Judging Joshua. Mary Wilson Anne

      Joshua stopped and looked down at Riley

      The glow from the streetlights barely touched her features. The cold seeped into Joshua’s skin, and he realized he’d forgotten his gloves. “I guess this wasn’t such a good idea,” he admitted.

      “I don’t care about the cold,” Riley said. But he did.

      With no other choice, he reached for her hand and put it in his left pocket. Now, with her fingers curled around his, Riley was closer to him than she’d ever been, probably ever would be.

      As they walked, Joshua could feel her hold on him, her slender fingers entwined with his, and he was less cold than he’d been a moment ago.

      Things had suddenly got a whole lot more complicated. He realized that he’d been desperate to touch her before, and right now he never wanted to let go.

      Dear Reader,

      Judging Joshua is the second book in my RETURN TO SILVER CREEK series. Joshua Pierce goes back to Silver Creek, Nevada, with a broken heart and the knowledge that he has loved and loved well, but he’ll never love again. He and his small daughter have returned to the mountain to help his sick father. When he makes an arrest on a winding snowy road, he doesn’t yet know that not only will his heart heal, he’ll find love can come a second time and make his life whole again.

      Riley Shaw has never loved and truly feels that love is for others, not for her. When she’s arrested just outside the town of Silver Creek, she’s certain that life can’t get any worse. What she doesn’t know is that when Joshua Pierce comes into her life, everything will change and she’ll find out what love is all about.

      I hope you enjoy Judging Joshua and you’ll look for the third book in my RETURN TO SILVER CREEK series.

      Judging Joshua

      Mary Anne Wilson

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      For Emily Vaughn Geisler a.k.a. Bunky

      Thank you for all the love and joy you’ve brought into my life.

      Love, Mamaw

      ABOUT THE AUTHOR

      Mary Anne Wilson is a Canadian transplanted to Southern California, where she lives with her husband, three children and an assortment of animals. She knew she wanted to write romances when she found herself “rewriting” the great stories in literature, such as A Tale of Two Cities, to give them “happy endings.” Over her long career she’s published more than thirty romances, had her books on bestseller lists, been nominated for Reviewer’s Choice Awards and received a Career Achievement Award in Romantic Suspense. She’s looking forward to her next thirty books.

      Books by Mary Anne Wilson

      HARLEQUIN AMERICAN ROMANCE

      1003—PREDICTING RAIN? *

      1005—WINNING SARA’S HEART *

      1009—WHEN MEGAN SMILES… *

      1062—DISCOVERING DUNCAN †

      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

       Epilogue

      Chapter One

      Going back to Silver Creek should have been a good thing. But going back to his hometown had been hard for Joshua Pierce.

      He stepped out of the old stone-and-brick police station on a side street in the town and into the bitter cold of November. The brilliance of the sun glinting off the last snowfall made him narrow his eyes as he finished shrugging into the heavy, green uniform jacket over his jeans and white T-shirt. He didn’t bother doing it up as he headed for the closest squad car in the security parking lot at the side of the building.

      Easing his six-foot-tall frame into the cruiser, he turned on the motor and flipped the heater on high. He sat there while the warmth gathered. Two months ago he’d been in Atlanta, in the humid heat of September, with no intention of coming home. Then his world shifted, the way it had more than a year earlier, but this time it was his father who’d needed him.

      He was back in Silver Creek, without an idea what he’d do when he left here again. And he would leave.

      This wasn’t home anymore. For now he worked, filling in for his father, while the old man recovered from a heart attack, and getting by day by day. It worked. He made it to the next day, time and time again. And that was enough for him.

      He pushed the car into gear, hit the release for the security gate, then drove out onto the side street. Turning north on the main street, he looked off toward the rugged peaks of the Sierra Nevada soaring into the heavy gray sky. Silver Creek had some of the best skiing in the West.

      The original section of town looked about the same, with old stone-and-brick buildings, some dating back to the silver strike in the 1800s. They looked like a time warp from the past, until you looked more closely and saw that the feed store was now a high-end ski equipment shop. The general store had been transformed into a trendy coffee bar and a specialty cookie store.

      Some buildings were the same. Rusty’s Diner was still Rusty’s Diner, run by the red-haired man, and the hotel was still the Silver Creek Hotel. But everything else was changing, and even in Silver Creek, change was inevitable. You couldn’t fight it, he thought as he drove farther north into the newer section where the stores were unabashedly high-end. He’d tried to fight the changes in his life, but, in the end, he hadn’t been able to resist.

      He slowed for the influx of traffic at the public skiing slopes to the west and headed away from the bustle of the visitors. Picking up his two-way radio handset, Joshua called