A Game Of Chance. Linda Howard. Читать онлайн. Newlib. NEWLIB.NET

Автор: Linda Howard
Издательство: HarperCollins
Серия: Mills & Boon M&B
Жанр произведения: Короткие любовные романы
Год издания: 0
isbn: 9781474058889
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       Selected praise for

      LINDA

       HOWARD

      “Another firecracker Mackenzie book from favorite author Linda Howard…the hero is rough and tough, the lady is gallant, the adventure pulse-pounding and the romance sizzling hot. Another keeper for the bookshelf.”

      —Romantic Times BOOK reviews on A Game of Chance

      “Linda Howard writes with power, stunning sensuality and a storytelling ability unmatched in the romance genre. Every book is a treasure for the reader to savor again and again.”

      —New York Times bestselling author Iris Johansen

      “Ms. Howard can wring so much emotion and tension out of her characters that no matter how satisfied you are when you finish a book, you still want more.”

      —Rendezvous

      A Game of Chance

      Linda Howard

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LINDA HOWARD says that whether she’s reading them or writing them, books have long played a profound role in her life. She cut her teeth on Margaret Mitchell, and from then on continued to read widely and eagerly. Her interest has settled on romantic fiction, because she’s “easily bored by murder, mayhem and politics.” After twenty-one years of penning stories for her own enjoyment, Ms. Howard finally worked up the courage to submit a novel for publication—and met with success. This Alabama native is now a multi-New York Times bestselling author.

      For the readers

      Contents

       Cover

       praise

       Title Page

       About the Author

       Dedication

       The Beginning

       Chapter 4

       Chapter 5

       Chapter 6

       Chapter 7

       Chapter 8

       Chapter 9

       Chapter 10

       Chapter 11

       Chapter 12

       Chapter 13

       Chapter 14

       Chapter 15

       Epilogue

       Copyright

       The Beginning

      Coming back to Wyoming—coming home—always evoked in Chance Mackenzie such an intense mixture of emotions that he could never decide which was strongest, the pleasure or the acute discomfort. He was, by nature and nurture—not that there had been any nurturing in the first fourteen or so years of his life—a man who was more comfortable alone. If he was alone, then he could operate without having to worry about anyone but himself, and, conversely, there was no one to make him uncomfortable with concern about his own well-being. The type of work he had chosen only reinforced his own inclinations, because covert operations and anti-terrorist activities predicated he be both secretive and wary, trusting no one, letting no one close to him.

      And yet…And yet, there was his family. Sprawling, brawling, ferociously overachieving, refusing to let him withdraw, not that he was at all certain he could even if they would allow it. It was always jolting, alarming, to step back into that all-enveloping embrace, to be teased and questioned—teased, him, whom some of the most deadly people on earth justifiably feared—hugged and kissed, fussed over and yelled at and…loved, just as if he were like everyone else. He knew he wasn’t; the knowledge was always there, in the back of his mind, that he was not like them. But he was drawn back, again and again, by something deep inside hungering for the very things that so alarmed him. Love was scary; he had learned early and hard how little he could depend on anyone but himself.

      The fact that he had survived at all was a testament to his toughness and intelligence. He didn’t know how old he was, or where he had been born, what he was named as a child, or if he even had a name—nothing. He had no memory of a mother, a father, anyone who had taken care of him. A lot of people simply didn’t remember their childhoods, but Chance couldn’t comfort himself with that possibility, that there had been someone who had loved him and taken care of him, because he remembered too damn many other details.

      He