“I’m Afraid,” 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 Copyright
“I’m Afraid,”
she admitted. “I’m afraid I won’t ever find out what happened in my past. I’m afraid that I will, and won’t be able to stand that knowledge. Who am I, Richard?” she asked desperately.
Slowly, almost as though he had to do so, he brought her against the strength of him. And, as though this, too, he had to do, he lowered his mouth to hers.
She knew this touch! Somehow, from countless longings and memories still hidden from her mind, she knew it. She sighed and surrendered to the sense of homecoming that washed over her.
But too soon she felt him drawing away from her.
“We can’t do this,” he said unevenly.
She felt bereft. Alone. A chill wind seemed to slice through her. “Why?” she asked. “Why?”
“Because you don’t know me, Alexandra. And because, God help me, I don’t know you.”
Dear Reader,
Silhouette Desire matches August’s steamy heat with six new powerful, passionate and provocative romances.
Popular Elizabeth Bevarly offers That Boss of Mine as August’s MAN OF THE MONTH. In this irresistible romantic comedy, a CEO falls for his less-than-perfect secretary.
And Silhouette Desire proudly presents a compelling new series, TEXAS CATTLEMAN’S CLUB. The members of this exclusive club are some of the Lone Star State’s sexiest, most powerful men, who go on a mission to rescue a princess and find true love! Bestselling author Dixie Browning launches the series with Texas Millionaire, in which a fresh-faced country beauty is wooed by an older man.
Cait London’s miniseries THE BLAYLOCKS continues with Rio: Man of Destiny, in which the hero’s love leads the heroine to the truth of her family secrets. The BACHELOR BATTALION miniseries by Maureen Child marches on with Mom in Waiting. An amnesiac woman must rediscover her husband in Lost and Found Bride by Modean Moon. And Barbara McCauley’s SECRETS! miniseries offers another scandalous tale with Secret Baby Santos.
August also marks the debut of Silhouette’s original continuity THE FORTUNES OF TEXAS with Maggie Shayne’s Million Dollar Marriage, available now at your local retail outlet.
So indulge yourself this month with some poolside reading—the first of THE FORTUNES OF TEXAS, and all six Silhouette Desire titles!
Enjoy!
Joan Marlow Golan
Senior Editor
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
Lost and Found Bride
Modean Moon
MODEAN MOON once believed she could do anything she wanted. Now she realizes there is not enough time in one’s life to do everything. As a result, she says her writing is a means of exploring paths not taken. Currently she works as a land title researcher, determining land or mineral ownership for clients. Modean lives in Oklahoma on a hill overlooking a small town. She shares a restored Victorian farmhouse with a six-pound dog, a twelve-pound cat and, reportedly, a resident ghost.
One
Richard Jordan stood in the shadow of the draperies, but not completely unnoticed. The man behind the massive mahogany desk—the doctor, Richard thought derisively, Dr. Hampton—was aware of him. Although Hampton attempted an attitude of professional detachment, Richard saw the moisture beading on his forehead and upper lip as he gripped the pen in his hand and scrawled tense circles on the folder before him.
The atmosphere in the spacious room was close and stifling. Heavy mahogany furniture filled the room, heavy paneling diminished it, and heavy draperies darkened it still more. No medicinal smells intruded—only those of old wood and lemon oil. Not pleasant scents these; no, the old wood here carried the essence of rot, of wood worms busily destroying the structure behind the facade, and of decadence.
Outside the decoratively barred windows the late-October sunlight fought its way through the bare limbs of the trees, and a light breeze scattered the fallen leaves across the lawn. Outside, the air was crisp and fresh, promising a harsh winter but beguiling with its gentleness. Richard fought a fleeting impulse to thrust open the windows, in spite of the discreet wiring of the alarm system along the edge of them, and let that breeze into the room. Would that cleanse the air in the room? Could anything cleanse it?
But it was not the doctor behind the desk, or even the room that held his attention. It was the woman. Swathed in a shapeless, long-sleeved garment, she sat on the edge of the chair in front of the desk. The anger that he had felt when he’d first seen her asleep in a room bare of anything except the narrow cot on which she’d lain had not faded. He knew he might never lose the anger, but it had firmed itself into a chilling resolve—to have her released into his care.
Her hair, once shimmering ebony that fell to below her waist, had been cropped close to her head with no thought given to style. Always slender, she now appeared almost skeletal. But it was the sight of her eyes that fed his anger, that had him clutching at the window ledge to keep from lunging across the room. Gone was the sparkle of intelligence and humor that had lit her small features. Her eyes were now two gray smudges in the pallor of her face, without life, without hope, smudges that she turned toward the man behind the desk.
Even her voice had changed—still soft, still low, but without the music of laughter, without the breathless catch of anticipation. Without inflection of emotion, she answered Hampton’s questions—the same questions, the same answers Richard had heard the day before.