Fortune's Secret Daughter. Barbara McCauley

tion>

      

      THE TEXAS TATTLER

      All the news that’s barely fit to print!

      IT’S RAINING MEN…

      Ladies, pack your bags and fur-lined parkas. While we’ve always heard that Alaskan men are hungry for a little female companionship to warm up those long, blustery cold nights, it appears that eligible males are now falling from the skies…literally!

      At least that’s how Fortune heiress Holly Douglas met bush pilot Guy Blackwolf. Seems he’d been hired by the Fortune family to bring the reluctant heiress back to Red Rock, when his plane encoutered some bad weather and crash-landed in a nearby lake. Fortunately, Holly was on the scene, and, from the looks of Guy, she gave him plenty of tender loving care during his long recovery. Guy claims that all his wounds have healed, but he still seemed to be a bit dazed and reeling from more than a concussion when The Tattler spoke to him.

      Has this pilot just met a force greater than even Mother Nature…Cupid?

      Dear Reader,

      Welcome to Silhouette Desire, where you can indulge yourself every month with six passionate, powerful and provocative romances! And you can take romance one step further…. Look inside for details about our exciting new contest, “Silhouette Makes You a Star.”

      Popular author Mary Lynn Baxter returns to Desire with our MAN OF THE MONTH when The Millionaire Comes Home to Texas to reunite with the woman he could never forget. Rising star Sheri WhiteFeather’s latest story features a Comanche Vow that leads to a marriage of convenience…until passionate love transforms it into the real thing.

      It’s our pleasure to present you with a new miniseries entitled 20 AMBER COURT, featuring four twentysomething female friends who share an address…and their discoveries about life and love. Don’t miss the launch title, When Jayne Met Erik, by beloved author Elizabeth Bevarly. The scandalous Desire miniseries FORTUNES OF TEXAS: THE LOST HEIRS continues with Fortune’s Secret Daughter by Barbara McCauley. Alexandra Sellers offers you another sumptuous story in her miniseries SONS OF THE DESERT: THE SULTANS, Sleeping with the Sultan. And the talented Cindy Gerard brings you a touching love story about a man of honor pledged to marry an innocent young woman with a secret, in The Bridal Arrangement.

      Treat yourself to all six of these tantalizing tales from Silhouette Desire.

      Enjoy!

      Joan Marlow Golan

      Senior Editor, Silhouette Desire

      Fortune’s Secret Daughter

      Barbara McCauley

      BARBARA MCCAULEY

      was born and raised in California and has spent a good portion of her life exploring the mountains, beaches and deserts so abundant there. The youngest of five children, she grew up in a small house, and her only chance for a moment alone was to sneak into the backyard with a book and quietly hide away.

      With two children of her own now and a busy household, she still finds herself slipping away to enjoy a good novel. A daydreamer and incurable romantic, she says writing has fulfilled her most incredible dream of all—breathing life into the people in her mind and making them real. She has one loud and demanding Amazon parrot named Fred and a German shepherd named Max. When she can manage the time, she loves to sink her hands into fresh-turned soil and make things grow.

      Meet the Fortunes of Texas

      Meet the Fortunes of Texas’s Lost Heirs—membership in this Texas family has its privileges and its price. As the family gathers to welcome its newest members, it discovers a murderer in its midst…and passionate new romances that only a true-bred Texas love can bring!

      CAST OF CHARACTERS

      Holly Douglas: She thought she’d run as far away as she could from the Fortune family and the dusty-dry Texas trailer park where she’d grown up. But fate and the handsome stranger she’d just rescued had their own agendas….

      Guy Blackwolf: Built solid as a western red cedar, this pilot had yet to meet a female who could get the better of him. And then he went head-to-head with Mother Nature…and Holly Douglas!

      Jonas Goodfellow: The Fortunes had opened their homes to this lost heir, but had he repaid their generosity by poisoning the family patriarch?

      Contents

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

      Chapter Eight

      Chapter Nine

      Chapter Ten

      Chapter Eleven

      One

      The storm came on fast and hard, slapped at the tiny seaplane as if it were a pesky gnat instead of three thousand pounds of metal and man. Thunder boomed and a second assault on the plane tipped the nose dangerously downward. Metal groaned while the man swore, struggling to hold on to the wheel and stay in control.

      “Come on, sweetheart, stay with me,” Guy Blackwolf hissed through clenched teeth. “We’ve seen worse than this.”

      Thick clouds swallowed machine and man whole. A jagged bolt of lightning exploded not more than twenty feet from the plane’s left wing, momentarily turning Guy’s world a brilliant, blinding white. He blinked furiously, tightened his grip on the throttle and eased the plane’s nose level while the wind rocked the wings like a child’s teeter-totter.

      “Steady, steady,” he coaxed with the patience of a lover. “That’s my girl.”

      He knew he was close. He could see the tops of the trees thirty feet below and according to his instruments, Twin Pines Lake was two hundred feet ahead. Two more minutes and he’d be safe and sound, gliding smoothly over the water to shore.

      He could do it. He would do it. He owed a friend a favor, and he refused to let anything—not even a miserable storm in the wilderness of Alaska—get in his way. Mother Nature might be one tough broad, but Guy Blackwolf had yet to meet a female that he’d let get the better of him.

      The storm opened up like the jaws of a giant beast and closed around the plane, then gave a savage shake. The throttle shook fiercely under Guy’s hand, but he held firm, eyes narrowed, jaw tight. Just another hundred feet. Piece of cake, he told himself as he eased the plane down.

      He gave a hoot of victory as he broke through the blanket of thick gray and the lake emerged below him. He spotted the dark blue Land Rover parked close to the north bank, knew that the woman was waiting for him. Well, not for him, he thought with a smile. She thought he was merely bringing supplies for her store. He’d let her keep thinking that, until he assessed the situation. She wasn’t going to like it, but when the moment was right, he’d tell her who he really was, and why he’d come.

      He caught sight of the woman standing close to the shore, though he couldn’t make out her features or see her hair under the rain slicker she wore. He’d see soon enough, he thought and gently guided the plane lower.

      Without warning, an explosion rocked the tail section of his plane and sent the machine into a downward tilt. Smoke filled the cockpit and the scent of burning metal choked the air. Guy swore hotly and frantically struggled with the controls. But it was no good.