Tara Quinn: Trusting Ryan

Tara Taylor Quinn

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Title Page Trusting Ryan Tara Taylor Quinn www.millsandboon.co.uk

About the Author With more than forty-five original novels, published in more than twenty languages, Tara Taylor Quinn is a USA TODAY bestselling author. She is known for delivering deeply emotional and psychologically astute novels. Ms Quinn is a three-time finalist for the RWA RITA ® Award, a multiple finalist for the National Reader’s Choice Award, the Reviewer’s Choice Award, the Bookseller’s Best Award and the Holt Medallion. Ms Quinn recently married her college sweetheart and the couple currently lives in Ohio with their two very demanding and spoiled bosses: four-pound Taylor Marie and fifteen-pound rescue mutt/cockapoo, Jerry. When she’s not writing or fulfilling speaking engagements, Ms Quinn loves to travel with her husband, stopping wherever the spirit takes them. They’ve been spotted in casinos and quaint little antique shops all across the country.

Dedication To Tim, my own young hero who’s all grown up now. I love you more today than yesterday.

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

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Copyright

With more than forty-five original novels, published in more than twenty languages, Tara Taylor Quinnis a USA TODAY bestselling author. She is known for delivering deeply emotional and psychologically astute novels. Ms Quinn is a three-time finalist for the RWA RITA ®Award, a multiple finalist for the National Reader’s Choice Award, the Reviewer’s Choice Award, the Bookseller’s Best Award and the Holt Medallion. Ms Quinn recently married her college sweetheart and the couple currently lives in Ohio with their two very demanding and spoiled bosses: four-pound Taylor Marie and fifteen-pound rescue mutt/cockapoo, Jerry. When she’s not writing or fulfilling speaking engagements, Ms Quinn loves to travel with her husband, stopping wherever the spirit takes them. They’ve been spotted in casinos and quaint little antique shops all across the country.

To Tim,

my own young hero who’s all grown up now.

I love you more today than yesterday.

CHAPTER ONE

THE WOMAN WAS too damned gorgeous for his good. When he was with her, he couldn’t focus on anything else. Including the reasons why he, Columbus Police Detective Ryan Mercedes—one of the city’s youngest and newest special victim detectives—was not going to get romantically involved with anyone anytime in the near future.

Most particularly, he was mesmerized by her laughter—had been since he’d first met her six months before at the adoption of an incest victim he’d rescued. The young girl had been Audrey’s client.

“What?” Audrey Lincoln asked, glancing over at him in the small living room of his one-bedroom loft condominium.

On the TV Bruce—Jim Carrey—had just been endowed with God’s powers and had single-handedly taken on the gang of thugs who’d earlier beaten him up. The scene involved a birth-worthy monkey and cracked Ryan up every time he saw it.

“Nothing,” he said, maintaining eye contact with the woman sitting next to him. They’d started hanging out a few months ago. Catching an occasional movie or meeting for a cup of coffee.

“I thought you liked this movie.”

Bruce Almighty . He’d seen it so many times the lines randomly popped into his head. “I do.”

“You said it was your favorite.”

“It is.”

“Then why aren’t you watching it?”

Good question.

“I am.”

Her brown eyes narrowed in a way that made him hungry. She stared at him a second longer, then turned back to the large screen television across from them.

They weren’t dating. Weren’t on a date. They were just friends. Watching a movie on a Saturday night.

So what if, the week before, they’d moved their watching from a generic theater to his home?

This was where the old movies were.

They’d watched her favorite movie, The Mirror Has TwoFaces , the previous week. She’d said she related to the main character, Barbra Streisand’s version of a university sociology professor. The woman had struggled with being ugly. Undesirable.

Audrey Lincoln had no such worries.

“What?” She was looking at him again.

Sorry, Jim , Ryan silently apologized to the actor who’d given him more hours of hilarious entertainment mixed with just a bit of life lesson than he could count. “You thirsty?” he asked his guest.

“A little.”

He stood. Delilah, the cat, opened one eye from her perch on the back of the recliner. “Wine, beer or diet soda?”

“A glass of wine would be great.”

He thought so, too. It meant she’d have to stay around a while. Or he’d be forced to arrest her for DUI, and they certainly couldn’t have that.

AUDREY COULDN’T remember ever laughing so hard. And she’d seen most of Jim Carrey’s movies more than once. Was familiar with his brand of humor. Enjoyed it. Just never this much.

Or perhaps—she glanced over at the handsome detective sitting on the other end of the couch finishing off his glass of wine—it was the company?

Credits rolled. She didn’t want the evening to end. Tomorrow it was back to work—no matter that the calendar read Sunday. Audrey hadn’t had a day off in longer than she could remember.

She didn’t really want one.

Days off led to introspection, which led to…

Nothing that she needed to be concerned about tonight.

“Okay, so tell me why that’s your favorite movie,” she said, smiling at her companion.

He shrugged, leaving the remote on the table beside him, the DVD flashing its welcome screen. “It’s funny.”

“And?”

“How do you know there’s more?” His glance was intense again—just as it had been during the movie. Her stomach tightened, whether from reaction or dread, she wasn’t sure.

Maybe both.

For a thirty-five-year-old woman who spent her days trying to protect the hearts of damaged children, she was embarrassingly inexperienced when it came to matters of her own heart.

“I may have known you only a few months, Mercedes, but for a cop who’s been around long enough to make detective, you’re surprisingly empathetic. That’s an amazing feat. One that only a man with some depth could manage. So, show me the depth. Why’s that your favorite movie?”

The wine was talking. Ordinarily, Audrey would never be so bold. Especially not with a man she actually liked. More than as just an acquaintance. A peer.

Were they actually becoming friends?

She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a personal friend.

“I don’t know.” Ryan didn’t look away as many men would have when faced with a touchy-feely question. “Maybe because I’m a control freak and the idea of having God’s power is so compelling I have to keep coming back for more?”

She studied him. Thought about what he said. Shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“Because you aren’t power-hungry.”

“How do you know?”