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All A Man Can Be
Virginia Kantra
LEAVING THE LOSERS IN YOUR LIFEThat was Nicole Reed's goal. And then he opened the door. Long, lean, gorgeous and definitely rough around the edges, Mark DeLucca was everything Nicole longed for–and everything she'd come to Eden to avoid.Then she started hearing the rumors about Mark. And stumbled across his secret. Seems that Mark had just inherited a son he'd never known about. Now the ex-military man was fumbling with being a daddy and turning to Nicole for help both day and night. But was this newfound need something Nicole could believe was just for her?
“I am not the kind of guy you want to get experience with.”
Nicole stood on tiptoe, stretching a little to make a better fit. “How will we know if we don’t even try?”
She was going to kiss him. And, God forgive him, he was going to let her.
He stood there like a dummy, like a stone, with his heart doing a hundred and forty in his chest while Nicole kissed him. Her soft mouth caressed his upper lip and tugged gently at his lower one. He angled his head and kissed her back, sucked on her soft, plump lips and explored her mouth.
She separated from him by a breath and smiled into his eyes. “Well,” she said. “That was different.”
“Yeah,” he said hoarsely. “The first time I kissed you, I was trying to scare you off.”
She blinked. “And now?”
“Now you’re scaring me,” he said.
Dear Reader,
This month we have something really special in store for you. We open with Letters to Kelly by award-winning author Suzanne Brockmann. In it, a couple of young lovers, separated for years, are suddenly reunited. But she has no idea that he’s spent many of their years apart in a Central American prison. And now that he’s home again, he’s determined to win back the girl whose memory kept him going all this time. What a wonderful treat from this bestselling author!
And the excitement doesn’t stop there. In The Impossible Alliance by Candace Irvin, the last of our three FAMILY SECRETS prequels, the search for missing agent Dr. Alex Morrow is finally over. And coming next month in the FAMILY SECRETS series: Broken Silence, our anthology, which will lead directly to a 12-book stand-alone FAMILY SECRETS continuity, beginning in June. In Virginia Kantra’s All a Man Can Be, TROUBLE IN EDEN continues as a rough-around-the-edges ex-military man inherits a surprise son—and seeks help in the daddy department from his beautiful boss. Ingrid Weaver continues her military miniseries, EAGLE SQUADRON, in Seven Days to Forever, in which an innocent schoolteacher seeks protection—for starters—from a handsome soldier when she mistakenly picks up a ransom on a school trip. In Clint’s Wild Ride by Linda Winstead Jones, a female FBI agent going undercover in the rodeo relies on a sinfully sexy cowboy as her teacher. And in The Quiet Storm by RaeAnne Thayne, a beautiful speech-disabled heiress has to force herself to speak up to seek help from a devastatingly attractive detective in order to solve a murder.
So enjoy, and of course we hope to see you next month, when Silhouette Intimate Moments once again brings you six of the best and most exciting romance novels around.
Leslie J. Wainger
Executive Senior Editor
All a Man Can Be
Virginia Kantra
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
VIRGINIA KANTRA
credits her enthusiasm for strong heroes and courageous heroines to a childhood spent devouring fairy tales. A three-time Romance Writers of America RITA
Award finalist, she has won numerous writing awards, including the Golden Heart, Maggie Award, Holt Medallion and Romantic Times W.I.S.H. Hero Award.
Virginia is married to her college sweetheart, a musician disguised as the owner of a coffeehouse. They live in Raleigh, North Carolina, with three teenagers, two cats, a dog and various blue-tailed lizards that live under the siding of their home. Her favorite thing to make for dinner? Reservations.
She loves to hear from readers. You can reach her at VirginiaKantra@aol.com or c/o Silhouette Books, 300 East 42nd Street, New York, NY 10017.
To Jean, Andrew and Mark,
who taught me a lot about unconditional love,
and to Michael, who knows everything.
Special thanks to Jane Langdell
for insights on the law and losers;
and to Colleen Blake-Calvert of the DNA Testing Centre.
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
Chapter 18
Epilogue
Chapter 1
Both the babe and her ride gleamed, high maintenance and fully loaded.
Bartender Mark DeLucca stepped closer to the window to get a better look. Yeah.
The ride was a Lexus SUV, a cashmere-beige LX470.
The woman had to be Nicole Reed. The new owner of the Blue Moon wore a you-can’t-afford-this tailored shirt and a you-can’t-touch-me attitude.
Rich, Mark judged. Blond, to match the car. And late.
Three strikes, sweetheart, and you’re out.
He gave the bar a last swipe with a rag and crossed the planked floor to let her in. She was sorting through the keys in her hand when he unlocked the door.
“Looking for someone?” he asked.
She blushed. In embarrassment? Nah. Irritation. Recovering, she offered him a polished smile and a smooth hand. She wore thin gold rings on her fingers and neat pearl studs in her ears. Classy. Feminine. Very sexy. A pale, tiny scar on her upper lip emphasized the perfection of her face.
It was his rotten luck she turned him on.
“How do you do?” she said. “I’m Nicole Reed.”
“Mark DeLucca.”
Her hand was cool and firm. He held it a heartbeat too long, just to see if he could make her blush again. She didn’t. She looked…blank, Mark decided. Not disapproving or flirtatious. Not hopeful. Not intrigued. Not any of the things a woman usually put on her face when she thought she had his attention.
He was annoyed to find his ego was pricked.
“It was nice of you to meet me like this,” Nicole said politely.
Mark shrugged. “Not really. You’re paying for my time.”
She met his gaze straight-on. “Yes. I am.”
It was a line drawn in the sand. Mark almost smiled. He ate girls like little Miss Michigan Avenue for breakfast.
He opened the door wider. “Then I better offer you a drink.”
She frowned. “It’s only ten o’clock.”
“Ten-twenty,” he said.
Her composure flickered. “Yes, I…I know. I’m sorry.”
“Traffic?” he asked easily.
She lifted her chin. “No.”
No more explanation than that.
“You are late,” he said.
“But still too early for a drink,” she countered.
Great. Carry Nation had just bought herself a bar.
Mark walked toward the gleaming wooden length of it, saying over his shoulder, “I’ve got seltzer. Soda. Orange juice. Or I could make you coffee, if you want.”
“Oh. I would like a diet cola. Please.” She followed him, her tasteful leather pumps clicking on his hardwood floor.
Her hardwood floor, Mark reminded himself. He grabbed her Pepsi and shoveled ice into a glass. She didn’t strike him as the kind of girl who drank from a can.
He put the drink on a napkin and slid it across the bar. “You want me to ring that up?”
A gleam appeared in her cool blue eyes. So maybe she had a sense of humor after all. But all she said was, “That won’t be necessary, thank you.”
She sipped her drink and looked around the bar. He knew it all already: the dark booths, the clustered tables, the stuffed pike and the lineup of neon signs on the walls. So he watched her instead.
She swiveled gently back and forth on her stool, back straight, long slim legs in tailored khakis crossed. “Isn’t it a little dark in here?”
It was a bright, clear September morning. The sun, slanting through the shutters, glinted off the bottles behind the bar and the glassy eyes of the stag’s head mounted above the pool table.
Mark raised an eyebrow. “This can’t be the first time you’ve seen the place.”
“No,” she acknowledged. “Kathy Webber showed me the plans.”
Kathy Webber was the real estate agent who had handled the sale of the bar. Mark had met her. New in town, red-haired and hungry. She’d offered to show him the plans, too. Along with some other things.
“She give you the tour, too?”
“Yes. But it’s not the same as actually sitting here like a customer.”
“Most of our customers come at night.”
“It just seems a shame to shut out that wonderful lake view.”
“There is no view at night.”
“The lights from the hotel? The moonlight on the water?”
Mark shrugged and didn’t answer. If she wanted to romanticize the place, that was her business. But the bar’s patrons didn’t come for the view.
She set her drink on the center of her napkin. “We’ll have to do a use study, tracking our sales by the hour.”
A use study, hell. He’d just told her the bar did most of its business at night.
“I’m surprised you didn’t do one already,” he said.
