Vivienne Wallington - In Her Husband's Image

Only it was no ghost. It was a solid, flesh-and-blood male. A male with the same handsome, square-jawed face, the same piercing gray eyes, the same whip-hard, broad-shouldered frame, the same unruly dark hair and deeply bronzed skin.

The same man, she realized in shock, who’d fooled her five years ago, to her eternal shame, who’d made her feel things she’d never felt before or since, who’d haunted her dreams and tormented her waking hours for the past five years.

Zac Hammond, her late husband’s identical twin brother. The brother she’d met only one time, on that fateful night, and saw again every time she looked at her son.

Dear Reader,

Well, it’s that time of year again—and if those beautiful buds of April are any indication, you’re in the mood for love! And what better way to sustain that mood than with our latest six Special Edition novels? We open the month with the latest installment of Sherryl Woods’s MILLION DOLLAR DESTINIES series, Priceless. When a pediatric oncologist who deals with life and death on a daily basis meets a sick child’s football hero, she thinks said hero can make the little boy’s dreams come true. But little does she know that he can make hers a reality, as well! Don’t miss this compelling story….

MERLYN COUNTY MIDWIVES continues with Maureen Child’s Forever…Again, in which a man who doesn’t believe in second chances has a change of mind—not to mention heart—when he meets the beautiful new public relations guru at the midwifery clinic. In Cattleman’s Heart by Lois Faye Dyer, a businesswoman assigned to help a struggling rancher finds that business is the last thing on her mind when she sees the shirtless cowboy meandering toward her! And Susan Mallery’s popular DESERT ROGUES are back! In The Sheik & the Princess in Waiting, a woman learns that the man she loved in college has two secrets: 1) he’s a prince; and 2) they’re married! Next, can a pregnant earthy vegetarian chef find happiness with town’s resident playboy, an admitted carnivore…and father of her child? Find out in The Best of Both Worlds by Elissa Ambrose. And in Vivienne Wallington’s In Her Husband’s Image, a widow confronted with her late husband’s twin brother is forced to decide, as she looks in the eyes of her little boy, if some secrets are worth keeping.

So enjoy the beginnings of spring, and all six of these wonderful books! And don’t forget to come back next month for six new compelling reads from Silhouette Special Edition.

Happy reading!

Gail Chasan

Senior Editor

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For John

lives in Melbourne, Australia. Previously a librarian and children’s writer, she now writes romance full-time. Reading, family and travel are her other main interests. She has written nineteen Harlequin Romance novels under the pseudonym Elizabeth Duke and now writes for Silhouette Books under her real name. Vivienne and her husband, John, have a daughter and son and five wonderful grandchildren. She would love to hear from readers, who can write to her c/o Silhouette Books, 233 Broadway, Suite 1001, New York, NY 10279 or e-mail viv.wallington@bigpond.com.

Rachel Hammond: Her husband’s death had put her in charge of their family cattle station, Yarrah Downs, and she was determined to make it a success. But Zac, her handsome as sin and twice as tempting brother-in-law, kept intruding on her thougths….

Zac Hammond: In the wake of his brother’s death this nomadic photographer had finally come home and found Rachel, the one woman who made him yearn to settle down. But the flaxen-haired beauty was a forbidden desire.

Mikey Hammond: An adventuresome little boy sorely in need of a father figure…one he found in his uncle Zac. They shared the same wild streak—and love for Rachel. Little did they know their bond went even deeper than that.

The Saboteur: The nameless, faceless enemy bent on destroying Yarrah Downs. Rachel and Zac would stop at nothing to save the cattle station. If only they knew who it was they were fighting.

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

“Mummy, will you buy me a gun for my birfday? Then I can go out shooting wild pigs with Vince.”

Rachel nearly fell over. “Mikey, you’re only three years old—”

“I’ll be four in three more sleeps. Vince says I can’t go out shooting wif him till I get my own gun.”

Rachel silently cursed her head stockman for not telling her son outright that guns and wild-boar hunting were only for grown-ups. Maybe when Vince had children of his own, he’d have more sense. “He meant when you were grown up, Mikey. Only grown-ups can use guns. Come and help me feed the chickens. And let’s see how many eggs we can find.”

“Okay.” Mikey brightened and ran on ahead with Buster, his frisky Blue Heeler.

Rachel vowed to have a word with Vince the minute he returned from checking the water bores. She was already peeved with the sandy-haired stockman for not consulting her more on station matters and making decisions that were rightfully hers. She was in charge here at Yarrah Downs now that her husband was gone, not Vince.

But of course Vince didn’t expect her to stay on here. Nobody did. Widows with young children weren’t usually interested or capable of running outback cattle stations. Especially pampered city-born widows.

Rachel glowered into the dust. The lack of any good spring or summer rains and the continuing hot dry spell was the last straw. If they didn’t get some real rain soon, the already low dams would dry up, the parched paddocks would run out of feed and they’d be in even bigger trouble than they already were. A couple of brand-new water bores would help, but she simply couldn’t afford them.

As she trudged after Mikey, she heard a light plane coming in. Her father wouldn’t fly up here today, surely, three days before Mikey’s birthday. He would never stay at Yarrah Downs overnight, let alone for three nights. He hated the outback, and besides, he was always far too busy running Barrington’s.

Her frown deepened. Had he flown up here expressly to try again to talk her into selling and coming back to Sydney? Hedley Barrington never gave up!

She could hear him already. “This is no place for a woman without a husband, or a boy without a father. You can’t possibly run this huge, isolated place on your own, Rachel, now that Adrian’s gone. Nobody would expect you to.”

She kept telling him that she intended to try, that Yarrah Downs was her home, and Mikey’s, too. But she never got through.

“And what about Barrington’s? You’re my only child, Rachel. Running our chain of department stores is what you trained for and what I’ve always counted on. I won’t live forever—you lost your mother last year and I’m five years older than she was. I want you to come back and help me run Barrington’s so you’ll be ready to take over when I retire…or shuffle off altogether.”

“Dad, I belong here. I love it here. I feel free and at peace. I never felt like that back in Sydney. I felt stifled…suffocated…trapped in a life I didn’t want.”

“Rot! You always had everything you could possibly want and all the freedom you could need. I even let you go off and travel the world, on the understanding you’d come back when I needed you. I even let you marry that hick Queensland cattleman of yours against my better judgment. But he’s dead now. There’s no need for you to stay here any longer. I’m the one who needs you now.”