Sally Berneathy - Private Vows

“Who are you?” she asked.

“I told you, I’m Cole Grayson.”

“That’s not what I mean. They’ve been calling me Jane Doe. That might even be my name, or maybe it’s Susan Smith or Mary Jackson. But whatever it is, a name doesn’t tell anything about who I am or who you are.”

He gazed down at her for a long moment then finally turned away and angled a hip onto the windowsill, studying their reflection in the dark glass. “I’m nobody you want to know.”

A gray veil of desolation emanated from him. She could see it, feel it in the weight of the air, smell the leaden scent, taste the bitter agony. Perhaps because her mind was completely empty of her own emotions, his came to her, strong and clear.

“I don’t have a choice right now,” she said. “You’re the only person I know.”

Dear Harlequin Intrigue Reader,

The recipe for a perfect Valentine’s Day: chocolate, champagne—and four original romantic suspense titles from Harlequin Intrigue!

Our TOP SECRET BABIES promotion kicks off with Rita Herron’s Saving His Son (#601). Devastated single mother Lindsey Payne suspects her child is alive and well—and being kept from her deliberately. The only man who’d be as determined as she is to find her child is Detective Gavin McCord—if he knew he’d fathered her missing baby….

In Best-Kept Secrets (#602) by Dani Sinclair, the tongues in MYSTERY JUNCTION are wagging about newcomer Jake Collins. Amy Thomas’s first and only love has returned at last and she’s ready to tell him the secret she’s long kept hidden. But would revealing it suddenly put her life in jeopardy?

Our ON THE EDGE program continues with Private Vows (#603) by Sally Steward.A beautiful amnesiac is desperate to remember her past. Investigator Cole Grayson is desperate to keep it hidden. For if she remembers the truth, she’d never be his….

Bachelor Will Sheridan thinks he’s found the perfect Mystery Bride (#604) in B.J. Daniels’s latest romantic thriller. But the sexy and provocative Samantha Murphy is a female P.I. in the middle of a puzzling case when Will suddenly becomes her shadow. Now with desire distracting her and a child’s life in the balance, Samantha and Will are about to discover the true meaning of “partnership”!

Sincerely,

Denise O’Sullivan

Associate Senior Editor

Harlequin Intrigue

Private Vows

Sally Steward

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Sally Steward, a hard-core romantic who expects life and novels to have happy endings, is married to Max and they live in Missouri, with their large cat, Leo, and their very small dog, Cricket. Although this is her first Harlequin Intrigue, Sally has written for mainstream publishers under her own name, and for Silhouette Romance as Sally Carleen. Her hobbies are drinking Coca-Cola and eating chocolate, especially Ben & Jerry’s Phish Food ice cream. Sally loves to hear from her readers, and you can contact her at P.O. Box 6614, Lee’s Summit, MO 64064.

Books by Sally Steward

HARLEQUIN INTRIGUE

603—PRIVATE VOWS

Cole Grayson—The former-cop-turned-private-investigator wants to help the beautiful woman with amnesia but fears he will only lead her straight to hell.

Mary Jackson—She can’t remember anything from her past except for vague, terrifying images, images that fit with the blood on her wedding gown.

Pete Townley—The police officer is skeptical of Mary’s story. Does she really have amnesia or is she covering up a deadly secret?

Sam Maynard—He claims to be Mary’s fiancé. He’s obsessed with her, has his bedroom plastered with her pictures.

Geoffrey Sloan—He’s wealthy, charming and handsome and also says he’s Mary’s fiancé….

For Sharon Bishop.

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

Epilogue

With the top down on his big old T-bird convertible and one arm angled out the window, Cole Grayson drove slowly along Turtle Creek Boulevard, focusing on the trees and flowers, breathing in their essence, breathing out the bad taste his last job had left with him. This wasn’t the fastest way home by any means, but the older, wooded area—so close to downtown Dallas in actual mileage but so distant in other ways—always soothed him.

The early-June evening and the location were perfect, but they weren’t working their magic, weren’t dissolving that edgy, irritable feeling. He sat upright in the seat, fingers clenching the steering wheel, eyes darting from side to side, glowering at other drivers, ready to lean on the horn if somebody committed a slight infraction. What the hell was the matter with him? He should be happy!

He’d just turned in his final report on his last job, helping a large corporation catch an embezzler. Last month he’d found proof of fraud in an insurance scam. Business was booming, and it was good business. It paid better than being a cop and was certainly less dangerous.

And he felt totally useless.

Up ahead a woman emerged from between two buildings and paused, looking up and down the street. Cole sat even straighter and blinked, doubting his own eyes.

The woman wore a formal bridal gown.

Her clothing alone was enough to make him take notice, but it was her face, pale in the gathering dusk, her eyes wide with fear, that really caught his attention.

His foot jerked off the gas pedal and hovered over the brake but he ordered himself to go on. This was none of his business. He wasn’t a cop any longer and hadn’t been a very effective one when he was. The woman didn’t appear to be hurt. There was no reason for him to interfere.

A shabbily dressed man approached her and laid a hand on her arm. She screamed and whirled on the man, pummeling him with both fists. He tried to grab her hands, but she bolted into the street, directly in front of Cole’s car, the inappropriate yards of satin and lace billowing around her as she moved.

Cole slammed the brake pedal to the floor. His stomach lurched and a cold hand squeezed his heart as he felt and heard the sickening thud when over a ton of metal collided with a hundred pounds of flesh and bone.

The bride and all her regalia vanished from sight, hidden by the hood of his car.

He vaulted into the street, cursing himself, the woman, the man who’d frightened her…the world.

She lay on her stomach, almost hidden by the folds and layers of that damn frilly material.

Cole knelt beside her and picked up her arm encased in a lacy sleeve fastened with a bunch of little buttons. His big fingers trembled as he wrapped them around her slim wrist, searching for a pulse while his own pounded in his ears and made hers that much harder to distinguish.

He’d been a cop for twelve years. He ought to be used to this kind of thing.

But he wasn’t and he hadn’t been even when he lived with it on a daily basis.

He found her pulse, weak and fast as though she was in shock…or the terror he’d seen on her face still gripped her, but at least she was alive. Thank God he’d been going slow, that he’d already been poised to brake.

“Is she okay?” a man asked. Not the street person who’d scared her but a jogger, his face damp with perspiration.

“There’s a cell phone in my car! Call 911. Hurry!”