“Hello, Trixie.”
Tessa slammed on the brakes. Her heart leaped in her chest as she saw the man’s face in the mirror. She gripped the steering wheel, scenarios of stalkers and what they did to their victims running through her head.
Then she realized the significance of what the man had said.
Trixie. He’d said Trixie. There was only one person in the world who’d ever called her that. It was his pet name for her. Too stunned to speak, she stared into the rearview mirror at Frankie Hamilton. At least, she thought it must be him. He bore little resemblance to the boy she’d known. The mixed-up boy for whom she’d almost thrown away her future.
Dear Reader,
Welcome to my twentieth Harlequin Superromance novel. I hope you enjoy my latest tale, and especially the characters I’ve created. The idea for this book came to me when I was contemplating the nature of marriage. With divorce rates high, and young people staying single longer, or forever, I wanted to write a story about the enduring nature of marriage, even if the couple runs into problems they think they can’t overcome.
A central question in plotting was, when two people love each other deeply and have built a life together, what could pull them apart? To me, most sins are forgivable. In any relationship, people let each other down. They also grow and change from who they were when they took their vows, and this growth doesn’t always occur at the same rate for both. Having been married for over three decades—I’ll be celebrating the thirty-fifth anniversary with my own personal hero right when this book comes out—I know the ups and downs of relationships. I also know that trusting someone implicitly, even after a difficult time, is a true joy. It’s worth working toward.
In Tell Me No Lies, Dan and Tessa Logan have an ideal marriage—on the surface. But the pasts of both threaten their happiness, and send each into a tailspin. They do love each other, though, and learn that loving means forgiving even the deepest breaches of trust. I enjoyed seeing Dan and Tessa learn this, and I hope you do, too.
I love to hear from readers. E-mail me at [email protected] or write to me at P.O. Box 24288, Rochester, NY 14624. And please visit my Web site at www.kathrynshay.com, and the Harlequin Superromance author site at www.superauthors.com.
Happy reading,
Kathryn Shay
Tell Me No Lies
Kathryn Shay
For Zilla Soriano—
thanks for picking my first book out of the slush pile, loving the rest of them and helping to make each better. I miss you.
CONTENTS
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 ONE
AS TESSA LOGAN POURED the jasmine bath salts into her claw-footed tub, she thought about her husband. Tonight they’d celebrate their tenth wedding anniversary. Picturing the evening to come, she smiled, turned on the taps and breathed in the scented steam. Her daughters were staying with her sister for the next twenty-four hours, and Dan would be home from work any time now. She hummed as she stood, pinned up her hair and undressed.
The dinner was ready. She’d placed a prime-rib roast in the oven, set the potatoes in the microwave to bake later, stuck the green salad she’d put together in the refrigerator and uncorked the merlot. The next sixty minutes were just for her.
She crossed into the bedroom, newly done in shades of green with white accents. Dan had been surprised at the redecoration, so different from the rest of the traditional colonial furniture and earth tones in the rest of their rambling Victorian. She didn’t know why she’d taken this tack with the bedroom, except that once in a while she felt stifled by the constraints of her life.
The phone rang as she removed a box from her dresser drawer.
“Hello.” She expected it to be Dan, and hoped he wasn’t calling to say he’d be late getting home from work.
“Hey, Tessa.” Her sister.
“Hi, Janey. Everything okay?”
“Yep. Just checking to make sure you’re wearing the gift I bought for you.”
“I’ve got it in my hand. I’m running my bath now.” She chuckled. “You know Dan will be scandalized.”
“St. Daniel could use some loosening up.”
Tessa hesitated. “Don’t tease about him, Janey. Please.”
“Sorry.” She could visualize her sister’s hazel eyes, just like her own, filled with sympathy. Though they were six years apart, they seemed closer in age because they looked so much alike. “You know I love Dan to pieces. It’s just that he’s so straitlaced.”
“Straitlaced is fine by me.”
“But I hate to see you both missing some spice in your life.”
“I promise, tonight there’ll be plenty of spice. Are Sara and Molly having fun?”
“Are you kidding? My boys are falling all over them. They always wanted a sister. The four of them are out in the pool as we speak.” She chuckled. “Of course, Molly’s giving her cousins a run for their money, as usual. She’s already hidden Jason’s baseball glove and checked Jim’s e-mail.”
Tessa worried about her older child. Molly never got into real trouble, but she did enough damage to keep them all hopping. She seemed to take delight in shaking things up. “Put her on. I’ll talk to her.”
“No way. Go take your bath. Use scented oil,” Janey added before she hung up.
A few minutes later Tessa climbed into the deep tub and sighed as she sank into the hot water. She lay back on the terry-cloth pillow, closed her eyes and listened to the Debussy CD she’d put on the stereo system in the bedroom. At one time she couldn’t tell Debussy from Chopin. She hadn’t known the difference between a van Gogh and a Picasso. When she’d become part of Dan’s world, however, everything had changed.
Tessa pushed away her memories. She never let herself think about how she had lived before she met Dan because it was too painful. Tessa hadn’t always been a good person. And her husband knew nothing about her past.
If Tessa had her way, he never would.
DAN LOGAN ENTERED the kitchen through the garage. He’d left work early, something he seldom did, but tonight was special, and he couldn’t wait to get home. The girls were with Janey, and he and Tessa had the whole house to themselves. Stopping to put the red roses into a vase, he caught the scent of roasting meat and got a peek at the set table in the dining room. He smiled. The home Tessa had made for him was everything he wanted—well decorated, yet not ostentatious. A calm, peaceful haven after a day in the criminal