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No Ordinary Home
Mary Sullivan
>She's not who she seems… Gracie Travers has a secret. She's not the down-on-her-luck drifter she appears to be. Once America's sweetheart, Gracie needs to keep below the paparazzi's radar until she's thirty. Then she'll get her money and get off the street.But one small mistake brings Deputy Sheriff Austin Trumball into her life. He's attractive and oh-so-dangerous. If he learns who she really is, her anonymous days are over. Worse, Austin's hard to resist, and their connection is terrifying. Soon he makes her want what she can't have–a lover, a family and a home of her own.
She’s not who she seems…
Gracie Travers has a secret. She’s not the down-on-her-luck drifter she appears to be. Once America’s sweetheart, Gracie needs to keep below the paparazzi’s radar until she’s thirty. Then she’ll get her money and get off the street.
But one small mistake brings Deputy Sheriff Austin Trumball into her life. He’s attractive and oh-so-dangerous. If he learns who she really is, her anonymous days are over. Worse, Austin’s hard to resist, and their connection is terrifying. Soon he makes her want what she can’t have—a lover, a family and a home of her own.
Maybe they could sleep in the same bed tonight without it being too awkward.
Maybe this could work, Gracie thought as she looked to where Austin stood beside the window, big and calm and about as perfect as a man could be, except for a small scar beside his left eye.
He must have shoved his fingers through his hair, because it lay in sexy waves. She wanted to straighten it out, but that would be a big mistake.
Hands off, Gracie. You haven’t been attracted to a man in six years. Why start now when you’re so close to the end?
What appealed to her, though, was underneath the facade. Austin gave too much. She was a stranger who’d picked his pocket. He should have given her a night in jail.
Instead, he’d shown compassion, and it had her yearning for things that could never be.
She glanced at the bed. Maybe it would still be awkward. She hadn’t been attracted to a man in years, probably because she’d been focused on survival. But Austin had taken care of that. She was warm and fuzzy when she needed her defenses the most. If she wasn’t careful, she would let her guard down.
Don’t forget who you really are. This man must never find out the truth about you.
You’re almost home free.
Dear Reader (#ulink_944c7cb1-b4f2-5df0-985c-7007f5669c42),
Privacy is becoming a precious commodity in today’s world. We seem to know everything about everyone around us. The public craves the latest news about celebrities, and we are often pressured by those around us to become involved in social media.
I began to wonder what would happen to a woman who had reached her breaking point and decided to just opt out of today’s society. How difficult would her life become?
This is the story of one such woman’s journey.
As well, I wanted to follow the escapades of a couple of characters from previous novels—including Austin Trumball from No Ordinary Sheriff (Mills & Boon Superromance, May 2012). Many readers have asked me what happened to him. Here is his story.
There are also two young characters who were separated when they were only twelve years old through no fault of their own—Finn (Franck) Caldwell and Melody Chase from These Ties that Bind (Mills & Boon Superromance, November 2011). I wanted to explore what would happen to them if they met again as adults.
I loved writing these characters in my earlier books and have enjoyed creating happy endings for them as adults, but not before giving them plenty of conflict to overcome first!
Mary Sullivan
No Ordinary Home
Mary Sullivan
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR (#ulink_f5b4beba-d531-52cc-98e1-8e6e69528dbd)
Mary started her life living in a large city, and she loved it. Her early career was as a darkroom printer—a career ideally suited to her temperament. She left both the city and the job to start her family. Along the way, darkrooms became obsolete when computers took over. Searching for a creative alternative, she found writing. In particular, writing romance novels, which she enjoys thoroughly. She moved to smaller cities and then the country and then back to a big city, and the novel writing has followed her everywhere! These days she strives for a balance between her public life as an author and her private life, but she always loves to hear from readers. Don’t hesitate to contact her through her website, www.marysullivanbooks.com (http://www.marysullivanbooks.com).
Thank you to all of the staff at Harlequin, who are unfailingly polite and lovely.
Thank you to every copy editor, line editor and proofreader who fixes my mistakes for me.
Thank you to every member of the art department for giving me stellar covers time and time again.
Thank you to Megan Long for helping me to make this the best book it could be!
Contents
Cover (#uc2d67a71-fcfa-5acf-88fc-160c622b5258)
Back Cover Text (#u345a7d0d-cf0c-5454-9a1f-96d359c8dabd)
Introduction (#ua500d90c-7f6d-5d68-b235-8d908e025149)
Dear Reader (#ulink_ddd7198d-965a-5e4a-a935-d55c706d9fb0)
Title Page (#u7424355b-080a-5521-86c5-06ee7317ca5b)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR (#ulink_f8d42dc5-1cf1-5b5e-b83c-404500c34e88)
Dedication (#u4536d22f-a159-5cc8-9e9a-6d7c0d027358)
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_19e8f2d7-d695-56a9-a6b9-1cb24b037654)
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_022c4bae-3721-532f-9723-3bb917841ac2)
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_f4491330-b30c-59ec-95ca-f5175721f4d3)
CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_8cb46399-4a95-5e75-b309-9bb1d41008ef)
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)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
EXTRACT (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_f6406c4f-474c-5022-be8a-8685acac3082)
AUSTIN TRUMBALL STOOD under the sickly green fluorescent lighting of a Wyoming truck-stop diner waiting for a table, with the devil eating a hole through his belly. He shouldn’t have waited so long to stop for lunch.
The smell of charbroiled burgers and greasy fries seeped into his hair and clothes. Short-order cooks called for servers to pick up orders. Waitresses yelled back, “Hold your horses,” or “Coming!” Not-so-nimble fingers slid into Austin’s back pocket and lifted his wallet.
The brazen act carried out so clumsily startled a laugh out of him.
Not only did the pathetic amateur lack skills, he had no idea he’d just robbed a cop.
Austin walked like one, talked like one, scoped out his surroundings like one, but the thief had failed to scope him out. Big mistake.
Leaning forward, he murmured to his buddy Finn, “Be right back,” and spun around just as a boy ran out the front door. Austin followed without calling. The biggest mistake people made was screaming they’d been robbed or yelling to the thief to stop. What sense was there in warning a criminal you were coming after him?
Outside, a flash of dark clothing rounded the far corner of the building.
Light-footed, Austin followed around to the back.
The boy stood beside a Dumpster that reeked of garbage left sitting too long in the sun. He stuffed Austin’s credit cards into his pockets and tossed the wallet into the bin. It hit the side and bounced onto the asphalt. Good thing, or Austin would be tossing the boy into the trash to fish it out.
The kid wasn’t even smart enough to watch his back, but actually stood and counted the money instead of hightailing it out of there. No shortage of stupid here.
Using the stealth he’d learned on the job, Austin snuck up right behind the boy just as he breathed, “Two hundred dollars,” as though he’d won the lottery. The boy was young; his voice hadn’t even dropped yet. Austin shook his head, disgusted with today’s youth. Or with their parents. What would drive someone so young out of his home, onto the road and into a life of crime?
The boy’s skinny neck peeked out from beneath a dusty baseball cap, narrow enough that Austin would have sworn he could circle it with his hands. The thought made him realize just how vulnerable this kid actually was.
Didn’t matter. The boy had robbed him. He was going to jail.
Austin grabbed the back of the kid’s hoodie. The thief let out a high-pitched yelp. “Who—?”
“That’s my hard-earned cash you’re counting.” Austin shook the boy.
“Crap on a broomstick.” Kid couldn’t even swear properly yet. Truly pathetic.
Austin spun him around then dropped his hand from the shirt. His jaw dropped, too. This was no green kid, definitely not a thirteen-or fourteen-year-old boy, but a twenty-something woman.
A woman?
After that observation came another one more interesting, considering she was such a poor thief. This woman had been around; she was pretty, but in a hard-knocks seen-too-much kind of way, skin baked by the sun, jaw defiant. Certainly no pushover.
The bill of her baseball cap shaded her eyes. A person’s eyes, Austin had learned, said everything about them. He needed to see hers. He knocked the hat from her head. Startled pale blue eyes shadowed with darkness dominated a hungry face.
“Hey,” she yelled and caught the cap before it hit the ground.
He had time only for impressions—high cheekbones, full lips, roughly shorn black hair to match coal-black eyebrows arched like birds’ wings ready to take flight—before she came to life, exploding like a Thoroughbred out of the gate.
She was fast. He was faster, and snagged her sleeve before she got far. The fabric tore in his hand, but he managed to grasp her arm.
“Noooo.” Desperation rode shotgun with terror in her scream. “Let me go. I won’t do it again.”
“Damn right you won’t, lady. You’re going to jail.”
The second she realized she wouldn’t get far—he was six-one, after all, and she all of five-five, if that—those big hollow eyes filled with more panic than Austin could remember seeing in anyone. In his hometown of Ordinary, Montana, they had homeless people, those who were needy, but this level of despair was something else altogether.
She bared her teeth like an animal, came alive in his arms and fought like a keening cyclone, elbows and knees everywhere at once.
“You aren’t going anywhere,” he said, calm because he had control. “I can read you like a book.” An autobiography. By the time Austin had turned twelve, he’d perfected the fight-or-flight response to a fine art, until one good man had tamed him, and another had given him a stable home, even if only briefly.
The woman cast her eyes about, looking for escape. There was none. He’d backed her in between the wall and the Dumpster. She growled and clawed his face.
“Enough!” he shouted, grasping her forearms and spinning her around so her back was against his torso, her wrists locked in one of his hands. He’d been gentle so far because he hadn’t wanted to risk cracking one of her bird bones, but nobody scratched him and got away with it.
He swiped his stinging cheek. Blood dotted his palm. That was a piss-off.
“Listen, stop fighting me. I’m bigger and stronger and this is going my way.”
“I won’t go to jail.” The raw anguish in her voice struck a chord with him—panic used to be both his best friend and his worst enemy—but he ignored it. This thief was getting what she deserved.
“How much would you have charged on my credit cards if I hadn’t felt you taking my wallet?”
“Nothing. I needed cash for food.”
“Then why didn’t you throw them away with the wallet?”
“What?” She sounded surprised. “You actually want some other stranger picking them up and using them?”
“You trying to tell me you pocketed my cards so no one else would use them?” How naive did she think he was?
“Yes.”
“You think I’m stupid? That I’ll believe that crap?”
Her slight frame bowed away from him like a willow branch, as though she could break free just on the strength of her willpower. Despite her weakness, her helplessness in his arms, tension resonated in her. She might be down, but she wasn’t out. Not yet, but he could tell how close she was to the end from the tremor that ran through her body as though she’d just run a marathon. Her legs shook and he was holding up much of her weight. What there was of it.
He admired her fight, her unwillingness to give in, even if he wouldn’t cut her a break.
“Let go.” She strained against his hold.
