I Think Its A RuleNo Birthday Should Pass Without A Birthday Kiss. 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 Teaser chapter Copyright
I Think Its A RuleNo Birthday Should Pass Without A Birthday Kiss.
He was teasing, she thought. Only, in the next second, he buried his long, strong fingers in her curis, holding her head tilted up to his.
His lips touched hers, softer than honey. He was just teasing, she mentally repeated to herself. A neighborly kiss. A gesture of affection. If she just stood still for a second, itd be over.
But for some strange reason, he seemed in no hurry.
No one had ever kissed her like this. He hadnt even touched her body, yet every nerve ending in her body seemed electrified. Yearning swept through her like a storm, so heady and wild that her knees wanted to buckle. She felt young and reckless. She felt brand-new, back in that time when she really believed in fairy tales and in the unconquerable power of love....
Dear Reader,
Welcome to a wonderful new year at Silhouette Desire! Lets start with a delightfully humorous MAN OF THE MONTH by Lass SmallThe Coffeepot Inn. Here, a sinfully sexy hero is tempted by a virtuous woman. Hes determined to protect her from becoming the prey of the local menand hes determined to win her for himself!
The HOLIDAY HONEYMOONS miniseries continues this month with Resolved To (Re)Marry by Carole Buck. Dont miss this latest installment of this delightful continuity series!
And the always wonderful Jennifer Greene continues her STANFORD SISTERS series with Bachelor Mom. As many of you know, Jennifer is an award winner, and this book shows why she is so popular with readers and critics alike!
Completing the month are a new love story from the sizzling pen of Beverly Barton, The Tender Trap; a delightful Western from Pamela Macaluso, The Loneliest Cowboy; and something a little bit different from Ashley Summers, On Wings of love.
Enjoy!
Senior Editor
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Bachelor Mom
Jennifer Greene
www.millsandboon.co.uk
JENNIFER GREENE lives near Lake Michigan with her husband and two children. Before writing full-time, she worked as a teacher and a personnel manager. Michigan State University honored her as an outstanding woman graduate for her work with women on campus.
Ms. Greene has written more that forty category romances, for which she has won numerous awards, including the RITA for Best Short Contemporary Book, and both a Best Series Author and a Lifetime Achievement Award from Romantic Times.
One
Gwen Stanford didnt drink. Sobriety was no cause with her. She had nothing against alcohol; she just never had time to take up the viceor any other vices, for that matter.
Tonight it was going to be a real different story.
standing on her kitchen counter, she groped blindly at the back of her tallest cupboard for the shape of the rum bottle. It had to be there. Every Christmas she made the traditional family recipe for rum cake. Personally, she hated the taste of that rum cake with a passion, but her sisters loved it, and tradition was tradition. More to the immediate point, though, that bottle represented her entire liquor supply. It was rum or nothing.
There. Her fingers connected with the shape of the dusty bottle. She hooked her hand around it, risked her life leaping down from the counter, then filched a Lion King water glass from the shelf.
Clean dishes were waiting to be emptied from the dishwasher. Bills needed to be opened and paid. Her sons had scattered schoolbooks and toys, and the kitchen table still had some uncleaned-up crumbs. The wash was calling to her from the laundry room, and with two half-pint-size boys, letting wash pile up was begging for disaster.
Still, when a woman was determined to be wicked, no chore was too huge to be ignored.
Filled with resolve, she carried her drinking supplies and a small wrapped package, tied with a red bow, through the Florida room and out the glass doors. The package was a birthday present from her youngest sister, Paige, but so far she hadnt had a second free all day to open it. She could barely catch a free moment to breathebut that was about to change.
Outside, the sun had just dropped below the horizon, and the sky was painted with dusky blues and scarlets. Typical of St. Augustine in September, the night was warm, redolent with the mixed smells of tangy ocean air and late-blooming flowers. House lights were popping on all over the neighborhood, but her backyard was as quiet as peace.
Exactly what she wanted. Barefoot, she flopped in the chaise longue on the patio, poured a wallop of a drink and slugged down a sip. It burned like liquid smoke all the way down her throat and tasted worse than cough syrup. Stubbornly she gulped down another couple of slugs. Maybe it was extremely doubtful that rum was ever going to be her vice of choice, but she was determined to give it a lions try.
She reached for Paiges present and pulled at the red bow, trying to fathom the strange, unsettling dissatisfaction that had hounded her like a shadow all day. Shed been as restless as a wet cat, and had the stupidest inclination to cry. Shed never been restless, and the whole world knew that Gwen Stanford was no whiner or crier.
Nothing had even gone wrong. Josh and Jacob, thank heavens, were tucked in bed and sleeping harder than tired puppies. Jacobs first day in school had been a landmark, but the rest of the day had been pretty status quo. Shed carpooled, done accounting all morning, somehow got talked into mothering a den of Cub Scouts, made cookies for the church bake sale, shopped, took the kids out to dinner for her birthday and survived their sugar high after overdosing on cake and ice cream. The day started and ended at a hundred miles an hour, but that was like saying the Pope was Catholic. Hardly headline news.
As she opened the package from Paige, though, her heart stopped racing like an overheated engine. Strangely, her pulse started chugging in slow time. Real slow time. One look at the gift put a thick, heavy lump in her throat.
Days before, her oldest sister Abby had sent a dress for her birthdayivory Chinese silk, as simple and elegant in style as it was sexy. Maybe the arrival of that dress had been the pinpoint moment in time when this pervasive, stupid moodiness had begun. She loved her sisters. The three women had always been impossibly different in nature and temperament, but they were unbeatably close. And Abby had unerringly chosen a dress that fit Gwen perfectly, a dress she loved and yearned to wearyet doubted she ever would. A working bachelor mom with two young, rambunctious sons just had no time or occasion to dress up in silk.
The gift from Paige was equally personal and equally unsettling, but in an entirely different way.
Slowly Owen lifted the cameo from the velvet box, tilting it this way and that in the fading sunset light. Paige was a cameo maker, so the choice of gift from her younger sister wasnt in itself a surprise, and Paige was an incredibly fine artist.
But this was beyond fine.
The cameo had been carved in two shades of coral. The woman in profile had short, cropped curly hair-actually, almost identical to Gwens own hairstyle-and her arms were raised as if to joyfully embrace life. Turn the cameo just so in the light, though, and there appeared to be a sober-faced woman trapped in the darker shade of coral. The effect was subtle, but there appeared to be two women in the profileone a shadow of the other.
Gwen reached blindly for the glass again and rapidly gulped another hefty slug of the warm rum. It burned her throat as hot as the last one did... as hot and stinging as this whole day had burned on her heart.
Her younger sister knew her. Too well. Damned well. Painfully well. The cameo was exquisite and could not have been a more personal present. At this particular moment, though, it hit her like a swift, sharp bullet.
Her entire life, shed felt like a shadow.
This dissatisfied malaise wasnt really birthday caused, Gwen recognized. For some time, the nagging, lost feeling had been there. Sometimes she wondered exactly whose life she was living. Her life-style was more straight-laced than a saints, with certainly no goof-off time built in. There never had been. But heaven knew, shed never planned to be this good. Growing up, shed never once aspired to be a saint. Where her two sisters had always had huge, identifiable life goals, though, Gwen had really only wanted one thing. Ron. From the day she met him in first grade, shed fallen for him like a princess in a fairy tale.
Gwen lifted the rum glass, discovered it was empty and generously poured herself another splash. She squeezed her eyes closed, as if it would make swallowing the medicine a little easier.
Her divorce from Ron was two years old now. Ancient history. Yet his influence on her life certainly wasnt. With a flash of rum insight, she recognized morosely that she had always lived in Rons shadow. She had become a bookkeeper, because that was a career she could pursue at home with the kidsand because it paid Rons medical school bills. They lived in St. Augustine, because that was where Ron originally wanted to set up his medical practice. Shed never pursued dreams of her own, because Rons career was so much more important than anything she wanted.
No one had ever twisted her arm to make those choices. All through those years, shed never thought of herself as being a doormat. Shed thought she was being loving and supportive.
Somehow that looked different on her thirtieth birthday. Somehowwith the help of another gulp of rumit occurred to her that shed turned into a dependent, boring mouse. She didnt have a clue who Gwen Stanford even was anymore.
Shed been a wife, but she couldnt really remember being a woman. Of all the female roles shed assumedmom, wife, now ex-wife, bookkeeper, sister, daughtershe had no memory of setting a single goal that hadnt been to please or appease other people.
With two young sonsand God knew, Jacob and Josh were her lifeshe certainly couldnt take up a life-style dancing naked on tabletops. But it ached, like the stab of a knife, that not once in her entire life had she ever done anything reckless....
Gwen? Are you alive and awake over there?
Gwen startled at the sudden deep voice, but then realized it was just Spence.
Her vision seemed oddly blurred, and real dusk had fallen now. The sky was no longer ruby and purple, but washed in a hushed royal blue. Even if it were pitch black, though, she would never mistake anyone else for Spence McKenna. His backyard bordered hers. They shared a fenceand two six-year-olds. His April had just endured the same landmark day in first grade, in the same class as her Jacob.
If shed thought about it, she might have guessed hed stop by for a few minutes to share parenting notes. She hadnt thought about it, and at the moment, seemed incapable of thinking about anything clearly. For some reason her tongue seemed thicker than molasses. It was a mighty struggle to sound normal. Im awake. Just buried in a few dark thoughts for a minute there. Come on over. Did April survive her first day with Mrs. Cox?
She did, but I dont know about me, Spence admitted. I dont know what I was expecting with Mrs. Cox, but I thought shed be older, wiser, warmer. Instead she looked younger than a teenager and seemed meaner than a drill sergeant. I figured Id ask for your perspective, since your Josh survived her last year.
Well, Josh survived her, but I have to admit not being thrilled with her, either. Weve had some runins. I just think shes too tough for the little ones. Jacob came home announcing that school was stupid.
So it wasnt just my April. Hell. Deserting her in the door of that classroom was tougher than chewing nails. There are parts of this single parenting business that I sure wish came with a manual.
Gwen chuckled. I take it your angels now safely in bed and youre headed straight for the fortitude? Even with her blurred vision, she could see he was carrying a glass as he unlatched the fence gate and ambled toward her.
Yeah. Full-strength iced tea. She caught a flash of white teeth when he noticed the bottle at her side. That looks more like what the doctor ordered. Somehow Id never have guessed you were a dark rum fan.
I wasntuntil about an hour ago. Help yourself if you want some. Any second now, Gwen expected him to look a little less fuzzy. Not that it particularly made any difference. Even fuzzy and blurred at the edges, her neighbor was downright dazzling.
Spence sank into the webbed lawn chair across from her and stretched out his long legs. Suit and tie were typical workday attire for him, but at some point hed jettisoned the suit jacket and tie. He was still wearing formal, navy suit pants, though, and his white shirt was opened at his sun-bronzed throat.
The first time Gwen had met him, her hormones had a heart attack. Still did. Spence was a six-foot-one-inch depth charge of virility, built lean and elegant, with dark hair as thick as a minks and chocolate brown eyes. Energy and drive seemed to seep from his pores. Lots of character and intelligence were written in the character lines on his face, but to heck with that, he had the slowest, sexiest smile on a man that shed ever seen. He owned a marketing firm. Gwen had no trouble picturing him as an unstoppable dynamo in businessor with women.