Cross My Heart

• 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
  

"Such little hands to be so talented."


"They not only fashion exquisite dolls, but they soothe a
small daughter's fears and hurts," Clint murmured. "I'll bet they could
drive a man mad."


The tingle turned into pinprick flames, and Elyse was in
imminent danger of melting. No man had ever affected her like this
before with just a touch and a few huskily spoken words. She had an
overwhelming urge to find out just what her hands
could
do to him.


She felt a gentle tug on her arm as he pulled her toward
him, then the hot flush of embarrassment as her face flamed. He was
seducing her—and without even half trying. She jerked her
hand from his and jumped up. "Go away, Clint," she rasped. "I don't
want you here."


He rose, too, and stood behind her. "I'm not sure I can,"
he said simply.

Dear Reader:

Romance readers have been enthusiastic about the
Silhouette Special Editions for years. And that's not by accident:
Special Editions were the first of their kind and continue to feature
realistic stories with heightened romantic tension.

The longer stories, sophisticated style, greater
sensual detail and variety that made Special Editions popular are the
same elements that will make you want to read book after book.

We hope that you enjoy this Special Edition
today, and will enjoy many more.

Please write to us:

Jane Nicholls

Silhouette Books

PO Box 236

Thornton Road

Croydon

Surrey

CR9 3RU

First published in Great Britain in 1988

by Silhouette Books, Eton House, 18-24 Paradise
Road,

Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR

© Phyllis Halldorson 1988

ISBN 0 373 50838 7

For our other sons and daughters: Bob, Dwayne, Manuel, Jan
and Linda.

PHYLLIS HALLDORSON
like all her heroines, is as in love with her husband
today as on the day they met. It is because she has known so much love
in her own life that her characters seem to come alive as they, too,
discover the joys of romance.

Other Silhouette Books by Phyllis Halldorson

Silhouette Special Edition

My Heart's Undoing

The Showgirl and the Professor

For the third time in as many days California State
Senator Clinton Sterling reread the report from the private detective
agency. It told him nothing he couldn't have found out for himself and
was a waste of their time and his money.

He took off his reading glasses and rubbed his tired eyes.
Mary Elyse Haley. What kind of woman had his younger brother, Paul,
gotten himself mixed up with this time? All Clint had before him were
statistics. Age: 24. Height: 5'5''. Weight: 118 lbs. Curly auburn hair.
Brown eyes. Two years of college. Owner of Mary Elyse's Fairy-tale
Angels, a custom-designed doll shop. She'd been born in the foothills
town of Placerville, known during the gold rush days as Hangtown, and
had lived there all her life.

Her neighbors and friends thought highly of her, and her
handmade porcelain dolls won prizes every year. She sounded almost too
good to be true—with one exception. She'd never been married,
but she had a four-year-old daughter named Janey.

Clint frowned. Twenty-five years ago that would have been
a glaring flaw, but today it was almost commonplace. Obviously he was
going to have to go and see for himself if Paul's taste in women had
matured any since the last time.

The disagreeable thought made him shudder. In spite of the
fact that he was a politician, Clint was a private person. He firmly
believed that everyone was entitled to privacy in his personal life,
and the thought of prying into his brother's made him squirm.

Damn Paul, anyway. He was twenty-six years old, and it was
time he grew up. Instead he was still addicted to fast cars, fast women
and a fast turnover in both. The last glory-seeking bimbo he'd romanced
and then dropped had taken her sad story to one of the tabloids, and
the resulting notoriety had been embarrassing to the Sterling family
and potentially harmful to Clint's political future and Paul's law
career.

Now thirty-eight, Clint had never married, and the
tabloids were always speculating about his love life. When he'd proved
to be dull copy, they'd gleefully jumped at the unsavory firsthand
story about the playboy brother of the esteemed lawmaker.

Now Paul was apparently seeing another woman, and Clint's
public relations advisers were bringing pressure to bear on him to make
sure she wasn't the kind who would make more trouble. This was an
election year, and with the primaries coming up in a couple of months,
more objectionable publicity could conceivably lose Clint his seat in
the Senate. Especially since his closest contender in the party was Mr.
Clean incarnate. The man was either a saint or an expert at covering
his past sins—and those of his family members.

Clint's ambition reached all the way to the governor's
office, and he had no intention of allowing his brother's irresponsible
actions to jeopardize his chances.

The ring of the telephone broke into his thoughts, and he
dropped the report on his big desk as he reached for the receiver. The
call must be important or the switchboard wouldn't have put it through,
since it was already long past office hours. He hoped it wasn't
something that had to be taken care of tonight. It had been a long busy
day, and he still had a thirty-minute drive from Sacramento to his home
in the residential community of Cameron Park.

As he picked up the receiver, he made a mental note to
call on Ms. Mary Elyse Haley the following day and buy a doll. Surely
there must be a lady among his acquaintances who would appreciate an
expensive collector's item as a gift.

Elyse reached into the rectangular box, pushed aside the
white tissue wrapping and lifted out the little boy doll dressed in
blue tweed knickers and a blue linen shirt. His firm cloth body was
reclining on its side with his knees drawn up, and his porcelain face,
with a sprinkling of brown freckles across his nose, was resting on his
porcelain hand. His eyes were closed in sleep, and clutched in the
crook of his other arm was a miniature brass horn.

"Here you are, Mrs. Wilson," she said as she held him out
to the middle-aged woman on the other side of the counter. "Little Boy
Blue complete with horn."

The woman took the doll and cradled it in her arms. "Oh,
he's absolutely adorable," she said breathlessly. "I'm going to display
him on the coffee table. My husband's building me a stand with hay for
him to sleep on."

Elyse smiled as she took the doll back and again packaged
it in the tissue-filled box. The woman continued to talk. "I have your
Little Miss Muffett sitting on top of my television, and everyone who
comes in comments on it. I never thought I'd be able to afford another
doll, but then I won a thousand dollars in the lottery and this is the
first thing I bought."

"I'm flattered," Elyse said warmly as she handed the box
to the customer. "Congratulations on your winnings, and I hope you
enjoy my little boy."

"Oh, I will, and if I ever win again I'll be back for
another. I hope someday to have the whole nursery-rhyme set."

The woman left, balancing the box in her arms, and Elyse
grinned happily as she secured the check for two hundred fifty dollars
plus tax in the cash register. It was a beautiful warm Saturday in
April, the trees had a thick green coat of leaves, and the pansies,
daffodils, tulips and azaleas were in full, colorful blossom. She loved
spring in the Sierra foothills.

Elyse glanced around the shop. It had originally been the
front parlor of the big old family home that she and her sister, Mary
Elizabeth, had inherited when their parents had died.

Elyse grimaced. She didn't usually think of her sister as
"Mary Elizabeth." She'd always been known as "Liz", just as Mary Elyse
was always called "Elyse". It was unfortunate that their mother, whose
name was Mary, had insisted on naming her two daughters after herself,
and giving them such similar middle names had only compounded the
problem. In instances where they had to use their full names nothing
but confusion and frustrating mix-ups resulted.

Her gaze skimmed the schoolhouse clock on the wall, and
her brown eyes widened in surprise. Almost one o'clock. Long past time
to bring Janey in from the backyard, where she was playing on her new
swing set, and give her some lunch.

Clint Sterling picked up the business card from his
dresser. It was made of heavy bond paper with just a slight tint of
pink. The drawing of a little girl doll in a ruffled pinafore filled
the right top corner. Centered in the middle were the words Mary
Elyse's Fairy-tale Angels and, under that, an address and phone number
in Placerville, California. It was an excellent card: businesslike
enough to impress bankers and informal enough to attract doll
customers. Paul's latest love was apparently a good businesswoman, a
departure from the kind of women he'd been attracted to in the past.

On the other hand she could also be smart enough to plot a
little mischief if things didn't go her way.

Clint grimaced with distaste. It went against his nature
to make quick assumptions, but he couldn't afford another family
scandal and Paul had demonstrated that his judgment in such matters
couldn't be trusted.