Judy Duarte: The Matchmakers' Daddy

at the construction worker outside her kitchen window. He was a big man, brawny and tan, with coal-black hair some might think needed a trim.

She didn’t think so. Hair that was a bit long and unruly looked good on him. And he had one of those don’t-mess-with-me auras. Something that suggested he hadn’t been pampered.

It had been a long time since a guy with an edge had turned her head. But Diana knew better than to get involved with anyone again. Just the other night, while tucking her daughters into bed and listening to their prayers, her daughters had asked God for a new daddy to make their family complete. But Diana hadn’t been able to utter an amen to that.

She didn’t want another husband. Every man who’d ever loved her, every man she should have been able to depend upon, had disappointed her or hurt her, in one way or another.

Yet, for some silly reason, she couldn’t help looking out the kitchen window one last time.

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

To Betty Astleford, who never met a bad boy she didn’t like. You’ve taught us a lot about tolerance and second chances.

I love you, Mom.

An avid reader who enjoys a happy ending, Judy Duarte always wanted to write books of her own. One day, she decided to make that dream come true. Five years and six manuscripts later, she sold her first book to Silhouette Special Edition.

Her unpublished stories have won the Emily and the Orange Rose, and in 2001, she became a double Golden Heart finalist. Judy credits her success to Romance Writers of America and two wonderful critique partners, Sheri WhiteFeather and Crystal Green, both of whom write for Silhouette.

At times, when a stubborn hero and a headstrong heroine claim her undivided attention, she and her family are thankful for fast food, pizza delivery and video games. When she’s not at the keyboard or in a Walter Mitty–type world, she enjoys traveling, spending romantic evenings with her personal hero and playing board games with her kids.

Judy lives in Southern California and loves to hear from her readers. You may write to her at: P.O. Box 498, San Luis Rey, CA 92068-0498. You can also visit her Web site at www.judyduarte.com.

From the Bayside Banner:

Two men, one armed with a 9mm automatic, robbed the Speedy-Stop on Richland Road last night. Shots rang out as Charles Tompkins, owner of the convenience store, tried to defend himself and his clerk, Clara Willet, a forty-seven-year-old grandmother of two.

The gunman ran off with an estimated four hundred dollars, but his accomplice, nineteen-year-old Zachary Henderson, was arrested at the scene.

Marilyn Santos, who lives down the street from the Speedy-Stop and was in the store at the time, said, “That Zack Henderson has been a juvenile delinquent for years and is a known troublemaker. He said he wasn’t involved in the robbery, but I saw him and the other man get out of the same car and enter the store together.”

Mrs. Willet was shot in the shoulder and is being treated at Oceana General Hospital. The condition of Mr. Tompkins, who received a gunshot wound to the back, was not available at press time.

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

Zack Henderson was used to neighborhood kids gawking at him when he ran the bulldozer at local construction sites, but usually those kids were boys.

What possible interest could girls have in tractors, dirt and diesel fuel?

Along the block wall that separated the backyards of an older neighborhood from the future site of a new subdivision, two little girls perched in the summer sun, giggling, whispering to themselves and occasionally waving at him.

And for some goofy reason, he would always wave back. Maybe because it made him feel a bit heroic, in spite of being anything but.

He wiped his hand across his forehead, drying the perspiration that gathered there. Then he took a swig of water from the jug he kept in the cab of his dozer.

God, it was hot today. He glanced at the girls and wondered when they’d get tired or bored and go inside. Not anytime soon, he guessed. The heat and noise didn’t seem to bother them at all.

They were cute kids. The smaller one had brown, curly, shoulder-length hair and held a teddy bear in the crook of her arm.

The older girl, a blonde with long hair, looked about ten or eleven. While Zack watched, she took a drink from the red plastic cup that rested between them, then wiggled her fingers at him again. And like he’d done several times over the course of the afternoon, he smiled and waved back.

Their interest in him and his tractor had him stumped. But what did an ex-con like him know about kids—especially girls?

He’d only met Emily, his four-year-old daughter, for the very first time a couple of months ago, just after he’d been paroled. And he still felt way out of his league. But he had learned Emily was big on kitties and new party shoes—not bulldozers, dust and noise.

The warm, pungent smell of diesel and the roar of the engine hung in the cab of the D9L Caterpillar, as Zack continued to clear and grub the thirty-seven acres that would soon be a new housing development called Mariposa Glen.

Bob Adams, the owner of Bayside Construction, had taken a chance and hired Zack right out of prison, going so far as to write letters to the parole board on his behalf and getting him into the union. Bob used to live down the street from Zack and his uncle, and when Zack started working on an old beat-up truck in the driveway, Bob would stop by and shoot the breeze about the Chargers, rebuilt engines and stuff like that.