Please Remember This (29 page)

Oh, and I am sorry too. I am so so sorry too.

The regrets and the sadness swirled in Tess’s ears, an aching that mixed with the scent of the honeysuckle. But coloring the regret, infusing it with a warm golden glow, was love. These two women had loved each other, this mother and daughter. It was a love and a passion that Tess herself had never known, but she would, God willing, know it now.

The sun was rising, a thin line of shell pink appearing at the sky’s edge. Soon, day would come.

Tess knew that she would never hear these voices again. The dead had made peace with each other; they no longer needed to speak.

It was time to live.

Sometimes even Mom is wrong…

 

Your mother always told you to marry a doctor …

If we all listened to our mothers we’d have married doctors, lawyers, or perhaps nice accountants. Men with steady jobs, good salaries … no muss, no fuss—no danger!

But sometimes even Mom is wrong …

Especially for the heroines of the Avon Romance Superleaders! No regular-job guy for any of them. These women want someone special … and they all manage to get him …

Join Susan Andersen, Kathleen Gilles Seidel, Barbara Freethy, Rachel Gibson, Kathleen Eagle, and Judith Ivory on the search for the perfect man … one even Mom will love!

*We know not all mothers are like this—this is just for fun!

 

WHAT MOM SAYS:

“The restaurant business is unreliable. And for goodness sakes never date a bartender!”

In
HEAD OVER HEELS
BY
Susan Andersen
Available January 2002
Veronica Davis learns differently …

 

Veronica walks through the doors of the Tonk—the local watering hole—searching for answers about her sister’s murder. What—or who—she manages to find is Cooper Blackstock. He works as a bartender, but there’s much more to him than meets the eye. Could he have the answer she’s been looking for?

 

He looked up as she stepped forward and gave her a comprehensive once-over. “You’re new around here,” he said in a low voice. “I’d remember that skin if I’d seen it before.” His gaze seemed to track every inch of it before his eyes rose to meet hers. “What can I get you?”

Veronica blinked.
Wow.
She was surprised the men of Fossil didn’t keep their women under lock and key around this guy, for even she could feel the sexuality that poured off of him in waves, and he wasn’t at all her type. “Are you Mr. Blackstock?”

“Yeah, but call me Coop,” he invited and flashed
her a smile that was surprisingly charming for someone with such watchful eyes. “I’m always tempted to look around for my dad whenever I hear anyone call me mister, and he’s been gone a long, long time.” Then he became all business. “Since you know my name,” he said, “I assume you’re here for the waitress job.”

“No!” She stepped back, her hands flying up as if they could push the very idea away.
Oh, no, no, no—
She’d sworn when she graduated from college that she would never serve another drink as long as she lived. It was a vow she’d kept, too, and she intended to keep on keeping it right up until the day they planted her body in the cold, hard ground.

Seeing those dark brows of his lift toward his blond hairline, she forced her shoulders to lose their defensive hunch and her hands to drop back to her sides.
Oh, smooth, Davis. You might wanna try keeping the idiot quotient to a bare minimum here.
“I’m sorry, I should have introduced myself.” Head held high, giving her fine wool blazer a surreptitious tug to remind herself she’d come a long way from the Tonk, she stepped back up to the bar. “I’m Veronica Davis. I just stopped by to see how the place is doing.”

“You want to know how it’s doing?” Coop demanded coolly. “Well, I’ll tell you, lady, right this minute not so hot. But things are looking up now that I’ve got you in my sights. Here.” He tossed her something and reflexively she reached up to snatch it out of the air before it hit her in the face. “Put that on,” he instructed, “and get to work. We’re short-handed.”

She looked down at the white chef’s apron in her
fist, then dropped it as if it were a cockroach, her head snapping up to stare at him in horror. “I’m not serving drinks!”

“Listen, Princess, I’ve got one waitress who called in sick and another who just quit. You want the Tonk to close down and lose a night’s receipts, that’s up to you. But don’t expect me to knock myself out if you’re too high-toned to sully those lily-white hands schlepping a few drinks.”

Who
was
this guy, with his farmer’s body and his warrior’s eyes, to tell her what to do? What gave him the right to threaten her with the bar’s closure? She was the owner here, and that made her his boss. If anybody should be giving orders, it was she.

But she was just too worn out and emotional to get into it, particularly with someone who looked the type to relish a good fight, the more down and dirty, the better. Not to mention he might simply quit like Rosetta—and wouldn’t
that
just be the icing on her cake.

Still, it didn’t keep her from resenting his attitude. He didn’t have the first idea how hard she’d worked to get away from this place, so how dare he look at her as if she were too snooty to do an honest day’s work?

If she was smart, she’d just walk away right now, the way she should have done earlier.

Except … the Tonk was her niece Lizzy’s inheritance, and now that Crystal was gone, she had to protect it.

 

WHAT MOM SAYS:

“If you want a man who’s a success, stay away from small towns! The city is where the action is.”

In
PLEASE REMEMBER THIS
BY
Kathleen Gilles Seidel
Available February 2002
Tess learns all about love in a small town

 

Tess comes to Kansas searching for the truth about her famous mother. What she discovers is unexpected love in the arms of Ned Ravenal. Ned’s a dreamer, and Tess has always seen herself as a woman with her feet firmly planted on the ground. But sometimes love is just a dream away …

 

Ned tilted his head, his dark eyebrows pulling close together. “You’re not interested in your family’s stuff?”

“I can’t imagine that my family had much stuff. That’s why they had to leave. They were broke, the Dust Bowl and all.”

He waved his hand, dismissing everything that she knew of her family’s history. “No, not those people. I’m talking about the ones on the riverboat. We probably won’t be able to identify the owners of most of the personal belongings, but the Laniers had so much
more money than anyone else. If we find rich-people stuff, it was probably theirs.”

“Whose? What are you talking about? There were Laniers on the riverboat?”

He drew back. “You didn’t know that?”

“No.” Tess had never heard anything about this. The banks taking away the farms, she knew about that. Her grandparents each having an uncle killed in World War I, she had heard about them. But Laniers being on the riverboat? Her family ties to Kansas were even stronger than she had realized.

“Their names were Louis and Eveline,” Ned was saying. “He was the younger son of a reasonably important New Orleans family. They had an adult daughter named Marie with them, and Eveline was pregnant. Six months after the wreck Herbert was born. He was the one who built the Lanier Building.”

Tess wondered if Nina Lane had known this. Of course she had. Everyone said she had been obsessed by the riverboat.

So why hadn’t Tess’s grandparents told her?

Were they afraid that I would become obsessed too?

“Apparently they were going to spend the summer in the St. Louis area,” Ned continued, “and I don’t know what made them decide to continue west, and I doubt that we’ll find out. No paper onboard—no books, diaries, or correspondence—is going to have survived. But the Laniers certainly were luckier than everyone else. The boat sank in less than five minutes. People only salvaged what they had on their backs, but Eveline Lanier had three hundred dollars in gold coins sewn into the hem of her petticoat.”

“Three hundred dollars … that was a lot then, wasn’t it?” Tess had never heard of any Laniers having money.

“It certainly was. It was more than enough to have gotten them back to New Orleans, but they stayed on and used the money to build a decent house and get a sawmill started. Years later she wrote an account of the wreck. I suppose you haven’t read it or you’d have known about your family. But I’ll make a copy of it for you.”

“That would be nice.” This was all so surprising. “I would like to read it.”

“Don’t be so sure,” he said bluntly.

 

WHAT MOM SAYS:

“If you break up with somebody—or even if he breaks up with you—you should never date his best friend!”

In
LOVE WILL FIND A WAY
BY
Barbara Freethy
Available March 2002
Rachel Tanner discovers that this is one rule worth breaking!

 

Years ago, Rachel Tanner handed her husband an apple. But not just any apple—this one came from a tree in her family’s orchard. Legend had it that if a woman handed a man a piece of that succulent fruit he would marry her. Rachel always believed her late husband had taken a bite—but she didn’t know the truth …

 

There were moments in time when Rachel forgot the sadness. But then she’d feel guilty that she’d forgotten her pain, if only for a second. Some things, some people, should never be forgotten, and Gary was one of them.

Dylan was too, unfortunately.

The two men were as different as night and day: Gary with his golden blonde looks, Dylan with his
midnight black eyes; Gary with his sunny disposition, Dylan with his dark moods.
Dylan.
Today her faded memories had suddenly been washed in bright, beautiful color, and the shadowy figure in her mind was now vibrant and real and distinctly unsettling.

As she got into her car she told herself it was the circumstances that bothered her, not the man. And there was too much at stake to allow a momentary indiscretion from a long time ago to get in the way of what she needed to do. Dylan had probably forgotten all about it by now. Chalked it off as no big deal. He probably didn’t even realize she’d been avoiding him all these years. After all, it had been easy not to see each other. She lived more than an hour away, and when Gary was home on the weekends he was with her family, her friends. Dylan had rarely invaded that space, just three times that she could remember: Wesley’s christening, Gary’s thirtieth birthday, and Gary’s funeral. Never had Dylan stayed more than an hour.

Gary had always told her that Dylan felt more comfortable in the city, and she’d accepted that explanation. Whether or not it was true didn’t matter. And whether or not Dylan Prescott made her uncomfortable didn’t matter. What did matter was that Dylan had been Gary’s best friend for more than twenty years. If anyone could help her figure out what had been going on in Gary’s mind the last day of his life it was Dylan …

 

WHAT MOM SAYS:

“Whatever you do, don’t date a cop—or a secret agent—or anyone else who runs around getting shot at!”

In
LOLA CARLYLE REVEALS ALL
BY
Rachel Gibson
Available April 2002
Lola finds that with guys like Max Zamora dangerous is awfully appealing …

 

Max “borrows” a yacht, which happens to be the one Lola’s staying on. Together they outrun drug dealers, but Lola can’t outrun her past—and they can’t outrun the passion they feel for each other. But what happens when Max discovers the whole truth about Lola Carlyle?

 

“Who are you?” she asked.

“I’m one of the good guys.”

“Good guys don’t steal boats and kidnap women.”

She had a point, but she was just plain wrong. Sometimes the line between the good guys and the bad guys was as hazy as his sight. “I didn’t steal this vessel, I’m commandeering it. And I’m not kidnapping you. I am not going to hurt you. I just need to put some distance between me and Nassau. I’m Lieutenant
Commander Max Zamora,” he revealed, but he didn’t give her the whole truth. He left out that he was retired from the military and that he currently worked for a part of the government that didn’t exist on paper.

“Let go of me,” she demanded, and for the first time Max looked down at the blurred image of his hands wrapped around her wrists. “Are you going to take another swing at me?” he asked.

“No.”

He released her and she flew out of his grasp as if her clothes were on fire. Through the dark shadows of the cabin, he watched her take a few steps backward before he turned to the controls once again.

“Come here, Baby.”

He looked over his shoulder at her, sure he hadn’t heard her right. “What?”

She scooped up her dog. “Did he hurt you, Baby Doll?”

“Jeesuz,” he groaned as if he’d stepped in something foul. She’d named her dog Baby Doll. No wonder it was such a nasty little pain in the butt.

“If you’re really a lieutenant, then show me your identification.”

Even if every piece of identification hadn’t been taken from him when he’d been captured, it wouldn’t have told her anything anyway. “Take a seat, lady. This will all be over before you know it,” he said, because there was nothing more he could tell her. Nothing she would believe anyway.

“Where are we going?”

“West,” he answered, figuring that was all the information she needed.

“Exactly where in the West?”

He didn’t need to see her to know by the tone of her voice that she was the kind of woman who expected to be in charge.

“Exactly where I decide.”

“I deserve to know where I’m being taken.”

Normally, he didn’t enjoy intimidating women, but just because he didn’t enjoy it didn’t mean it bothered him either.

“Listen real close,” he began, towering over her and placing his hands on his hips. “I can make things easy for you, or I can make them real hard. You can sit back and enjoy the ride, or you can fight me. If you choose to fight me, I guarantee you won’t win. Now what’s it gonna be?”

She didn’t say a word, but her dog propelled itself from her arms and sank its teeth into his shoulder like a rabidinous bat.