“You protect and serve even in the middle of the night. How diligent.”
This guy was a hunk. He didn’t need a weapon to make a woman swoon; just one good look at him in his current state of undress would do the trick. Tall, dark and hot. That meant he was Mitch Lassiter, and she’d been right on one point. He was the enemy. And she was pretending to be his best friend’s wife.
“I suppose you have a reason for harassing me inside my apartment.”
“Other than the fact that you’re supposed to be dead, no.”
“Dead? I assure you, I’m very much alive, Officer Lassiter.”
Jennifer Burton was alive, well and back in Belmar. Scowling, Mitch rubbed the throbbing area between his eyes. There was a lot he didn’t like about his friend. Though there was a lot he didn’t like about life in general, and Jennifer Burton’s return was probably going to add a few things to that list.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Marilyn Pappano brings impeccable credentials to her career – a lifelong habit of gazing out of windows, not paying attention in class, daydreaming and spinning tales for her own entertainment. The sale of her first book brought great relief to her family, proving that she wasn’t crazy but was, instead, creative. Since then, she’s sold more than forty books to various publishers and even a film production company.
She writes in an office nestled among the oaks that surround her home. In winter she stays inside with her husband and their four dogs, and in summer she spends her free time mowing the garden, which never stops growing and daydreams about grass that never gets taller than two inches. You can write to her at PO Box 643, Sapulpa, OK 74067–0643, USA.
Dear Reader,
Hurricanes fascinate me, as much when I’m watching the news coverage as they did when I lived on the coast and kept a hurricane evacuation list handy. (First to go into the car: family photographs. Second: books, of course.) I never had an up-close-and-personal experience with a hurricane, though I did have to leave Charleston when Hurricane David hit, and I moved to Mobile a few weeks after Frederick. Being an Oklahoma girl, I never wanted to be up-close-and-personal.
Hurricane Jan is both an ending and a beginning for Jessica Randall. It brings her to the Mississippi coast and introduces her to Mitch Lassiter, who isn’t at all what he seems. I love heroes like Mitch – ones where you can’t figure out whether they’re really as bad as they act. It’s a question Jess wrestles with, because, like Mitch, her life depends on everyone believing she’s something she’s not.
Hope you enjoy the storm!
Marilyn Pappano
One Stormy Night
MARILYN PAPPANO
Contents
Prologue
The house creaked as the winds buffeted it. Jennifer Burton spared only a glance for the scene outside—night-dark sky, pouring rain, trees flailing wildly—before turning back to her task.
Hurricane Jan was just off the coast of Belmar, Mississippi, and everyone with any sense had already evacuated inland. Jennifer planned to join them just as soon as she found what she’d come to the house for. As chief of police, Taylor was far too busy to worry about what his wife was up to; he’d never dream that she’d returned to their house, a scant mile off the beach with Timmons Creek flooding through the backyard.
He would never dream she’d found the backbone to search for, much less run off with, evidence to use against him.
Something smashed into the house, vibrating through the boards and brick, making her jump as she opened the door into Taylor’s study. The forbidden room—that was how she’d come to think of it in the three years they’d been married. The day they’d returned from their honeymoon and moved her belongings into the house, he had taken her to the closed door. This is my room. You don’t clean it. You don’t look for anything inside it. You don’t even cross the threshold. Understand?
Her sister, Jessica, never would have allowed a man to ban her from entering a room inside her own home. She would have made a habit of going in just to spite him and she would have left traces that she’d been there.
Jessica never would have allowed much of what Taylor had done.
Encouraged by the thought of her sister, Jennifer stepped inside. The overhead lights flickered as the wind continued to batter the house. Phone service was already out and the roads were flooding—she’d had to take a detour to get there. Soon the storm would come ashore and damage or destroy everything in its path.
She hoped Taylor was in its path.
Her hand trembled on the flashlight she’d brought along just in case. She didn’t know what she was looking for, but she knew in her bones that, whatever it was, Taylor was hiding it here. Financial records, perhaps; there was no way the city paid enough to account for even half of his extravagant lifestyle.
Maybe blackmail records. She’d heard whispers that the police department coerced and intimidated regular payments from most of the businesses in town.
Maybe…maybe… She didn’t know, and the thunder of a tree crashing into the house next door reminded her that she had precious little time to waste. She would take