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Shameless
Ann Major
With loan sharks hot on her tail, Celeste Cavanaugh had no choice. She had to beg help from Phillip Westin, her ex-marine hunk–the only man she'd ever loved. He'd rescued her once before and had offered her marriage, but Celeste had wanted more…then.The words of Celeste's one hit song kept running through Phillip's head, even as the memory of their no-holds-barred lovemaking sent the blood pulsing through his veins. She'd broken his heart and left him for the big time. Now she was back and needed his help again. This time, he'd accept no less than her heart in return!
Where Texas society reigns supreme—and appearances are everything.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Phillip Westin joined the Lone Star Country Club to meet nice girls and to forget about the not-so-nice one who broke his heart years ago. But when his ex comes to town, trouble isn’t far behind. To keep her safe, Westin must rely on his tough-guy instincts to discern truth from lie, and his friends from his enemies.
Celeste Cavanaugh, aka Stella Lamour, can’t remember a time when she didn’t have stars in her eyes. These days, though, the stars are pretty tarnished, and a happily-ever-after in the sizzling embrace of her personal hero, Phillip Westin, doesn’t sound so bad.
Cole Yardley had only met Celeste once, but he’d remember her anywhere. When the shadowy ATF agent comes to town to investigate a gun-smuggling ring in quiet little Mission Creek, Texas, he threatens to blow Celeste’s secrets and her chances with Phillip away.
Dear Reader,
Top off your summer reading list with six brand-new steamy romances from Silhouette Desire!
Reader favorite Ann Major brings the glamorous LONE STAR COUNTRY CLUB miniseries into Desire with Shameless (#1513). This rancher’s reunion romance is the first of three titles set in Mission Creek, Texas—where society reigns supreme and appearances are everything. Next, our exciting yearlong series DYNASTIES: THE BARONES continues with Beauty & the Blue Angel (#1514) by Maureen Child, in which a dashing naval hero goes overboard for a struggling mom-to-be.
Princess in His Bed (#1515) by USA TODAY bestselling author Leanne Banks is the third Desire title in her popular miniseries THE ROYAL DUMONTS. Enjoy the fun as a tough Wyoming rancher loses his heart to a spirited royal-in-disguise. Next, a brooding horseman shows a beautiful rancher the ropes…of desire in The Gentrys: Abby (#1516) by Linda Conrad.
In the latest BABY BANK title, Marooned with a Millionaire (#1517) by Kristi Gold, passion ignites between a powerful hotel magnate and the pregnant balloonist stranded on his yacht. And a millionaire M.D. brings out the temptress in his tough-girl bodyguard in Sleeping with the Playboy (#1518) by veteran Harlequin Historicals and debut Desire author Julianne MacLean.
Get your summer off to a sizzling start with six new passionate, powerful and provocative love stories from Silhouette Desire.
Enjoy!
Melissa Jeglinski
Senior Editor, Silhouette Desire
Shameless
Ann Major
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
This book is dedicated to Ella Mae Lescuer for all her hard work.
ANN MAJOR
lives in Texas with her husband of many years and is the mother of three grown children. She has a master’s degree from Texas A&M at Kingsville, Texas, and is a former English teacher. She is a founding board member of the RWA and a frequent speaker at writers’ groups.
Ann loves to write; she considers her ability to do so a gift. Her hobbies include hiking in the mountains, sailing, ocean kayaking, traveling and playing the piano. But most of all she enjoys her family.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Epilogue
Prologue
Mezcaya, Central America
El Jefe terrorist compound
Lt. Col. Phillip Westin, burly ex-Marine, wasn’t dead.
Hell. He almost wished he was. Solitary confinement—it made you crazy.
Groggily, he chafed at the ropes binding his wrists and ankles. Beneath the restraints his skin burned from too much rubbing.
He tried to roll over but he was so weak he could only lie facedown in the dark, gasping. The windowless walls seemed to close in upon him. He wanted to scream…or worse…to weep. One minute he was burning up, the next he was shivering and whimpering on his cot like a baby. The cramps in his legs and arms knifed through him constantly.
Where the hell was he? Remember! Try to remember. His thoughts were slow and tortured. It took him a while to realize that he was lying on a dirty canvas cot deep in The Cave that served as the dungeon underneath Fortaleza de la Fortuna. The fortaleza was a terrorist compound in Mezcaya run by a particularly dangerous group of thugs who went by the name El Jefe.
Westin had been captured a few weeks ago shortly after he’d run Jose Mendoza, one of the terrorist ring-leaders, off a mountain road and killed him. Too bad Mendoza’s illegitimate son, Xavier Gonzalez, didn’t have a forgiving nature.
Westin blinked but couldn’t see a thing. The damned dungeon was blacker than the inside of an ape’s behind.
His head throbbed where Xavier had smacked him with a rifle butt yesterday. His throat was dry. He was thirsty as hell. Dehydrated probably.
Xavier and his unkempt dirty bunch of thugs had captured him and beaten him senseless and then gleefully trussed him like a pig for slaughter.
He was going to die. At dawn. A single bullet to the head, the final coup de grace. An hour ago Xavier and a couple of short, teenage captors reeking of body odor had strutted inside The Cave like a bunch of bantam cocks in a barnyard and kicked him with their black, muddy combat boots.
“Gringo. ¿Cómo estás?” They’d prodded him with their assault rifles and made cruel jokes in Spanish rather than in their Mezcayan dialect. They’d flipped coins to see who’d get lucky enough to pull the trigger. Xavier, the youngest and the most lethally handsome, had slid a .45 out of a black holster and dried it off on his sleeve.
“You kill my father, so you die, gringo. You have no right to be in my country.”
“Your drug and gun money was making inroads in my town, bastardo. My town.”
The kid was dark with a permanent Mezcayan tan. With one brown hand he’d lifted a cigarette to his pretty mouth; with the other he’d carefully centered the cold barrel on Phillip’s forehead.
“Your town?”
Xavier’s eyes were scarily irrational in his pretty-boy face. His finger had pulled back the trigger ever so slightly. “Bang. Bang, gringo. Your town is going to be my town.”
Before Phillip could argue, the thick, acrid cigarette smoke from the kid’s cigarette had made him wretch. Hell, maybe puking up his guts had saved him. Instead of firing his gun, Xavier had burst out into hysterical laughter and shrieked, “Cobarde. Coward.”
Then the bastardo had danced a little jig.
“Tengo sed. I’m thirsty,” Phillip had said.
Xavier had smiled that pretty smile. “So—drink this!” He’d pitched the cigarette into the vomit in front of Phillip’s face.
Bastardos. His death was a game to them. Phillip Westin, ex-Marine, had been handpicked for the Alpha Force. His usual style was spit-and-polish perfect.
He wouldn’t be a pretty corpse. He wouldn’t even rate a body bag in this hellhole compound that was hidden deep in Mezcayan mountains and rain forest.
There’d be no military honors at his funeral. No funeral, period. No beautiful woman to weep over his grave back home in south Texas.
Suddenly a blond goddess, no a witch, seemed to float above him in the misty black.
Oh, God…. Just when he was weak, wet, shaking and puking with fear, he had to think of her—the icy, trampy witch, who’d walked out on him. Usually, the witch was satisfied to haunt his dreams. When he was awake, he was disciplined enough to keep his demons and witches at bay.
But he was weak and cold…so cold and feverish a spasm shook him…and so scared about dying he could think only of her.
Anger slammed him when her sulky, smoky voice began to sing the love song she’d written about their doomed relationship.
He jerked at his ropes, and to his surprise they loosened just a bit. “Go away! Leave me alone!” he yelled into the steamy darkness.
The perverse phantom draped her curvy body against the black wall and sang louder.
Nobody but you/Only you.
“Shut up,” he growled even as every cell in his body began to quiver as he fisted and unfisted his fingers in an attempt to free his hands.
I had to say goodbye…but everywhere I go…there’s nobody in my heart…only you….
Her husky voice had his head pounding. He dug his fingernails into his palms. Suddenly to his surprise, he jerked his right hand free of the ropes. “Damn you, shut the hell up!”
And yet I had to say goodbye, the witch crooned.
“Tramp! You’re just a one-hit wonder. You know that, don’t you?”
That shut her up, but she didn’t go away. Instead, that sad, vulnerable expression that could tie him in knots came into her eyes, which shone brilliantly in the dark. Her golden hair fell in silken coils around her slim shoulders.
Hell. She looked like a little lost sex kitten in need of a home and a warm bed. His home. His bed.
Oh, God, all she ever had to do was look at him like that and all he wanted to do was to hold her and to protect her and to make love to her. What would he give to have her one more time before he died?
Everything—
His gut cramped as he clawed his cot with his free hands. He remembered exactly how her hair smelled, how her skin smelled, how her blue eyes flashed with tears if he got too domineering. She’d had a fearsome talent for gentling him.
Escape. He had to escape.
His hands shook. He closed his eyes and tried not to remember how small she was or how perfectly she’d fit him.
Think of something else! Like getting out of here!
But when he swallowed, he tasted her. One taste, and he was as hard as a brick.
Somehow he got the ropes around his ankles loose, but when he tried to stand, the black walls spun and he fell back onto the cot. Weak as he was, his groin pulsed with desire. Hell. The proximity of death was the best aphrodisiac.
Damn Celeste Cavanaugh. He’d asked her to be his wife, to marry him. What a damn fool he’d been to do that. Hell, he’d picked her up in a bar. No. Damn it. He’d rescued her from a bar brawl. She’d been a nobody from the gutter, the prettiest, sexiest little nobody in the whole world with a voice like an angel.
He’d lifted her out of that life, given her everything, and treated her like a lady. She’d moved in with him and they’d played at love and marriage. Why the hell hadn’t she bothered to tell him about her ridiculous ambition to be a country-western star? Why hadn’t she at least given him a chance to understand it?
As soon as she’d gotten on her feet, she’d run to Vegas with another man. Phillip had come home from a dangerous mission in the Middle East where he’d gone to rescue his buddies. His homecoming had been delayed because he’d been captured and had had a narrow escape. But once home again, he’d thrown his seabag down at the door, stalked through the ranch house, calling her name. God, all those days and nights when he’d been a hostage trapped in that cell in the Middle East, he’d been burning up for her. Just like now.
She’d left him a letter on his pillow.
“I met a man, who’s going to get me an audition with a world-famous producer, Larry Martin. I’ll call you from Vegas.” She’d said her stage name was Stella Lamour.
There had been more letters in the mailbox from Stella. After he’d read and reread those letters, every word carving his heart out, something had died inside him. Maybe his feelings.
Forget her.
But he couldn’t. Seven years later, she still starred in all his dreams.
When he died down here, she wouldn’t even know. The bastardos would sling his bloody corpse into the jungle, and he’d rot. In this rain and heat and mud, he’d be fertilizer in less than a month.
You’re an ex-Marine. Forget her.
When he tried to stand again, he passed out and dreamed he was back home in Texas dancing with her at the Lone Star Country Club while his Marine buddies cheered and clapped.
He regained consciousness to heat that was as thick and dark as a sauna, to no-see-ums eating him alive. To explosions and heavy boots stomping down some corridor.
Dawn. Time to die.
Was there a weepy, pink light sifting through the single crack in the ceiling or was he hallucinating again?
Shouts in Spanish were followed by more heavy footsteps. Then the lock on the heavy door clicked. The door banged. Flashlights danced in the dark, blinding him.
“Xavier?” Westin squinted. Terror gripped him like a fist. He felt so weak and vulnerable he muttered a quick prayer.
