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Overnight Heiress
Modean Moon
MISSING HEIRESS FOUND!Almost overnight, plain Meg Wilson had gone from being a struggling single mom to a long-lost heiress! She'd inherited a glittering world of wealth and power that would once have satisfied her wildest dreams. But nothing about it would be satisfying without the love of Sheriff Lucas Lambert… .This tall, dark and devastatingly sexy lawman had found the missing millionairess, but it was his all-consuming kisses and quiet strength that had shown her what it meant to be cherished as a beautiful, desirable woman. After a night of passion, Meg knew her world would never be complete without Lucas. But first she's have to break down the walls this loner had built around his heart… .
As Natural As Breathing. As Necessary As Breathing. (#u0443ade1-fd12-5591-86aa-8175ffd1cd57)Letter to Reader (#ud88ea3cd-f92d-52d8-8586-1c8e2c38866e)Title Page (#ua29ae817-4b3f-5fac-b261-8c3298a028c9)About the Author (#uc7426602-4072-571b-a63e-d0df664e1e46)Chapter One (#ud4272a4e-a2e3-5f3c-8718-97ead2d4ad8c)Chapter Two (#u63e94137-e748-5846-9a62-8743771d273f)Chapter Three (#ue833a245-84d8-5bcc-a784-4402ca57d6e2)Chapter Four (#uc327fdc7-7922-5135-b46d-7eb36fb82234)Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
As Natural As Breathing. As Necessary As Breathing.
Meg felt Lucas’s start of surprise as her lips touched his, and then she was where she wanted to be, had needed to be, in an embrace that healed and filled all the empty caverns in her heart.
She felt the brush of the mat as he lowered her to it, felt the weight of Lucas against her, felt the tangle of their legs. She felt a need as Lucas took control of the kiss she’d begun.
Desire. Had she ever really felt it before?
And more. Much more. Every nerve ending she possessed had sprung to life, demanding... demanding something she’d never believed in until this moment.
Had anyone ever cherished her—because she could only have dreamed of this happening, never truly imagined it—as Lucas now did with every touch, every breath?
For a woman who now was worth millions, Meg would give up every penny for Lucas’s arms to stay around her for the rest of her life....
Dear Reader,
This month, Silhouette Desire celebrates sensuality. All six steamy novels perfectly describe those unique pleasures that gratify our senses, like seeing the lean body of a cowboy at work, smelling his earthy scent, tasting his kiss...and hearing him say, “I love you.”
Feast your eyes on June’s MAN OF THE MONTH, the tall, dark and incredibly handsome single father of four in beloved author Barbara Boswell’s That Marriageable Man! In bestselling author Lass Small’s continuing series, THE KEEPERS OF TEXAS, a feisty lady does her best to tame a reckless cowboy and he wisds up unleashing her wild side in The Hard-To-Tame Texan. And a dating service guarantees delivery of a husband-to-be in Non-Refundable Groom by ultrasexy writer Patty Salier.
Plus, Modean Moon unfolds the rags-to-riches story of an honorable lawman who fulfills a sudden socialite’s deepest secret desire in Overnight Heiress. In Catherine Lanigan’s Montana Bride, a bachelor hero introduces love and passion to a beautiful virgin. And a rugged cowboy saves a jilted lady in The Cowboy Who Came in From the Cold by Pamela Macaluso.
These six passionate stories are sure to leave you tingling... and anticipating next month’s sensuous selections. Enjoy!
Regards,
Melissa Senate
Senior Editor
Silhouette Books
Please address questions and book requests to:
Silhouette Reader Service
U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269
Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie. Ont. L2A 5X3
Overnight Heiress
Modean Moon
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
MODEAN MOON once believed she could do anything she wanted. Now she realizes there is not enough time in one’s life to do everything. As a result, she says her writing is a means of exploring paths not taken. Currently she works as a land-title researcher, determining land or mineral ownership for clients. Modean lives in Oklahoma on a hill overlooking a small town. She shares a restored Victorian farmhouse with a six-pound dog, a twelve-pound cat, and, reportedly, a resident ghost.
One
Two plainclothes policemen stood at the end of the bar.
Meg stopped just inside the door and looked warily at the two strangers, knowing they were cops without ever having seen them before. Then, with her heart beating a heavy cadence to the beat of her footsteps on the hardwood floor, she made her way through the scrubbed-clean tables and upended chairs.
They’re not here for me. They can’t be here for me, she told herself as she schooled her features into an expression of concerned curiosity.
“Good morning,” she said pleasantly. “Is Patrick—” As she glanced around the brightly lighted room, her concern became real. “Patrick McBean is here, isn’t he?”
The younger of the two men flashed a smile and just as easily flashed his ID at her. “Yes. He’s in the back.”
Meg let an eyebrow climb a fraction of an inch. “Is there a problem?” she asked.
The older cop, a stereotype of her worst nightmares, raked a glance over the black tailored slacks and white pin-tucked shirt she wore on her angular body. “You a waitress here?”
“Day bartender,” Meg told him, and started to pass him to go behind the bar.
“Don’t touch anything.”
“What?” Meg stopped in her reach for her apron.
“Not until the print crew gets here. And we’re going to need your prints, too. For comparison.”
Oh, hell. Oh, God. Oh, no.
The detective’s eyes narrowed. “You got a problem with being printed, Miss—?”
Meg sighed. “Wilson. Meg Wilson. And yes, I have a problem in principle with workplace fingerprinting, workplace polygraph testing and random drug tests. But since my objections are based on my interpretation of constitutional rights, I don’t suppose those objections will carry any weight with you, will they?”
Shut your mouth, Meg. Shut it now. This isn’t the time to bait a bear. Too much is at risk.
“Isn’t she something?” Patrick asked, coming in from the back room and draping his arm affectionately over Meg’s shoulder.
“Night school. I swear, she can hold her own with anybody who comes in this joint. And they love it.” The bar’s owner squeezed her shoulder with a little more force than necessary. A warning? “Now tell these fine gentlemen you were only staying in practice, Meg, me darlin’.”
Back off. Meg’s silent warning to herself echoed Patrick’s. Your prints aren’t on file. They can’t learn anything. Don’t antagonize them. Don’t make them want to look past the obvious.
Meg had a wide and generous smile. She knew: she’d had to work at it. “I’m sorry,” she said, using that smile. “Wisecracks have gotten to be such a part of the job, I sometimes think I put on the personality when I put on the rest of the uniform.”
Meg turned toward her boss, but now her smile was genuine and concerned. “What happened this time, Patrick?”
Meg paced her minuscule living room, stopping sporadically in her marching to look out through the sliding patio door at the vibrant colors on the surviving trees in this older neighborhood—looking for peace in the panorama of changing seasons, finding none. Tulsa was big enough to get lost in, big enough to escape from, but not big enough to hide two persons from a concentrated search.
Three days had passed since the latest theft from Patrick’s upscale bar and grill, three days since her fingerprints had been sent to the FBI wonderland that cops worshiped. She’d never been printed before, but... but, but, but. There were too many unknowns in this equation, and Meg was so tired—tired of running, tired of hiding—exhausted from the effort of making a home that didn’t feel like they were running or hiding.
She glanced at her watch, as utilitarian as everything she wore, and grimaced. Twenty minutes; that’s all she had until the neighborhood filled with the laughter and noise of home-bound school children. Twenty minutes to pace, to wrestle with her conscience, to decide. She wouldn’t be able to use Patrick as a reference if she left—she’d probably never be able to contact him again.
That was what hurt: losing the friend, not the reference. But if she left without notice, would she become a suspect in this string of thefts from Patrick? Would the police look for her for that reason when they might otherwise overlook her if she stayed quietly where she was?
The doorbell squawked out half its two-note warning and crackled into silence. Meg twisted her watch face into view.
Twenty minutes. Damn it! She needed that time to pull her racing thoughts together, to drag her crumbling composure around her. Later she’d have time for the visit with her elderly neighbor, Mrs. Henson, that the woman was beginning to expect, but not now. Please, not now.
Two men stood on Meg’s tiny doorstep. They were dressed in conservatively styled, tailored and colored suits. FBI. Her mind had no trouble making that connection.
“Good afternoon. Miss Wilson,” one said as both men produced identification.
“Good afternoon,” Meg said through a suddenly and agonizingly dry throat. Yes. FBI. And it wasn’t an accident. They weren’t just canvasing the neighborhood. They knew her name.
“What... Is something wrong?”
One of them smiled, and she was sure it had to be a violation of at least one rule. “No, ma’am. But we’d like for you to come to our office with us.”
“Am I—am I under arrest for something?” FBI. Had he filed kidnapping charges? No. Even he wouldn’t do that. Of course he would!
“Oh, no, Miss Wilson. It’s just a problem that was brought out when you were fingerprinted last week. It won’t take long. You should be home—within an hour.”
With the deed to the Brooklyn Bridge, Meg thought She opened the door wide and stepped back. “I need to get my purse,” she said. And I need thirty seconds alone in the bathroom. Please, please don’t come in.
Lucas Lambert was waiting in the interrogation room when the woman was brought in. He’d argued that interrogation wouldn’t be necessary, but the Feds seemed to think it would be. The woman was tall, at least five-ten, he suspected, even in the flat-heeled shoes she wore, angular—almost gaunt—with her dark hair cropped in a utilitarian, nocare style, and dark eyes that would have had him questioning her relationship to Edward Carlton even without the fingerprints.
Dark eyes that called too vividly to his mind the memory of another woman facing another roomful of unknown men, another interrogation that had a far different outcome from the one he expected here. With the constant regret that he had not been there for that woman, he forced his attention back to the woman in this room.
She was frightened, although she hid it well. She took the seat she was told to take and looked around the small room, focusing suspicious attention on him.
Hadn’t these idiots told her anything? He’d relayed Edward’s message to them, the same message Edward had given him when he first voiced his own suspicions. “We were rich kids,” Edward had told him. “Nothing was left to chance. We were measured and fingerprinted and tattooed. The fingerprints convinced me, but she might need a little extra persuasion.” And then Edward had given him childhood photographs showing a birthmark and a tattoo.
Scared. She was scared out of her skull, and hiding it well enough to fool most people, but not him. He focused on her hands, long fingered and slender, held loosely in her lap but trembling with the tension of not clenching them.
She visibly relaxed her hands, then lifted her chin in a cocky, do-or-die attitude. “Don’t you think it’s time for someone to tell me why I’m here?”
The two federal agents remained silent. Lucas stepped forward. They might not approve of his tactics later, but they had passed the ball to him. “Miss Wilson,” he said. “My name is Lucas Lambert. I’m sheriff of Avalon, New Mexico.”
“I don’t believe I’ve ever been in your jurisdiction, Sheriff.”
He met her cautious smile with one of his own. “That isn’t surprising. Few have. But we have a new citizen of Avalon, a man who has become a good friend of mine. I’m here on his behalf.”
He saw the tension return to her hands. Curious. And still more curious.
“His name is Edward Carlton.”
Lucas saw no recognition in her eyes but he did note that once again her tension relaxed. “Actually, it’s Edward Willliam Renberg Carlton IV.”
He watched as she fought back a smile, the same response he had once made to the pomposity of Edward’s name.
“I hope he’s a big man,” she said.
“He is. Six-two, but lean. Dark hair. Dark eyes.”
He watched the confusion in her eyes for only two heartbeats. “Edward is thirty-five now,” he told her. “Twenty-five years ago his father, his mother and his younger sister went on an outing without him. Edward was left at home for some infraction—a punishment that saved his life.
“The family was kidnapped. A ransom note was received but as too often happens, somehow, someone slipped up. The bodies of Edward’s mother and father were found a month later. Nothing was heard from or about his sister Megan until last week when her fingerprints turned up in a routine screening in a burglary investigation.”
The tension whooshed out of her. She sank back in the chair, eyes wide, mouth open in a question she couldn’t seem to speak. Lucas passed an envelope containing two pictures across the table to her. Numbly she opened the envelope and examined the pictures Edward had provided.
“And I—oh. Oh, my.” She closed her eyes and turned the photographs facedown on the table, sitting silently for several seconds before she again looked up at him. For only a moment her eyes pleaded with him for—for what?—for information on who she had been, where she had lived, and what had happened to the brother she never knew?—before they shuttered.
“I suppose you want me to go with a matron or someone to prove I have those marks?”
Lucas shook his head. “No. Those photographs are for your assurance only. I’m sure there will be all sorts of formalities to go through later, but we’re satisfied with the fingerprints. And with your appearance. Would you like to see a picture of your brother, Miss Wilson?”
She didn’t answer. Lucas didn’t suppose that was too surprising considering the circumstances. The FBI report stated she worked as a day bartender in a popular downtown restaurant and lived in a neighborhood that was still safe but was well past its prime. She was wearing what had to be her uniform. Everything about her was squeaky clean but functional; there were no frills in Meg Wilson‘s—Carlton’s—life. That would change. That would definitely change.
Lucas considered the other photographs he had brought with him and handed her one of Edward and his new wife Jennie taken in the back garden of their home in Avalon.
Meg studied the photo, and for a moment Lucas saw what he could only describe as wistfulness play across her expression. Then her chin jutted and a cocky smile lifted her lips. “He seems to have survived his ordeal fairly well.”
What the hell was she so mad about? Because Lucas was sure that anger was what he saw in her—maybe unacknowledged, maybe even unwanted, but anger just the same.
“Perhaps you’d like this one better,” he said, fighting his own anger at her response. He handed her a studio portrait of Edward taken a year before, showing him as an ambitious, successful, driven—empty—man before Jennie had healed him.
Meg studied the portrait. For a moment her features, a feminine version of Edward’s—a stunningly beautiful feminine version of Edward’s, Lucas suddenly realized—became as bleak as those of the man he had first met only months before.
“So,” she said. “What’s my name?” She dropped the photo onto the table in front of her. “Who am I?”
Her name was Megan Elizabeth Carlton, and she would be twenty-nine years old in three months. Twenty-nine. It wasn’t often a woman got to celebrate her twenty-ninth and her thirtieth birthdays twice. Meg’s lips twisted against bitter anger. That explained so much. What was slow or backward or just plain stupid for a six-year-old—and she had been called all of those—or immature for a twelve- or an eighteen-year-old, was pretty remarkable for someone more than a year and a half younger.
No wonder she hadn’t been able to cope with Blake. She hadn’t been old enough to marry him when she’d divorced him.
Her parents—her adoptive parents—had some serious questions to answer. To her, and to the FBI. Had they known how young she truly was? Or had the lie about her age started before she was brought to them? It mattered; yes, knowing the answer to that question mattered. But letting them know who she was and where she was meant the possibility of Blake finding out, too. And she wasn’t ready for that yet.
Not yet.
Meg schooled her features to reveal none of her thoughts. Lambert’s attention seemed to be focused on the traffic as he guided his rental car back to her apartment, but more than once she had caught him studying her with more perception than normal suspicion. She ought to be terrified of him, being locked in the confines of this less-than-spacious rental car. He was dark, vaguely Native American, vaguely Arabic in appearance, and massive, but for some reason he wasn’t threatening in the way she had come to expect from her past history with cops. He didn’t look like a cop—maybe that was the difference.
And then Meg realized that he did. But he looked like a cop who had spent his life deflecting assaults and abuses away from those who couldn’t defend themselves and taking them on himself if necessary. Or a gladiator, maybe. With battle scars that not even the civilized veneer of expensive tailoring could hide.
“Have you about got it figured out?”
Lambert’s voice was still a surprise. His gravelly accent bore traces of the South—aristocracy, not Appalachia—and he spoke softly as though he had spent years allowing nothing more obvious than a whisper. And once again, his perception intimidated her.
“What?”
“Whatever it was that threw you into that poor, pitiful female, ‘I’m going to faint’ routine. Have you ever fainted in your life?”
