Where You Least Expect It. Tori Carrington

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      “Is everything okay?” Aidan leaned forward to try to capture Penelope’s gaze.

      She smiled, but there was no happiness there. “Sure. Why wouldn’t it be?”

      “It’s just that you got awfully quiet there for a moment.”

      “I was just thinking….”

      What? What had she been thinking? Aidan refused to speak the question aloud, but he found he was curious about Penelope in a way he hadn’t been curious about a woman in a long time. He was filled with a desire to reach out and touch her, to urge out whatever it was she was holding in her mind…in her heart.

      He found himself reaching out to cup her chin. Just a gentle play of his fingertips up along the delicate line of her jaw. So soft. He wanted to assure her that everything would be okay.

      She blinked those big dark eyes, appearing startled yet curious as her tongue darted out to moisten her lips.

      Lips Aidan wanted more than anything to kiss. And in the next instant, he was doing just that….

      Dear Reader,

      Well, if it’s true that March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb, you’re going to need some fabulous romantic reads to get you through the remaining cold winter nights. Might we suggest starting with a new miniseries by bestselling author Sherryl Woods? In Isn’t It Rich?, the first of three books in Ms. Wood’s new MILLION DOLLAR DESTINIES series, we meet Richard Carlton, one of three brothers given untold wealth from his aunt Destiny. But in pushing him toward beautiful—if klutzy—PR executive Melanie Hart, Aunt Destiny provides him with riches that even money can’t buy!

      In Bluegrass Baby by Judy Duarte, the next installment in our MERLYN COUNTY MIDWIVES miniseries, a handsome but commitment-shy pediatrician shares a night of passion with a down-to-earth midwife. But what will he do when he learns there might be a baby on the way? Karen Rose Smith continues the LOGAN’S LEGACY miniseries with Take a Chance on Me, in which a sexy, single CEO finds the twin sister he never knew he had—and in the process is reunited with the only woman he ever loved. In Where You Least Expect It by Tori Carrington, a fugitive accused of a crime he didn’t commit decides to put down roots and dare to dream of the love, life and family he thought he’d never have. Arlene James wraps up her miniseries THE RICHEST GALS IN TEXAS with Tycoon Meets Texan! in which a handsome billionaire who can have any woman he wants sets his sights on a beautiful Texas heiress. She clearly doesn’t need his money, so whatever can she want with him? And when a police officer opens his door to a nine-months-pregnant stranger in the middle of a blizzard, he finds himself called on to provide both personal and professional services, in Detective Daddy by Jane Toombs.

      So bundle up, and take heart—spring is coming! And so are six more sensational stories about love, life and family, coming next month from Silhouette Special Edition!

      All the best,

      Gail Chasan

      Senior Editor

      Where You Least Expect It

      Tori Carrington

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      We warmly dedicate this book to Terri and Mike Medeiros, Brenda and Jim Chin, Leslie and Bruce Kelly, Christine and Richard Feehan and couples everywhere who have found love where they least expected it. You inspire us….

      TORI CARRINGTON

      is the pseudonym of award-winning husband-and-wife writing team Lori and Tony Karayianni. Twisting the old adage “life is stranger than fiction,” they describe their lives as being “better than fiction.” Since romance plays such a large role in their personal lives, it’s only natural that romance fiction is what they would choose to write in their professional lives. Along with their four cats, they call Toledo, Ohio, home, but travel “home” to Greece as often as possible.

      This prolific writing duo also writes for Harlequin Temptation and Harlequin Blaze under the Tori Carrington pseudonym. Lori and Tony love to hear from readers. Write to them at P.O. Box 12271, Toledo, OH 43612 for an autographed bookplate, or visit them on the Web at www.toricarrington.com, www.specialauthors.com or www.eHarlequin.com.

      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 Sixteen

      Chapter Seventeen

      Chapter Eighteen

      Epilogue

      Chapter One

      Summer always had a way of making Penelope Moon itch. Maybe it was the heat. On this muggy, late-June morning, at just before eight, it was definitely hot. And it would only get hotter as the day went on.

      She tugged on Maximus’s leash while they walked down Main Street in downtown Old Orchard. The setter and Great Dane mix pulled back, nearly jerking her out of her practical sandals. She pulled tighter, smiling at Old Man Jake who was sweeping the sidewalk in front of his General Store. He gave her the same wary look he always gave her.

      No, it wasn’t the heat. Well, it was and it wasn’t. Something else was to blame for the way she seemed to come alive in the summer, making her want to shuck her clothes and go skinny-dipping, an outrageous act that she would never give thought to at any other time of the year, in the Old Valley River near her grandmother’s house. And that had nothing whatsoever to do with the weather in northwest Ohio.

      Perhaps it was the extremeness of summer. The heat seemed to amplify every emotion, pump up the volume of sounds, make smells more intense, colors more vivid, overwhelming the senses.

      Then again, maybe it was because she was a winter baby and the polar opposite, summer, mystified her.

      “Max!” she whispered to the mammoth, untrained dog as he stopped in Lucas Circle in front of a half-barrel planted with red impatiens and started to lift his leg.

      Penelope Moon was twenty-four, unmarried in a family with a history of unmarried women, and had taken over her grandmother’s New Age bookstore five years ago. Back then, though, it hadn’t been a bookstore but rather a general herb shop called Potions and Spells. To be fair, the herbs still sold better than the books, but somehow “Bookstore” in the name lent the shop a more suitable air and encouraged more foot traffic, no matter the customers’ preferences.

      Penelope still lived in the same house she’d grown up in, accepted that she would always be looked on as peculiar by the town, and appreciated every moment she stood above ground rather than lay buried in it. Heat and uneasiness aside, this morning pretty much resembled every other morning of her adult life. She got up just before dawn, made herself a cup of ginseng tea, watched the sunrise while sitting on the front porch of the old house she shared with her grandmother just outside of town. Then she put Maximus’s leash on and walked the two miles to open the bookstore in downtown Old Orchard, where she would spend the next eight hours before heading back home to help her grandmother