Taste of Romance (15 page)

“What are you going to do about it?” She plopped her hands on her own hips, thrust
her chin out, and met his angry stare.

He straightened and flashed a grim smile before leaning down to scrape the feather
up off the floor. He pinched the driest edge and held it out from his body. “Never
heard ‘the customer’s always right,’ have you?”

Laura snatched the feather away. “In what way are you a customer? I only see a too-­important
big shot who can’t apologize.”

His opened his mouth to say . . . something, then changed his mind and pointed a finger
in her face instead. “Oh, really? I bet if I went to have a little talk with the manager
or Miss Willodean, they’d have a completely different take on what just happened here
and who needs to apologize.”

Laura narrowed her eyes and tilted her head. “Oh, really? I’ll take that bet.”

An Excerpt from

B
OOK
T
HREE:
T
HE
H
UNTED
S
ER
IES

by Jennifer Ryan

The Hunted Series continues with this third installment by Jennifer Ryan . . .

1

S
helly swiped the lip gloss wand across her lips, rolled them in and out to smooth
out the color, and grinned at herself in the mirror, satisfied with the results. She
pushed up her boobs, exposing just enough flesh to draw a man’s attention, and keep
it, but still not look too obvious.

“Perfect. He’ll love it.”

Ah, Cameron Shaw. Rich and powerful, sexy as hell, and kind in a way that made it
easy to get what she wanted. Exactly the kind of husband she’d always dreamed about
marrying.

Shelly had grown up in a nice middle class family. Ordinary. She desperately wanted
to be anything but ordinary.

She’d grown up a plump youngster and a fat teenager. At fifteen, she’d resorted to
binging and purging and starved herself thin. Skinny and beautiful—­boys took notice.
You can get a guy to do just about anything when you offer them hot sex. By the time
she graduated high school, she’d transformed herself into the most popular girl in
the place.

For Shelly, destined to live a glamorous life in a big house with servants and fancy
cars and clothes, meeting Cameron in the restaurant had been a coup.

Executives and wealthy businessmen frequented the upscale restaurant. She’d gone fishing
and landed her perfect catch. Now, she needed to hold on and reel in a marriage proposal.

2

N
ight fell outside Cameron’s thirty-­sixth-­floor office window. Tired, he’d spent
all day in meetings. For the president of Merrick International, long hours were the
norm and sleepless nights were a frequent occurrence.

The sky darkened and beckoned the stars to come to life. If he were out on the water,
and away from the glow of the city lights, he’d see them better, twinkling in all
their brilliant glory.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d taken out the sailboat. He’d promised Emma
he’d take her fishing. Every time he planned to go, something came up at work. More
and more often, he put her off in favor of some deal or problem that couldn’t wait.
He needed to realign his priorities. His daughter deserved better.

He stared at the picture of his golden girl. Emma was five now and the image of her
mother: long, wavy golden hair and deep blue eyes. She always looked at him with such
love. He remembered Caroline looking at him the same way.

They’d been so happy when they discovered Caroline was pregnant. In the beginning,
things had been so sweet. They’d lain awake at night talking about whether it would
be a boy or a girl, what they’d name their child, and what they thought he or she
would grow up to be.

He never thought he’d watch his daughter grow up without Caroline beside him.

The pregnancy took a turn in the sixth month when Caroline began having contractions.
They gave her medication to stop them and put her on bed rest for the rest of the
pregnancy.

One night he’d come home to find her pale and hurting. He rushed her to the hospital.
Her blood pressure spiked, and the contractions started again. No amount of medication
could stop them. Two hours later, when the contractions were really bad, the doctor
came in to tell him Caroline’s body was failing. Her liver and kidneys were shutting
down.

Caroline was a wreck. He still heard her pleading for him to save the baby. She delivered
their daughter six weeks early, then suffered a massive stroke and died without ever
holding her child.

Cameron picked up the photograph and traced his daughter’s face, the past haunting
his thoughts. He’d spent three weeks in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, grieving
for his wife and begging his daughter to live. Week four had been a turning point.
He felt she’d spent three weeks mourning the loss of her mother and then decided to
live for her father. She began eating on her own and gained weight quickly. Ten days
later, Cameron finally took his daughter home. From then on, it had been the two of
them.

Almost a year ago, he’d decided enough was enough. Emma needed a mother.

An Excerpt from

H
IGHLAND
L
AI
RDS
T
RILOGY

by Kathleen Harrington

Lady Francine Walsingham can’t believe Lachlan MacRath, laird and pirate, is to be
her escort into Scotland. But trust him she must, for Francine has no choice but to
act as his lover to keep her enemies at bay. When Lachlan first sees Francine, the
English beauty stirs his blood like no woman has ever before. And now that they must
play the besotted ­couple so he can protect her, Lachlan is determined to use all
his seductive prowess to properly woo her into his bed.

May 1496

The Cheviot Hills

The Border Between England and Scotland

S
tretched flat on the blood-­soaked ground, Lachlan MacRath gazed up at the cloudless
morning sky and listened to the exhausted moans of the wounded.

The dead and the dying lay scattered across the lush spring grass. Overhead, the faint
rays of dawn broke above the hilltops as the buttercups and bluebells dipped and swayed
in the soft breeze. The gruesome corpses were sprawled amidst the wildflowers, their
vacant eyes staring upward to the heavens, the stumps of their severed arms and legs
still oozing blood and gore. Dented helmets, broken swords, axes, and pikes gave mute
testimony to the ferocity of the combatants. Here and there, a loyal destrier, trained
to war, grazed calmly alongside its fallen master.

Following close upon daylight, the scavengers would come creeping, ready to strip
the bodies of anything worth a shilling: armor, dirks, boots, belts. If they were
Scotsmen, he’d be in luck. If not, he’d soon be dead. There wasn’t a blessed thing
he could do but wait. He was pinned beneath his dead horse, and all efforts to free
himself during the night had proven fruitless.

In the fierce battle of the evening before, the warriors on horseback had left behind
all who’d fallen. Galloping across the open, rolling countryside, Scots and English
had fought savagely, until it was too dark to tell friend from foe. There was no way
of knowing the outcome of the battle, for victory had been determined miles away.

Hell, it was Lachlan’s own damn fault. He’d come on the foray into England with King
James for a lark. After delivering four new cannons to the castle at Roxburgh, along
with the Flemish master gunners to fire them, he’d decided not to return to his ship
immediately as planned. The uneventful crossing on the
Sea Hawk
from the Low Countries to Edinburgh, followed by the tedious journey to the fortress,
with the big guns pulled by teams of oxen, had left him eager for a bit of adventure.

When he’d learned that the king was leading a small force into Northumberland to retrieve
cattle raided by Sassenach outlaws, the temptation to join them had been too great
to resist. There was nothing like a hand-­to-­hand skirmish with his ancient foe to
get a man’s blood pumping through his veins.

But Lord Dacre, Warden of the Marches, had surprised the Scots with a much larger,
well-­armed force of his own, and what should have been a carefree rout had turned
into deadly combat.

A plea for help interrupted Lachlan’s brooding thoughts. Not far away, a wounded English
soldier who’d cried out in pain during the night raised himself up on one elbow.

“Lychester! Over here, sir! It’s Will Jeffries!”

Lachlan watched from beneath slit lids as another Sassenach came into view. Attired
in the splendid armor of the nobility, the newcomer rode a large, caparisoned black
horse. He’d clearly come looking for someone, for he held the reins of a smaller chestnut,
its saddle empty and waiting.

“Here I am, Marquess,” the young man named Jeffries called weakly. He lifted one hand
in a trembling wave as the Marquess of Lychester drew near to his countryman. Dismounting,
he approached the wounded soldier.

“Thank God,” Jeffries said with a hoarse groan. “I’ve taken a sword blade in my thigh.
The cut’s been oozing steadily. I was afraid I wouldn’t make it through the night.”

Lychester didn’t say a word. He came to stand behind the injured man, knelt down on
one knee, and raised his fallen comrade to a seated position. Grabbing a hank of the
man’s yellow hair, the marquess jerked the fair head back and deftly slashed the exposed
throat from ear to ear. Then he calmly wiped his blade on the youth’s doublet, lifted
him up in his arms, and threw the body facedown over the chestnut’s back.

The English nobleman glanced around, checking, no doubt, to see if there’d been a
witness to the coldblooded execution. Lachlan held his breath and remained motionless,
his lids still lowered over his eyes. Apparently satisfied, the marquess mounted,
grabbed the reins of the second horse, and rode away.

Lachlan slowly exhaled.

Sonofabitch.