Beautiful Stranger. Ruth Wind

      “We are going to have to deal with this attraction sooner or later,”

      Robert said roughly, holding her hand tightly.

      “Maybe it would be better if we didn’t see each other.”

      He looked at her mouth, closed his eyes. “We’ll just…take it easy.”

      “All right.” She pulled on her hand. He pulled back.

      “Why do you think it happens like this?” he said, stepping closer. “Out of nowhere?”

      It wasn’t out of nowhere on her part. “I always saw you, Robert. You just never saw me before.”

      He moved even closer, until his hips and hers were nearly touching. “Yes, I did.”

      She rolled her eyes. “Right.”

      “You used to have this green dress,” he said. “Your hair spilled all over it. And you wore red lipstick in those days. Bright red, like something sinful.”

      His eyes were intent, “You’ve always been beautiful, Marissa. You just didn’t know it till now.”

      Dear Reader,

      Once again, Silhouette Intimate Moments has rounded up six top-notch romances for your reading pleasure, starting with the finale of Ruth Langan’s fabulous new trilogy. The Wildes of Wyoming— Ace takes the last of the Wilde men and matches him with a pool-playing spitfire who turns out to be just the right woman to fill his bed—and his heart.

      Linda Turner, a perennial reader favorite, continues THOSE MARRYING MCBRIDES! with The Best Man, the story of sister Merry McBride’s discovery that love is not always found where you expect it. Award-winning Ruth Wind’s Beautiful Stranger features a heroine who was once an ugly duckling but is now the swan who wins the heart of a rugged “prince.” Readers have been enjoying Sally Tyler Hayes’ suspenseful tales of the men and women of DIVISION ONE, and Her Secret Guardian will not disappoint in its complex plot and emotional power. Christine Michels takes readers Undercover with the Enemy, and Vickie Taylor presents The Lawman’s Last Stand, to round out this month’s wonderful reading choices.

      And don’t miss a single Intimate Moments novel for the next three months, when the line takes center stage as part of the Silhouette 20^th Anniversary celebration. Sharon Sala leads off A YEAR OF LOVING DANGEROUSLY, a new in-line continuity, in July; August brings the long-awaited reappearance of Linda Howard—and hero Chance Mackenzie—in A Game of Chance; and in September we reprise 36 HOURS, our successful freestanding continuity, in the Intimate Moments line. And that’s only a small taste of what lies ahead, so be here this month and every month, when Silhouette Intimate Moments proves that love and excitement go best when they’re hand in hand.

      Leslie J. Wainger

      Executive Senior Editor

      Beautiful Stranger

      Ruth Wind

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      For my sisters, Cathy Stroo and Merry Jordan,

       who’ve each chosen to serve the teens of the world, offering hands to hold, ears to listen, shoulders to cry on and hearts so full of love no judgment can enter in. I am so proud of you both.

      RUTH WIND

      is the award-winning author of both contemporary and historical romance novels. She lives in the mountains of the Southwest with her husband, two growing sons and many animals in a hundred-year-old house the town blacksmith built. The only hobby she has since she started writing is tending the ancient garden of irises, lilies and lavender beyond her office window, and she says she can think of no more satisfying way to spend a life than growing children, books and flowers.

      Contents

      Prologue

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

      Chapter 8

      Chapter 9

      Chapter 10

      Chapter 11

      Chapter 12

      Chapter 13

      Chapter 14

      Chapter 15

      Chapter 16

      Epilogue

      Prologue

      The girl showed up on his doorstep, wearing nothing but an oversize windbreaker to protect her from the February cold. Her shoulders were painfully thin under the jacket. Her stomach bowed out in an unmistakable shape she tried to hide, a shape all wrong on a fifteen-year-old.

      The long hair hadn’t been washed in a few days, and Robert could tell she was wearing the same makeup she’d set out with. Whatever belongings she’d carried with her were in a very small backpack.

      When the knock came, it startled him into breaking a fragile bit of red glass he’d been fitting into a small frame, edging it with heat to ease it. Tsking, he flipped his safety glasses to the top of his head and went to the door. The girl was standing there on his step, her chin lifted at that cocky teenage angle that was all bravado, yet hid a scared little girl heart. She popped a big wad of gum. Long earrings glittered against her tangled hair, and her eyeliner was smeared, as if she’d slept in it.

      “Hey, uncle,” she said, like she’d just come in from school. As if she wasn’t five hundred miles from home. Like he expected her.

      Robert met that I-dare-you gaze for one long moment, seeing, with painful memory, himself at fourteen, fifteen, wanting somebody to—

      Without a word, he opened the screen door. He didn’t yell or ask what the hell she was doing. He simply pushed the door aside, opened his arms and she fell against him, her twig arms fierce against his ribs, her relief an almost palpable presence. She didn’t have to tell him she was in trouble, that she’d run away, that she had nowhere else to go.

      When her tough-girl facade cracked, it cracked wide open, and his fifteen-year-old niece, five months pregnant if she was a minute, burst into tears and sobbed like a baby. He just held on.

      There wasn’t much room for her in his little house, and heaven knew he was the last man on earth who ought to be an example for anybody, but Robert held her while she cried, then sent her to take a shower while he made her a big bowl of soup. He made her eat, then put her to bed in his own room before he called his sister, Alicia, who responded pretty much as he’d expected—her new husband was more important to her than her daughter. Robert forgave her before he even hung up. They’d had the same mother after all.

      He leaned in the doorway and watched Crystal sleep, a knot of pain in his chest. No matter how bad he’d be at the father thing, he was better than nobody. He’d managed to oversee a motley crew of soldiers through a war—how bad could one teenage girl be?

      He set to work on cleaning up the back room, boxing up his tools and supplies so she would have a room of her own. Tomorrow they’d figure out the rest.

      Chapter 1

      As her classroom of twenty-seven ninth graders filed out of seventh hour—her last class of the day, thank heavens—Marissa Pierce grabbed her purse out of the desk drawer and bolted for the faculty rest room. In ten minutes, she had an appointment with the parent of a difficult student, and if she didn’t visit Mother Nature right