Elizabeth Lane - The Lawman's Vow

Pulse hammering, he opened the bedroom door.

Sylvie lay in a spill of moonlight on the double bed. She smiled, turned onto her back and held out her arms—an innocent temptress in a muslin gown she’d unfastened all the way to her belly.

He knew what would happen if he got into that bed. She had to know it, too. But he needed to be sure she understood the consequences.

ELIZABETH LANEhas lived and travelled in many parts of the world, including Europe, Latin America and the Far East, but her heart remains in the American West, where she was born and raised. Her idea of heaven is hiking a mountain trail on a clear autumn day. She also enjoys music, animals and dancing. You can learn more about Elizabeth by visiting her website at www.elizabethlaneauthor.com

Previous novels by this author:

ANGELS IN THE SNOW

(part of Stay for Christmas anthology)

HER DEAREST ENEMY

THE STRANGER

THE BORROWED BRIDE * Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.

HIS SUBSTITUTE BRIDE * Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.

THE HOMECOMING

(part of Cowboy Christmas anthology)

THE HORSEMAN’S BRIDE * Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.

THE HAND-ME-DOWN BRIDE

(part of Weddings Under a Western Sky)

ON THE WINGS OF LOVE

* Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом. linked by character

Did you know that some of these novels are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

Elizabeth Lane

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To my readers—your inspiration keeps me writing .

Author Note

We all make vows and promises. Many are swiftly broken or forgotten over time. But some vows are as binding as chains of iron.

This is the story of one such vow.

When his sister is found murdered in an alley, San Francisco lawman Flynn O’Rourke promises to find the man seen pocketing her jewellery and bring him to justice at the end of a rope.

Flynn’s journey will test that vow to its limits. Deprived of his memory and transported to a lonely, almost mystical place, he will fall under the spell of an innocent beauty. Will he keep his vow—even though it means betraying the woman he loves?

Untouched by sensual love, Sylvie wakes to desire in the arms of a stranger with no name. Little does she suspect that the man she calls Ishmael harbours a dangerous secret—one that will tear her fragile world apart.

The idea for this book came to me when I was visiting my daughter in Northern California. Standing on a rugged cliff top with the dark pine forest behind me and the sea pounding the rocks below, I imagined a wild storm, a boat shattering against those rocks and a man with a mysterious ring flung onto the sand, more dead than alive. The rest of the story almost told itself.

I love hearing from my readers. You can contact me through my website, www.elizabethlaneauthor.com

Happy reading.

Northern California Coast, March 1858

The storm had slammed in from nowhere, howling with the fury of a banshee run amok. Lightning cracked across the dark night sky. Thunder echoed like mortar fire through the blackness. Lashed by a screaming wind, waves crashed over the fifteen-foot sailboat, threatening to crush its fragile hull.

Wrestling with the tiller, San Francisco police detective Flynn O’Rourke swore into the storm. He cursed the wind and the sea and the hell-damned boat. And he cursed himself for thinking he could sail up the coast to Aaron Cragun’s cliff-top hideaway and catch the murdering little weasel unaware. As a sailor he was competent enough; but he was no match for a storm like this one. The sails were gone, clawed away by the wind. Worse, in the swirling darkness, with no stars to guide him, he had lost all sense of direction.

A lightning flash illuminated the sapphire signet ring on the middle finger of his left hand. The ring was the one thing Flynn had inherited from his father—the younger son of Irish nobility, who’d died penniless in the New World, leaving his son and daughter to make their own way. Both had managed well enough. Flynn had recently made the rank of lieutenant in San Francisco’s police department. His sister had used her voice and her beauty to become a music-hall star.

Now his sister was dead, strangled in a filthy dark alley after a performance. A shabbily dressed man had been seen crouching over her body, pocketing her jewelry. Witnesses had identified him as Aaron Cragun, a human vulture who collected and sold salvage from shipwrecks up the coast.

Cragun was nowhere to be found. But a police informant had drawn Flynn a map of the coast, showing the remote cliffside aerie where the man lived. When the storm struck, Flynn had been on his way there, bent on dragging the bastard to the gallows or gunning him down on the spot.

Now he found himself fighting for his life.

The hull was filling with water. Abandoning the tiller, Flynn grabbed a bucket and began bailing like a madman. But it was no use. Anytime now, if it didn’t capsize first, the sloop would founder and sink.