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The Devil You Know
Laurie Paige
JUST MARRIED!VERONICA DALTON AND ADAM SMITH, AFTER A SHORT ENGAGEMENT…Sparks sizzled from the moment beautiful computer whiz Roni Dalton laid eyes on Adam Smith. But a year after their initial meeting, one torrid night of passion together left them with more than they bargained for: a marriage license!DID THE DEVIL MAKE HIM DO IT?Feeling honor-bound to his new bride, the FBI agent agreed to commit himself to his wife, at least temporarily. But Roni couldn't just settle for the marriage of convenience her husband demanded. She had to convince Adam that her love was worth the ultimate gift–his heart.
“Remember our agreement,” Adam said. “We want a clean break when the time comes.”
“That’s what you want,” Roni said.
Now he frowned openly. Leaning close, he asked, “So what do you want?”
“We made vows, Adam. For better, for worse, through sickness and health. We promised to love, honor and cherish. Then we sealed those vows with a kiss. Did you have your fingers crossed all that time?”
Again she had that odd rush of tears. Again she forced it at bay. Adam would hate it if she showed pity for him.
She dropped her hands to her lap. “Sometimes, life won’t let you take a ‘time-out’ from living,” she told him very gently. “We are truly married, whether you want to be or not.”
Dear Reader,
It’s October, the time of year when crisper temperatures and waning daylight turns our attention to more indoor pursuits—such as reading! And we at Silhouette Special Edition are happy to supply you with the material. We begin with Marrying Molly, the next in bestselling author Christine Rimmer’s BRAVO FAMILY TIES series. A small-town mayor who swore she’d break the family tradition of becoming a mother before she becomes a wife finds herself nonetheless in the very same predicament. And the father-to-be? The very man who’s out to get her job….
THE PARKS EMPIRE series continues with Lois Faye Dyer’s The Prince’s Bride, in which a wedding planner called on to plan the wedding of an exotic prince learns that she’s the bride-to-be! Next, in The Devil You Know, Laurie Paige continues her popular SEVEN DEVILS miniseries with the story of a woman determined to turn her marriage of convenience into the real thing. Patricia Kay begins her miniseries THE HATHAWAYS OF MORGAN CREEK, the story of a Texas baking dynasty (that’s right, baking!), with Nanny in Hiding, in which a young mother on the run from her abusive ex seeks shelter in the home of Bryce Hathaway—and finds so much more. In Wrong Twin, Right Man by Laurie Campbell, a man who feels he failed his late wife terribly gets another chance to make it up—to her twin sister. At least he thinks she’s her twin…. And in Wendy Warren’s Making Babies, a newly divorced woman whose ex-husband denied her the baby she always wanted, finds a willing candidate—in the guilt-ridden lawyer who represented the creep in his divorce!
Enjoy all six of these reads, and come back again next month to see what’s up in Silhouette Special Edition.
Take care,
Gail Chasan
Senior Editor
The Devil You Know
Laurie Paige
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To T., who is serving her country.
Thanks for writing, Laurie.
LAURIE PAIGE
Laurie has been a NASA engineer, a past president of the Romance Writers of America, a mother and a grandmother. She was twice a Romance Writers of America RITA
Award finalist for Best Traditional Romance and has won awards from Romantic Times for Best Silhouette Special Edition and Best Silhouette in addition to appearing on the USA TODAY bestseller list. Recently resettled in Northern California, Laurie is looking forward to whatever experiences her next novel will send her on.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter One
V eronica Dalton glanced at her watch and wrinkled her nose in mock despair. “Gotta punch the time clock,” she declared. She counted out enough money to cover her part of the check and tip.
Her best friend, Patricia Upjohn, rolled her eyes at the totally false statement. “Roni, Roni,” she scolded. “Count your blessings. Others should be so lucky as to have your hours. And your boss.”
With a degree in computer science, Roni worked at home, writing computer learning games for children. Her actual working hours were up to her.
And Patricia was right about the boss. Besides being nice, a great guy and all that, he was a hunk. A woman with any sense would go for him in a heartbeat.
Roni tried to look contrite. “I agree. You bankers pay the price for serving humanity.”
“We do our best,” Patricia said humbly.
This time it was Roni who rolled her eyes. “Same time next week?” she asked, standing.
“Right.”
She bid her friend goodbye and threaded her way through the luncheon crowd. The Friday crunch was getting worse, it seemed to her. They might have to select another day for their weekly lunch. Maybe she could talk her boss into changing their Friday morning meetings to Monday.
No, bad idea. People tended to be grouchy first thing on Mondays. Tuesdays would work, though. Or Wednesdays.
Contemplating what other day of the week would be better for Patricia, she detoured past a group who were still saying their farewells and blocking the narrow space around their table. At that moment, one of the departing men stepped backward without looking. He crashed into Roni, sending her careening to the right…and facedown onto the next table.
At nose level—she wasn’t quite lying prone on the white cloth—she observed as water glasses and coffee cups jostled wildly while dinner plates skidded dangerously near the edge. She had a split second to be grateful the plates were mostly empty and that she hadn’t landed on one.
The larger and older of the two men took the brunt of the accident as hot and cold liquids sloshed onto his lap.
“I’m so sorry,” she managed to say as the man leaped from his chair and gave her an indignant glare as he brushed droplets from his clothing. Luckily his napkin had absorbed most of the damage.
“Oh, sorry,” muttered the coward who’d bumped her. He hurried away, leaving her to face the wrath of the drenched diner alone.
“Use this,” a masculine baritone advised.
A clean napkin was thrust into her hand. She carefully blotted drops off the other man’s tie. “Blot, don’t swipe,” she told the furious diner. “That way, you won’t push the stain into the material.”
Having grown up in an all male household—two older brothers, three older cousins, plus Uncle Nick, who’d raised all six orphans—she’d learned early how to manage most household tasks. Finished, she surveyed the man. “There, not a stain in sight,” she said in relief.
“A good thing for you,” the man snarled.
“It wasn’t her fault,” his companion said. “The other man knocked her off her feet. Are you okay?” he asked her.
Roni swung her head around in shock as recognition flashed through her. A jolt went all the way to her toes as she met the cool gray gaze of the man who’d handed her the napkin. “Adam!” she said, then couldn’t think of another word, she was that surprised to see him.
Adam Smith was the very attractive but aloof brother of Honey Smith Dalton, who was married to Roni’s cousin Zack. Neither had mentioned that Adam was expected in the area. Why was he in the city rather than at the ranch? And why was he dressed in a business suit? Was he working?
Along with the questions came the intense excitement and pure joy of seeing him, all mixed up with a welter of other emotions too confusing to be defined. So she stood there smiling at him, speechless but smiling radiantly in happy surprise.
“Hello, Little Bits,” he said with casual amusement.
Before she could question him about his presence in Boise, Idaho, when she knew he worked in the southern California office of the FBI, he stood, gathered her close and kissed the startled “Oh!” off her mouth.
In this swirl of confusion, she felt herself being lifted off her feet and turned so that Adam’s back was to his companion. He released her mouth and nibbled at her ear. “I’ll explain later,” he murmured for her hearing only.
She blinked, forced herself to breathe, then nodded as if she knew what he was talking about.
“Roni, this is Greg Williams,” Adam continued, turning them to the other man. “Greg, Veronica Dalton. Call her Roni if you value your life.”
Greg was poster handsome, but beginning to run to fat. Too many three-martini lunches, she surmised. He wasn’t as old as she’d first thought, but was around the same age as Adam, who was thirty-six, ten years older than her own twenty-six years. Whenever they happened to be at the same place at the same time, he treated her as if she were a precocious six-year-old. Hence her shock at the kiss.
“I didn’t realize you had friends here,” Greg said to Adam, eyeing them both suspiciously.
“I’ve worked with her cousin on a couple of things,” Adam replied with that same casual amusement. “We met at his wedding. Naturally I looked her up when I came to town.”
Liar.
The word leaped to Roni’s lips, but she didn’t say it. Instead she smiled demurely and tried not to appear confused as the falsehoods fell from his lips as easily as rain from a stormy sky.
His hand rested on the small of her back—a warm, beguiling touch that made her want to lean into him. Since it was totally at odds with the manner in which they’d parted two months ago at her uncle’s ranch—he’d made it clear there was nothing between them and there would never be—she resisted the urge.
The only explanation for his sexy, shocking and out-of-character greeting, and his presence here rather than a thousand miles away, was that he must be on a case. Therefore, she would keep her mouth shut and her questions to herself. For the present.
Speculation now leaped into the other man’s eyes while he sized her up. He gave a half shrug as if deciding she wasn’t his type, then moved aside as the waiter finally came forward and deftly began removing the wet tablecloth.
“See you later,” Adam said, his tone affectionate, but the jab in the small of her back told her to leave. Pronto!
She did.
Adam smiled at the friendly squeak of the wooden plank as he crossed the front porch and rang the doorbell of the tiny house located in a block of similar cottage-style homes. The address had surprised him. He’d expected Roni Dalton to live in one of the new, ultra-smart condos being built in prime areas around the city. This neighborhood was definitely blue-collar.
The Saturday morning activities were what he would expect in such a place. It was the third of May, a sunny, pleasant day to be outside. Two doors down, a teenager was polishing an older model car to a high gloss. It was probably his first vehicle. The family compact station wagon was parked on the street.
Next door, an elderly black couple worked in the yard, weeding around hundreds of spring bulbs that were in bloom in raised flower beds. Roni’s yard was similar, a springtime riot of flowering quince, forsythia, tulips and daffodils.
For a moment, he recalled that daffodils had been his mother’s favorite flower. “Daffy-down-dillies,” she’d called them, bringing an armful into the kitchen and arranging them in empty mayonnaise jars so that they’d looked like splashes of sunshine in the house.
An unexpected pang accompanied the nearly forgotten memory, reminding him that once he’d thought life was perfect. Mom and dad, a new baby sister, a house in a quiet neighborhood, flowers and friends and cook-outs in the backyard. A ten-year-old’s world was small.
The door opened, bringing his thoughts back to the present. Roni gave him an unwelcome glare. “I expected you yesterday,” she stated.
She didn’t step back and open the door so he could enter. He wasn’t inclined to discuss his business on the squeaky wooden porch that ran across the front of the house.
“May I come in?” he asked, keeping his tone neutral and carefully polite. In contrast, his heart was suddenly pumping like an athlete’s in the final phase of a triathlon.
She wore a sort of sweat outfit, only it was made of a fleecy material like a baby blanket. Its deep royal blue matched that of her eyes. Dalton eyes. The whole tight-knit clan had those same startling blue eyes, as blue as an afternoon sky on a summer day in the mountains.
Unlike the tall, rangy males in her family, she was petite, maybe five-three, with tiny bones and slender curves. Nearly black hair lay in thick, shining waves to the middle of her back. Black eyebrows and eyelashes accented the color of her eyes and her fair skin. The pink in her cheeks was natural.
A tiny Venus. A tomboy. A computer whiz. He’d met her nearly a year ago and she still intrigued him.
Don’t get carried away, he warned, taking an amused attitude at the heart-pounding, blood-warming sight before him. He’d dealt with women more beautiful, more sophisticated and certainly more agreeable than this one in both his professional and his private life.
However, she could qualify for the most obstinate female he’d ever run across, he decided while he waited for her to make up her mind.
After mulling his request over for a full thirty seconds, she finally moved aside enough so that he could get in the door. Only a tiny part of his mind registered the closing of the door behind them as he surveyed the room.
The place was awash with color, pink and green being predominant. The kitchen and living room had been remodeled into one large, open space with an island separating them. A sink was handily located in the island, and two tall stools on the near side provided a place for casual dining.
On the back wall, an old-fashioned stove, enameled in green, held a simmering pot of soup or stew or something that smelled delicious.
The area rug was green with roses woven into it in multiple hues of pink. A green, white and black border highlighted the center floral part. White beadboard lined the bottom three feet of the wall, matching the cabinets in the kitchen. Pink-striped wallpaper covered the walls of the living room while green and white tiles formed the counter and the backsplash.
An oak armoire was open and revealed a television in its upper section. A sofa in tan and green chenille, an easy chair in tan leather and an oak rocker with pink and green plaid cushions completed a cozy grouping. End tables and a sturdy coffee table were laden with potted plants and magazines about computers and gardening.
The coffee table was painted white, but the green paint from a former life was visible along the edges and legs, and before that, it might have been black. On the walls, family photographs were mixed in casual groupings with gilt-framed mirrors and dark wooden frames of still life paintings that could have come from an ancient attic. Off to one side—where a dining table should have been, he surmised—a quilt was rolled on a quilting frame, a needle with gold thread stuck in one of the squares of material as if the seamstress would be gone only a moment.
The effect of the furnishings was one of odds and ends put together in a charming fashion. For some reason, the place made him feel uneasy, as if he were an unwelcome intruder into her personal space.
“The bathroom is through there,” she said, gesturing toward a door.
Adam realized he’d been silent and staring for much longer than polite interest allowed. “What are the other doors?” he asked, indicating the rectangular hallway to the left of the living room. Three doors opened off it, the middle one being the bathroom she’d pointed to.
“Two bedrooms. I use one for an office.” She went into the kitchen and held up a coffeepot, giving him a questioning glance.
He nodded, and she poured them each a cup of coffee. She pushed one across the surface of the island in his direction. He stepped closer and leaned an elbow on the green and white tiles while he took a sip of the brew.
