He Wanted Her Beside Him. Letter to Reader Title Page About the Author 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 Teaser chapter Copyright
He Wanted Her Beside Him.
Needed to hold her. Yearned to touch her soft curls as they danced down her back. Craved to have her fragrance fill his head. Hungered to know if her skin felt as velvety as it looked. Ached for her breasts to press against him, for her legs to wrap around his as their bodies merged.
He opened his eyes, needing a distraction, but the starkly erotic image still hovered, not the least hazy.
Fast. It had all happened too fast. Which qualified what he felt as infatuation. Which meant, given time, he could control it.
They had no future together. He’d seen to that eighteen years ago. To forget for a minute that he was no ordinary man was foolish.
And Chase Ryan was no fool.
Dear Reader,
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Along with our spectacular new miniseries, we’re bringing you Anne McAllister’s latest novel in her bestselling CODE OF THE WEST series, July’s MAN OF THE MONTH selection, The Cowboy Crashes a Wedding. Next, a shy, no-frills librarian leads a fairy-tale life when she masquerades as her twin sister in Barbara McMahon’s Cinderella Twin, book one of her IDENTICAL TWINS! duet In Seducing the Proper Miss Miller by Anne Marie Winston, the town’s black sheep and the minister’s daughter cause a scandal with their sudden wedding.
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Regards,
Melissa Senate
Senior Editor
Silhouette Books
Please address questions and book requests to:
Silhouette Reader Service U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269 Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3
Susan Crosby
His Most Scandalous Secret
SUSAN CROSBY
is fascinated by the special and complex communication of courtship, and so she burrows into her office to dream up warm, strong heroes and good-hearted, self-reliant heroines to satisfy her own love of happy endings.
She and her husband have two grown sons and live in the Central Valley of California. She spent a mere 7½ years getting through college and finally earned a B.A. in English a few years ago. She has worked as a synchronized swimming instructor, a personnel interviewer at a toy factory and a trucking company manager. Involved for many years behind the scenes in a local community theater, she has made only one stage appearance—as the rear end of a camel! Variety, she says, makes for more interesting novels.
Readers are welcome to write to her at P.O. Box 1836, Lodi, CA 95241.
One
She was asking for trouble.
Chase Ryan leaned both palms against his office window frame and watched the woman standing on the sidewalk about forty feet away, the bus she’d disembarked from rumbling off in a cloud of diesel smoke as she eyed his building, then the piece of paper she held.
Everything about her was soft, from the long, brunette curls to the swirling skirt that almost reached her ankles. Definitely not the type of woman usually found wandering the street in front of the Wilson Buckley Youth Center of San Francisco, of which Chase was administrator.
And he had the sneaking suspicion that the woman was none other than Tessa Rose, who, barring natural disaster, was the Center’s new preschool teacher. If that was the case, she should hop aboard the next bus and go back where she came from. No way was that woman equipped to handle the residents of this neighborhood.
His conscience weighing strong, he briefly considered withdrawing the job offer, although the Center was in dire need of another day care teacher. However, business was business. It wasn’t his job to warn people off, but to hire the most qualified applicants.
Not only was Tessa Rose the most qualified, she was the only applicant.
“Hey, Mr. Ryan? You through talkin’?”
Chase had forgotten he was in the middle of a discussion with the thirteen-year-old who came up beside him. He glanced at the boy. “I’m sorry, Luis. My mind wandered.”
His gaze returned involuntarily to look out the window as the woman made her way closer. His impression of softness deepened as the July afternoon breeze lifted her hair away from her face. A high-collared pink blouse hugged her breasts. Her floral-printed skirt molded born-to-carry-babies hips and endless legs.
Not one original thought crossed his mind. She was a fish out of water. A man could lose himself in her. She was the kind of woman you took home to meet