpo karate, in which she’s earned a second-degree black belt. Sue and her real-live hero of a husband maintain homes in northern California and Maui, Hawaii. You may write Sue via e-mail at sue@sue-swift.comor at P.O. Box 241, Citrus Heights, CA 95611-0241. And please visit Sue’s Web site at www.sue-swift.com. An interview with Sue is featured at the author area of the Harlequin/Silhouette Web site at www.eHarlequin.com.

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

The most beautiful man Serenity Clare had ever seen stood at her door. Tall, lean, and utterly virile, his appearance was as unexpected as the proverbial snowball in you-know-where.

A slender ribbon of desire unfurled deep in Serenity’s body, tingly and warm.

She blinked, surprised. She’d thought Hank had destroyed her passion for any man. What was different about this guy?

He removed his Stetson, revealing short, sable hair. The pressure of his hat in the searing heat of the New Mexico summer afternoon had stuck his hair to his skull.

Rubbing his scalp, he asked, “Lori Perkins?”

Serenity took the question like a punch to the gut. Pleasure fled, blown away like dust in the desert wind. She shrank back, craving the solidity of the doorpost behind her.

She hadn’t used that name in close to a year and didn’t want to hear it now. She gazed at him while breathing deeply to recapture a calm state of mind. “I’m afraid you’ve made a mistake. Excuse me.”

She tried to close the door, but he stuck his booted toe in the way. “You’re Lori Perkins. I’ve seen a picture of you.”

Resignation filled her chest, a frightful, leaden weight. “Who are you?” she managed to whisper.

He hesitated. His Adam’s apple bobbed. Bambi-brown eyes looked too gentle for his craggy face. He shifted from side to side; his heels crunched on the gravelly stoop.

“I don’t rightly know, ma’am.” His twang reminded her of home.

A tremor ran through her body. Texas was the past, something she wanted to forget. This was getting worse and worse. “You don’t know what?”

“My name. I was hoping you could help me.” He swayed slightly. “I…I woke up in the desert, and I remembered your name and address.”

The icy fingers of fear clawed at her wits. Serenity sucked in a deep breath, commanding her body to quit trembling and her mind to begin functioning. She had to discover who this man was and how he had found her. “Do you have an ID?”

“Huh?” He stared, glassy-eyed.

“Turn around.”

He did. Hmm, she thought. The left back quarter of his jeans showed a lean, shapely buttock. A faded square marked the place in the back pocket where ninety-five out of one hundred men kept their wallets. Vanished, it would provide no answers, reveal no secrets.

“Why do you know my name, but not your own?”

Turning to face her, he opened his hands in a helpless gesture.

“Bend down. Maybe you took a whack to the head.”

“I do have a headache.”

He obliged, leaning over from the waist.

Serenity gingerly ran her fingers through his thick, dark hair, catching his male, musky scent while she parted the locks. He jerked as she contacted sticky wetness.

“Oh, my.” At his temple, a lump the size of a half-dollar oozed blood. It looked bad.