In Too Deep. Sharon Mignerey

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      She was late.

      Lily pressed a hand against her stomach, remembering all the times she had prayed for a child before adopting Annmarie. She didn’t dare hope for the impossible, especially under these circumstances. Not after learning how Quinn felt about family—and being abandoned.

      She was at once terrified and exhilarated. Quinn’s baby. The contract Franklin Lawrence had put out on her life. The need to leave before someone—maybe her daughter—got hurt or killed.

      Her already impossible choice had just become even worse. If she was pregnant, what did she do about Quinn?

      For a moment she allowed herself to believe the baby was a foundation on which they could build a life together. For the moment she wanted to pretend that she didn’t have to run again….

      Dear Reader,

      Welcome to another month of the most exciting romantic reading around, courtesy of Silhouette Intimate Moments. Starting things off with a bang, we have To Love a Thief by ultrapopular Merline Lovelace. This newest CODE NAME: DANGER title takes you back into the supersecret world of the Omega Agency for a dangerous liaison you won’t soon forget.

      For military romance, Catherine Mann’s WINGMEN WARRIORS are the ones to turn to. These uniformed heroes and heroines are irresistible, and once you join Darcy Renshaw and Max Keagan for a few Private Maneuvers, you won’t even be trying to resist, anyway. Wendy Rosnau continues her unflashed miniseries THE BROTHERHOOD in Last Man Standing, while Sharon Mignerey’s couple find themselves In Too Deep. Finally, welcome two authors who are new to the line but not to readers. Kristen Robinette makes an unforgettable entrance with In the Arms of a Stranger, and Ana Leigh offers a matchup between The Law and Lady Justice.

      I hope you enjoy all six of these terrific novels, and that you’ll come back next month for more of the most electrifying romantic reading around.

      Enjoy!

      Leslie J. Wainger

      Executive Editor

      In Too Deep

      Sharon Mignerey

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      SHARON MIGNEREY

      lives in Colorado with her husband, a couple of dogs and a cat. From the time she figured out that spelling words could be turned into stories, she knew being a writer was what she wanted. Her first novel garnered several awards, first as an unpublished manuscript when she won RWA’s Golden Heart Award in 1995, and later as a published work in 1997 when she won the National Reader’s Choice Award and the Heart of Romance Readers’ Choice Award. With each new book out, she’s as thrilled as she was with that first one.

      When she’s not writing, she loves enjoying the Colorado sunshine, whether along the South Platte River near her home or at the family cabin in the Four Corners region. Even more, she loves spending time with her daughters and granddaughter.

      She loves hearing from readers, and you can write to her in care of Silhouette Books, 233 Broadway, New York, NY 10279.

      Acknowledgments:

      I would never have been able to imagine microbes that live in high pressure and high temperatures around deep sea hydrothermic vents, nor would I have had any idea about how to create a disaster in a lab, without input from my brother, Paul Noble Black, Ph.D. Thanks, Paul, for answering endless questions about life in a lab and microbiology, and for providing invaluable suggestions that made the science come alive. The good stuff is yours, and the mistakes are mine.

      Thanks to Jo Mrozewski, whose knowledge of village life on the Inside Passage gave me wonderful tidbits, including basketball and hot strong tea laced with sugar and cream.

      Dedication:

      To Barbara, Amy, Patty, Daniele and Karen…

       I love our Wednesday-night laughter and your friendship

       more than you know.

      Contents

      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

      Chapter 17

      Epilogue

      Chapter 1

      “Mommy, look at what we found.” Five-year-old Annmarie’s call was filled with enthusiasm from where she was bent over a tide pool with her new best friend, Thad.

      Lily Jensen Reditch grinned at her daughter’s excitement as she clambered around several large boulders to reach the rocky beach. Act the act until you feel the feeling. Normal was the feeling she wanted, and today felt…normal. Her daughter’s carefree joy as she skipped through life was something that Lily would give a lot to have back in her own. She’d done all the right things to be better—gone through grief counseling and completed the regime recommended by victim’s advocacy—and she was determined to be her old self. The optimistic one. The naive one. That thought made her smile. Optimistic—oh, she hoped so. Naive—never again.

      Movement farther down the shoreline caught Lily’s attention. She breathed a sigh of relief when she realized it was just Thad’s uncle Josh, hiking around the Hollywood Bowl. It was a collapsed mineshaft that had eroded into a clamshell shaped cave at the water’s edge.

      Lily deliberately reminded herself that the whole reason she had moved here was so she didn’t have to assess every person she met as a threat. No threats here, despite the sleepless nights that continued to plague her and despite the nightmares that made sleep something to avoid. Dismissing Josh from her thoughts and reminding herself to smile, Lily returned her attention to the children and the beach, which was dotted with tide pools that reflected the misty noon sky of late August.

      By Alaska standards the day was warm. Cold, though, compared to the balmy weather of California where they had lived until two months ago. Despite the gray sky that promised rain, Annmarie’s blond hair gleamed, and Lily touched her daughter’s head when she reached the kids. Wrapping her thick red cardigan more firmly around herself, Lily bent over the pool where the children crouched.

      A small scallop and an equally small crab rested at the bottom of the pool. A second later the crab bumped the scallop, and it shot through the water with surprising speed.

      Annmarie laughed. “Wow, did you see that?”

      Lily grinned at her daughter’s unabashed delight. “I did.”

      “How do you suppose he did that?” Thad asked.

      “He clamped both halves of his shell together, which squirts the water out and makes him leap forward,” she responded, demonstrating with her hands. The mechanics of how a bivalve moved was elementary compared to the mountains of research data she had been absorbing during the last few weeks.

      A hydrothermic vent discovered last year was the major project under way at the Kantrovitch Research Center. Lily