The Virgin And The Vagabond. Elizabeth Bevarly

      “Why Have You Been Keeping Every Man Who Shows An Interest In Me At Arm’s Length?” Letter to Reader Title Page About the Author Dedication Prologue Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Epilogue Copyright

      “Why Have You Been Keeping Every Man Who Shows An Interest In Me At Arm’s Length?”

      Kirby asked James again.

      

      Oh, yeah. That. “Um...” he began eloquently. “It’s because, ah ... Well, you see...”

      

      But try as he might to answer the question, James realized he simply could not. So what did Kirby do? She asked him another one.

      

      “Because wasn’t the whole point to find a man who would fall in love with me forever-after?” she began again, evidently unwilling to let it go until he gave her an explanation for his behavior.

      

      He really wished he had one to offer her. Or to himself, for that matter....

      Dear Reader,

      

      This month Silhouette Desire brings you six brand-new, emotional and sensual novels by some of the bestselling—and most behaved—authors in the romance genre. Cait London continues her hugely popular miniseries THE TALLCHEEFS with The Seduction of Fiona Tallchief, April’s MAN OF THE MONTH. Next, Elizabeth Bevarly concludes her BLAME IT ON BOB series with The Virgin and the Vagabond. And when a socialite confesses her virginity to a cowboy, she just might be Taken by a Texan, in Lass Small’s THE KEEPERS OF TEXAS miniseries.

      

      Plus, we have Maureen Child’s Maternity Bride, The Cowboy and the Calendar Girl, the last in the OPPOSITES ATTRACT series by Nancy Martin, and Kathryn Taylor’s tale of domesticating an office-bound hunk in Taming the Tycoon.

      

      I hope you enjoy all six of Silhouette Desire’s selections this month—and every month!

      

      Regards,

      Senior Editor

      Silhouette Books

      Please address questions and book requests to:

      Silhouette Reader Service requests to: U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269 Canadian: P.O. Box 609. Fort Erie. Ont. L2A 5X3

      Elizabeth Bevarly

      The Virgin And The Vagabond

      

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      ELIZABETH BEVARLY

      is an honors graduate of the University of Louisville and achieved her dream of writing full-time before she even turned thirty! At heart, she is also an avid voyager who once helped navigate a friend’s thirty-five-foot sailboat across the Bermuda Triangle. “I really love to travel,” says this self-avowed beach burn. “To me, it’s the best education a person can give to herself.” Her dream is to one day have her own sailboat, a beautifully renovated older model forty-two footer, and to enjoy the freedom and tranquillity seafaring can bring. Elizabeth likes to think she has a lot in common with the characters she creates, people who know love and life go hand in hand. And she’s getting some firsthand experience with motherhood, as well—she and her husband welcomed their firstborn, a son, three years ago.

      For Aunt Sissy,

      who thinks my books are way too racy. I hope you like this one, too.

      Prologue

      “I’m saving myself for marriage.”

      Fifteen-year-old Kirby Connaught uttered the words without even thinking about them, such a staple of her vocabulary had they become. Then, with an angelic, self-satisfied smile, she forked a huge bite of potato salad into her mouth and chewed with much gusto.

      Her fnend Angie Ellison, who sat across from her at the picnic table in Goldenrod Park, rolled her eyes heavenward. “Well, duh,” she replied eloquently. She fished a pickle spear from the Tupperware container near her hand and crunched it loudly. “Tell us something we don’t already know, Kirb.”

      Rosemary March, who completed the trio of tenth-grade friends enjoying the sunny September afternoon, had perched herself atop the table with her sandal-clad feet flat on the bench beside Angie. “Yeah, Kirby,” she said over her shoulder. “It’s not like this is news to anyone.”

      “It is to Stewart Hogan,” Kirby muttered, gazing suspiciously at the blond-haired, blue-eyed senior a few picnic tables down. “When we went out the other night, you wouldn’t believe what he wanted to do.”

      Angie and Rosemary exchanged knowing, wistful httle smiles that made Kirby’s face flush with heat. Her two friends had been dating since they were thirteen, and both had steady boyfriends now. And Kirby was vicariously familiar with all the things that went on with teenage courtship—the arms around each other, the hands in each other’s back pockets, the hugging, the kissing, the necking.

      She was sure her friends thought she was the biggest prude in the world because she never dated at all—the only reason Stewart had asked her out was because he’d just moved to town a few weeks earlier and didn’t know about her spotless reputation that kept most of the boys at bay.

      But Kirby’s lack of experience with the opposite sex had nothing to do with a code of morality or a cold disposition. On the contrary, she often lay awake at night wondering what it would be like to do the things she longed to do with a boy, tried to imagine the feel of a boy’s mouth and hands on her body, fantasized about experiencing for real all the scandalous things she’d read about in her favorite books by Anya Seton and Kathleen Woodiwiss and Erica Jong.

      And when she finally did fall asleep, Kirby was often plagued by the most feverish dreams, dreams that left her feeling empty and achy upon waking. Despite what her friends—and everyone else in Endicott, Indiana—thought about her, she had a perfectly healthy adolescent libido and an equally healthy adolescent sexual curiosity. But she wanted to make sure it was the real thing with a guy before she went too far. Or anywhere at all, for that matter. Simply put, she wanted to