Tori Carrington - What a Woman Wants

Despite her initial shock at his bumbled proposal, Darby found that John’s words warmed her, touched her in a way she was helpless to explore just then. He was so earnest, so determined that she couldn’t help but be drawn to him, long to kiss him.

“John…I think you and I need some time to adjust before either of us says anything we don’t mean.”

“I don’t need time, Darby. I know how I feel. I know what I need to do. And nothing you say is going to stop me.”

“We’re not teenagers, John. When something like this happens, you don’t have to get married.”

“Time,” he said pensively. “If it’s time you want, Darby, then it’s time I’m going to give you. But I promise you, no matter how long it takes, you are going to marry me.”

Dear Reader,

A rewarding part of any woman’s life is talking with friends about important issues. Because of this, we’ve developed the Readers’ Ring, a book club that facilitates discussions of love, life and family. Of course, you’ll find all of these topics wrapped up in each Silhouette Special Edition novel! Our featured author for this month’s Readers’ Ring is newcomer Elissa Ambrose. Journey of the Heart (#1506) is a poignant story of true love and survival when the odds are against you. This is a five-tissue story you won’t be able to put down!

Susan Mallery delights us with another tale from her HOMETOWN HEARTBREAKERS series. Good Husband Material (#1501) begins with two star-crossed lovers and an ill-fated wedding. Years later, they realize their love is as strong as ever! Don’t wait to pick up Cattleman’s Honor (#1502), the second book in Pamela Toth’s WINCHESTER BRIDES series. In this book, a divorced single mom comes to Colorado to start a new life—and winds up falling into the arms of a rugged rancher. What a way to go!

Victoria Pade begins her new series, BABY TIMES THREE, with a heartfelt look at unexpected romance, in Her Baby Secret (#1503)—in which an independent woman wants to have a child, and after a night of wicked passion with a handsome businessman, her wish comes true! You’ll see that there’s more than one way to start a family in Christine Flynn’s Suddenly Family (#1504), in which two single parents who are wary of love find it—with each other! And you’ll want to learn the facts in What a Woman Wants (#1505), by Tori Carrington. In this tantalizing tale, a beautiful widow discovers she’s pregnant with her late husband’s best friend’s baby!

As you can see, we have nights of passion, reunion romances, babies and heart-thumping emotion packed into each of these special stories from Silhouette Special Edition.

Happy reading!

Karen Taylor Richman

Senior Editor

www.millsandboon.co.uk

This book is for the real-life heroes who put their lives on the line every day so that we may live ours.

And for our boys, Tony, Jr. and Tim, our personal heroes.

is the pseudonym of award-winning husband-and-wife writing team Lori and Tony Karayianni. Twisting the old adage “life is stranger than fiction,” they describe their lives as being “better than fiction.” Since romance plays such a large role in their personal lives, it’s only natural that romance fiction is what they would choose to write in their professional lives. Along with their four cats, they call Toledo, Ohio, home, but travel “home” to Greece as often as possible.

This prolific writing duo also writes for the Harlequin Temptation and Harlequin Blaze lines under the Tori Carrington pseudonym. Lori and Tony love to hear from readers. Write to them at P.O. Box 12271, Toledo, OH 43612 for an autographed bookplate, or visit them on the Web at www.toricarrington.com, www.specialauthors.com or www.eHarlequin.com.

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 Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Epilogue

I s this as good as it gets?

Sheriff John Sparks eyed the holding cells, then closed the outer door with a dull clank. Now there was a question. Is this as good as it gets? Sure, there were times when he examined his dedication as Old Orchard County Sheriff. Especially recently, with his term up in seven months, reelection around the corner. It was the times when the phone rang at three in the morning that often got to him, summoning him out of bed to see to a domestic dispute over someone’s spouse snoring too loud. But there had never really been a reason to apply any major thought to his life and the way he led it. He just lived it. And had been pretty damn happy about it…until recently.

Well, at least he wouldn’t have to worry about arguing with anyone over whether or not he snored. Simply because there was no one around with whom to argue. He was single and lived alone, and planned to keep it that way. As the youngest in a Roman Catholic family of eight, he’d learned the hard way that large families weren’t all they were cracked up to be. Especially when your father considered you a burdensome mistake and your rowdy older brothers and sisters garnered a lot of attention that you might have needed. He felt no need to follow in the footsteps of four married brothers and three sisters, who were all interested in procreating. The thought of a mini-him was more than frightening, it was downright terrifying. But it was the silence more than anything that sold him on the idea of limitless bachelorhood. He liked being able to hear the bathroom faucet drip. To roll over and not have someone’s elbow in his nose. To open the refrigerator door and find the bologna right where he’d left it.

It was mornings like now, though, that he knew exactly why he’d taken on the role of sheriff.

John made his way back from the holding cells to the front of the Old Orchard sheriff’s office, a one-story brick structure that had been around for nearly a century and had been one of the few buildings spared in the massive downtown fire nearly six months ago.

“Are you sure these are the guys?” George Johnson, the desk sergeant, asked as John handed him the paperwork.

Deputy Cole Parker pushed off from where he’d been leaning against the other side of the counter. “Of course he’s sure they’re the guys. He wouldn’t have brought them in if he wasn’t.”

John eyed both men. They couldn’t be more different from each other in law enforcement experience. George Johnson had been with the office for more than twenty-five years, some of them good, most of them bad, if you believed what he said. He was used to the laid-back attitude of the former sheriff, who’d retired to a life of fishing and hunting in Montana three years ago, and classified nearly every call that came in as low priority.

On the other hand, Cole Parker—first cousin to one very sexy Darby Parker Conrad—had been hired on to the force in the past three years and was John’s right-hand man. He always came into the office earlier than he had to, champing at the bit for more responsibility, more excitement.

“Fingerprints are pretty hard to fake, George,” John affirmed as he helped himself to the sludge in the office coffeepot. It tasted as bad as it looked. But seeing as he was just coming off a long night spent out at the abandoned farm on the edge of town, outside corporation limits and in his official jurisdiction, then bringing in the two out-of-state escaped convicts, he’d have knocked back battery acid if it even remotely resembled coffee.

George looked over the paperwork, made a notation, then put the papers aside. “So they were camped out at the old Jenkins place, were they?” He shook his head of thick, disheveled graying hair. “Old Violet Jenkins kicked the bucket what, six months ago? And still nothing’s been done with her house.”

Something like that, John thought. And the reason it was still vacant was that there were no heirs around to do anything with it. He downed half the coffee. And farms like hers weren’t exactly hot properties right now. At least not here. Maybe outside a larger town, within commuting distance. But Old Orchard wasn’t exactly a bustling metropolis. Which was just fine with him.

“You suppose it’s true what they say?” George asked. “That she had all that money from her husband’s life insurance tucked away somewhere in that old place?”

John sighed. Gossip like that had kept them all plenty busy after Violet’s passing. The paper had carried a speculative piece headlined “Hidden Treasures?” and the next day every teen within fifty miles was combing through Violet’s underwear drawer. Along with a couple of local adults he preferred not to think about right now.

“There was never any proof that there was an insurance policy,” he said. “Another one for the urban-myth books. Or suburban. Whichever. Whoever ran that piece in the paper should have been fired.”

Cole crossed his arms over his too-buff chest, his gaze almost accusatory. “You know, you should have called me when you found out those two were out there. Going in there without backup wasn’t very smart.”

“They were asleep. No risk at all.” John grinned at the younger man. He knew his welfare wasn’t behind Cole’s rebuke; it was having been left out that ticked him off. Not much happened in Old Orchard, and the capture of the two felons would probably be on the front page of the town’s only paper, the Old Orchard Chronicle, for months.

Cole took the FBI poster detailing the two fugitives down from the wall of shame. “Well, this ought to make Bully Wentworth think twice about going up against you in the election.”

If anything was capable of knocking the wind out of John’s sails, it was mention of Blakely “Bully” Wentworth. They were alike in so many ways. Attended the same schools. Shared the same friends. Yet they couldn’t have been more different.

“Wentworth isn’t interested in being sheriff,” George said. “He just wants to use it as a jumping-off point for bigger and better things down the road.” He swore under his breath and said something about opportunists and born politicians. “At least your arresting those two will get him out of the paper for a while.”

The arrest of the two felons might even be enough to knock over the pieces cropping up lately about his late best friend, Erick Conrad.

John found it impossible to believe that they were approaching the one-year anniversary of Erick’s death, even though the paper had begun running pieces to herald the event ten days ago. The last article had gone into detail about Erick’s widow and how Erick had planned to leave Old Orchard until he won the affection of one town native, Darby Parker.

John frowned into his coffee cup, finding the writer’s use of the verb “won” curious. Yes, John had at one time been attracted to Darby Parker, but that fact had never been known to anyone but him. Not after he’d found out his best friend had set his sights on her. Then Darby Parker had become Darby Conrad, and she and Erick had had twin girls who were now six. And John hadn’t thought of her in romantic terms since.

And Erick? Ultimately he had left Old Orchard. Nearly a year ago he’d died fighting a four-alarm blaze, and they’d buried him in the cemetery just outside town limits.

John’s throat tightened in mid-swallow, nearly causing him to cough up the scalding liquid.