A Father, Again. Mary J. Forbes

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      “Why are you weeding in the dark, Rianne?”

      “It soothes me when I feel hemmed in.”

      “Something happen at work today? The kids?”

      She looked toward the hedge. Her shoulders drooped. She shook her head.

      He didn’t know why it hurt, but it did. He wanted her trust. Trust. Belief. Support. Yeah, he wanted the combo. He wanted to offer comfort. Which would mean touching more than her hands. Not wise, Jon. Except, wisdom and want were at a draw and he was all out of referees.

      “Come here.” He tugged her forward until her shoulder leaned into his chest. For her comfort, he told himself, and wrapped his arms around her. “Shh. We’re okay,” he murmured into the crown of her hair. Holding her loosely, waiting until the tension left by degrees.

      She felt great in his arms. Small, warm, soft.

      A surge to claim her rushed up, stunning him….

      Dear Reader,

      Well, we hope your New Year’s resolutions included reading some fabulous new books—because we can provide the reading material! We begin with Stranded with the Groom by Christine Rimmer, part of our new MONTANA MAVERICKS: GOLD RUSH GROOMS miniseries. When a staged wedding reenactment turns into the real thing, can the actual honeymoon be far behind? Tune in next month for the next installment in this exciting new continuity.

      Victoria Pade concludes her NORTHBRIDGE NUPTIALS miniseries with Having the Bachelor’s Baby, in which a woman trying to push aside memories of her one night of passion with the town’s former bad boy finds herself left with one little reminder of that encounter—she’s pregnant with his child. Judy Duarte begins her new miniseries, BAYSIDE BACHELORS, with Hailey’s Hero, featuring a cautious woman who finds herself losing her heart to a rugged rebel who might break it…. THE HATHAWAYS OF MORGAN CREEK by Patricia Kay continues with His Best Friend, in which a woman is torn between two men—the one she really wants, and the one to whom he owes his life. Mary J. Forbes’s sophomore Special Edition is A Father, Again, featuring a grown-up reunion between a single mother and her teenaged crush. And a disabled child, an exhausted mother and a down-but-not-out rodeo hero all come together in a big way, in Christine Wenger’s debut novel, The Cowboy Way.

      So enjoy, and come back next month for six compelling new novels, from Silhouette Special Edition.

      Happy New Year!

      Gail Chasan

      Senior Editor

      Silhouette Special Edition

      A Father, Again

      Mary J. Forbes

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      To Karen, for loving Jon Tucker the way I did.

      Thanks to Tom Lindmark for his descriptive e-mails

       on the geography and history of the Clatskanie area.

       Any errors are entirely mine, not his.

      MARY J. FORBES

      grew up on a farm in Alberta amidst horses, cattle, crisp hay and broad blue skies. As a child, she drew and wrote about her surroundings, and in sixth grade composed her first story about a lame little pony. Years later, she was an accountant and worked as a reporter/photographer for a small-town newspaper and attained honors degrees in education. She has also written and published short fiction.

      Today, Mary—a teacher by profession—lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and two children. A romantic by nature, she loves walking along the ocean shoreline, sitting by the fire on snowy or rainy evenings and two-stepping around the dance floor to a good country song—all with her own real-life hero, of course. Mary loves to hear from readers. You can contact her at www.maryjforbes.com.

      May 4

      Certain moments in life go beyond the casual flickering of memory in your mind’s eye. I call these moments “crystals.” They let your palm and fingers relearn the cool curve of the doorknob. They let your bare soles recall the comfort of the mat’s ragged braids. They let your nose remember the difference between the oatmeal cookies in the oven behind you, and the sap in the trees across the yard. But above all, you see, again, how shadow and light stroke cheek and jaw. And you recognize the hurried cadence of your heart.

      Today I embraced a crystal moment.

      —Journal entry of Rianne Worth

      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

      Chapter Fifteen

      Chapter One

      Damn the woman and her cat.

      Jon Tucker trotted down his back veranda steps and strode across his weed-blooming yard. Under his arm, the cardboard box rustled. It wasn’t that he resented cats. He didn’t like them touring his yard, was all. He didn’t like anyone on his property.

      What he did like—prized—was his solitary life.

      That’s why he’d bought this quiet, street-end property with its decrepit Victorian and two acres of woods.

      His brothers knew the score, even though they didn’t relish it, even though they had tried to change his mind more than once. Heck, after his twenty-two-year absence, who could blame them?

      He could forgive Luke and Seth.

      He wouldn’t forgive his neighbor.

      The woman just didn’t get it. Cats roamed. The orange lady in the box was an expert. He’d chased her off his land time and again since moving back to Oregon’s Columbia County two weeks ago. Now, she’d had the gall to birth three kittens on his shirt. His favorite shirt. The last of his police-academy attire, the last tangible link to the force that had been his life, his blood, for two decades.

      The last link to his memories.

      His nightmares.

      The neighbor woman would pay. Damn straight she would.

      He sidled through the narrow gap in the ten-foot juniper hedge dividing their backyards. Most likely, when it was planted years ago the owners had been on more friendly terms. Their kids, dogs—and cats, no doubt—had beat this path through it. Well. He’d call the local greenhouse the instant he dumped off the wailing felines and order another shrub to fill in the spot. What did it matter, his mounting costs?

      Shifting the box, he climbed the three back steps of the cottage’s porch. His boot heels rapped the slats of its deck. His knuckles rapped the door.

      The place needed an overhaul. A big paint job. In contrast, the yard would scoop the blue ribbon at the local fair. Dethatched turf; daffodils and tulips nodding from borders; the apple tree blossoming in the May sunshine; bedding frames in a porch corner.

      He knocked again.

      Where was she? He’d seen her old red Toyota in the carport.

      The door cracked open.

      A