Cathy Thacker: Tangled Web

“You have no right…” Hope whispered.

“Oh, really?” Chase knew, feeling as he did about her, that he had every right. “Just what constitutes passion in your view, Hope? A touch? A kiss?” He slanted his lips over hers, all the need he held back surging to the surface. “Is this passion enough for you, Hope?” His mouth brushed hers. “What about this?” Pulling her closer, Chase trailed his lips over her jaw, tasting the flavor of her skin. “Or this?”

Hope’s legs buckled as her body went fluid. Needing something to hold on to, she reached out to Chase, seduced by the promise of his arms. “I want you,” she whispered.

Suddenly Chase closed his eyes. He’d never meant to go this far. He whispered, in a low, tortured voice, racked with guilt, “But we can’t—”

Dear Reader,

I grew up the second child, and the oldest daughter, of five children. I was lucky enough to have a close, loving family, and today they—along with my husband and three children—remain a source of love and strength for me. I don’t know what I’d ever do without them.

But what about the people who are not as lucky as I? What is it like to grow up without a family who loves you and supports you every step of the way?

And yet, people do emerge from such childhoods to become caring adults. Often it is due to the love of those around them. A teacher or a friend. It doesn’t matter who it is, as long as someone loves you enough to take you into his heart and under his wing somewhere along the way.

Families are formed where no biological ties exist, and yet these families are every bit as strong as the real thing.

Hope Barrister is one of those people who didn’t have the love she should have had as a child. But she found it in her decades-older husband…. And though the love that sustained their marriage was not the romantic sort, it was strong and enduring, and a real lifeline for Hope and the baby she bore.

Chase Barrister, on the other hand, grew up loved and adored by both his parents. He doesn’t understand—or trust—Hope, his father’s young widow. But he is determined to do right by his stepbrother, and at last find out why and how his father came to marry Hope. And in understanding, he learns much about Hope and himself. And finds his own true love, as well.

I hope you enjoy this book—it’s one of my all-time favorites.

Happy reading!

www.millsandboon.co.uk

married her high school sweetheart and hasn’t had a dull moment since. Why, you ask? Well, there were three kids, various pets, any number of automobiles, several moves across the country, his and her careers and sundry other experiences she wouldn’t trade for the world (some of which were exciting and some of which weren’t). But mostly, there was love and friendship and laughter.

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

Chapter Sixteen

Epilogue

“Chase, can you hear me?” Rosemary Barrister shouted.

“Barely,” Chase shouted back, holding the field telephone up to his face. A caterpillar dropped from a nearby tree and crawled up his arm. He swatted at it irritably, then wiped at the sweat dripping down the back of his neck. He hated having his work interrupted, and knowing his mother, despite the trouble she’d had to go through to track him down, this was something trivial.

“What’s up?” he asked, trying his best to keep the terseness out of his tone.

“That trollop is ruining your father’s store, that’s what!” His mother shouted back hysterically, the static on the long-distance line covering none of her intense dislike for his father’s second wife. “I want you to come back to the States immediately!”

Chase emitted a heavy sigh and swore silently. Rosemary’s timing was the pits, as always. He was right in the middle of important medical research and getting out of the Costa Rican rain forest was no easy trick. And if this call went as usual, he’d make no headway with her at all. “Mom, I can’t do that right now—”

“Fine!” Rosemary countered, her faint voice rising stridently.

“But don’t come crying to me when Barrister’s goes bankrupt next month and we both lose our sole source of support.”

“Mom, it can’t be that bad—” Chase said in the most soothing tone he could manage. Mesmerized by the sheer beauty of it, he watched a sunbird fly from branch to branch in the canopy of trees above him where raindrops glinted like shiny pearls at the ends of pointed leaves. Damn, but he loved it here, where there were no phones, no family hassles, nothing but the work he loved….

“The hell it can’t! Barrister’s lost money last month, Chase, and the month before that! Haven’t you been reading your statements?”

Chase tore his eyes from the hanging orchids above him and concentrated on what his mother was saying. “Well, no.” He had no interest in the family department store; she knew that.

“The rent on my villa is due, Chase. I’ll be evicted if I don’t come up with some cash soon.”

Now that was a problem. “Where are you?” Chase asked, frowning. The way Rosemary flitted around, there was no telling.

“Monte Carlo. Chase, are you coming home or not?”

Chase groped for the canteen fastened to his waist, put it to his lips and drank deeply of the cool water. He didn’t want to go home. He never was in Houston for more than a day or so if he could help it, and usually he could. But this time it looked as if he had no choice. If he didn’t get things straightened out at the store, then he’d have no income and his mother would have no income. Which meant Rosemary would be on his back constantly, and he’d have to stop his research.

“Yes, I’ll go home.” He heaved a reluctant sigh, promising silently that he would only stay as long as it took to get the trouble settled.

THERE’S NO REASON this should be so hard, Chase told himself several days later as he parked his Jeep in front of the River Oaks mansion where he’d grown up. But it was hard, now that his father was gone. He hadn’t been back to Houston since the funeral over a year ago, and even then he’d avoided coming to the house, staying in town only long enough to attend the memorial service and say a last private goodbye to a man he’d never really known.

It shouldn’t have ended that way, with the two of them being more or less estranged, but there’d been no choice. They couldn’t lie to each other, and even if they had, they still would’ve both known the truth, that Chase felt disloyal being anywhere near the woman who had broken up his parents’ twenty-six-year marriage. Maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad had Hope not been so damn young—nineteen when she first married his father, and twenty when her son, Joey, was born. Or if she hadn’t been such a striking, sensual beauty, with her wide blue eyes, generous mouth and full lips, silky dark hair and fair skin.

She was so damn gorgeous and ripe-looking she could have married anyone she wanted. So much so that from the very beginning Chase had been unable to help but be aware of her, and he still felt guilty as hell about that. Now that she was single again she would be open to involvement and sending out signals, unconscious or otherwise, to that effect. He wondered how he would respond. It wouldn’t be easy seeing her look at another man or even him as a potential suitor. There was no way he would ever have wanted to desire his father’s young wife, but he had. Not that she had tried to make him notice her. If anything, Hope downplayed her physicality, retaining that mysterious air of innocence she had in her most unguarded moments.