A Marriage-Minded Man? Read online

  “Are you saying I told you I like turkey and grilled onions?”

  Letter to Reader

  Title Page

  Books by Linda Turner

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Epilogue

  Copyright

  “Are you saying I told you I like turkey and grilled onions?”

  Sam demanded.

  “Not exactly,” Jennifer answered. “But I can tell all sorts of things about you.” Feeling bold, she dared to grin at him. “You like just about any movie Clint Eastwood ever made, and your favorite color is blue. You like to fish but not hunt, and—”

  “Shut up.”

  But she’d come too far to be intimidated now. “You like your toast nearly burnt, your steaks medium rare. You played football in high school, hate baseball and—”

  “Dammit, I’m warning you—” Sam began.

  “What’s the matter, Detective? Am I hitting a nerve? Shall I tell you about your ex-wife?”

  Just then Sam moved to close the distance between them. “Watch it, sweetheart,” he growled softly. “If you’re so smart, tell me something about myself that’s not common knowledge. Tell me what I really like.”

  Dear Reader,

  A new year has begun, and in its honor we bring you six new—and wonderful!—Intimate Moments novels. First up is A Marriage-Minded Man? Linda Turner returns to THE LONE STAR SOCIAL CLUB for this scintillating tale of a cop faced with a gorgeous witness who’s offering him lots of evidence—about a crime that has yet to be committed! What’s her game? Is she involved? Is she completely crazy? Or is she totally on the level—and also the perfect woman for him?

  Then there’s Beverly Barton’s Gabriel Hawk’s Lady, the newest of THE PROTECTORS. Rorie Dean needs help rescuing her young nephew from the jungles of San Miguel, and Gabriel is the only man with the know-how to help. But what neither of them has counted on is the attraction that simmers between them, making their already dangerous mission a threat on not just one level but two!

  Welcome Suzanne Brockmann back with Love with the Proper Stranger, a steamy tale of deceptions, false identities and overwhelming passion. In Ryan’s Rescue, Karen Leabo matches a socialite on the run with a reporter hot on the trail of a story that starts looking very much like a romance. Wife on Demand is an intensely emotional marriage-of-convenience story from the pen of Alexandra Sellers. And finally, welcome historical author Barbara Ankrum, who debuts in the line with To Love a Cowboy.

  Enjoy them all, then come back next month for more excitement and passion—right here in Silhouette Intimate Moments.

  Yours,

  Leslie J. Wainger

  Senior Editor and Editorial Coordinator

  * * *

  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

  * * *

  Linda Turner

  A Marriage-Minded Man?

  Books by Linda Turner

  Silhouette Intimate Moments

  The Echo of Thunder #238

  Crosscurrents #263

  An Unsuspecting Heart #298

  Flirting with Danger #316

  Moonlight and Lace #354

  The Love of Dugan Magee #448

  *Gable’s Lady #523

  *Cooper #553

  *Flynn #572

  *Kat #590

  Who’s the Boss? #649

  The Loner #673

  Maddy Lawrence’s Big Adventure #709

  The Lady in Red #763

  †I’m Having Your Baby?! #799

  †A Marriage-Minded Man? #829

  *The Wild West

  †The Lone Star Social Club

  Silhouette Desire

  A Glimpse of Heaven #220

  Wild Texas Rose #653

  Philly and the Playboy #701

  The Seducer #802

  Heaven Can’t Wait #929

  Silhouette Special Edition

  Shadows in the Night #350

  Silhouette Books

  Silhouette Christmas Kisses 1996

  “A Wild West Christmas”

  Fortune’s Children

  The Wolf and the Dove

  LINDA TURNER

  began reading romances in high school and began writing them one night when she had nothing else to read. She’s been writing ever since. Single, and living in Texas, she travels every chance she gets, scouting locales for her books.

  I’d like to extend a special thanks to Francine Maness, friend and psychic, for her contribution to this story, and her tips over the years on what I can expect in the future. You were right, Francine, about the car wreck. Now, if the movie deal will just come through! Thanks for your help and friendship.

  Prologue

  It was the howling of a norther ripping through the caverns of downtown San Antonio, and not her alarm clock, that woke Jennifer three hours before dawn. Shivering, she reached for the patchwork quilt her grandmother had made when she was a girl and pulled it up until only her nose peeked out, like a beacon in the night. Outside in the alley, trash cans rattled and rolled, pushed along by the wind, and even though she knew she would have to chase them down later, she couldn’t help but grin. She loved fall, especially the first cold front and the bite it put in the air. The north wind always put a sparkle in people’s eyes and stirred their appetites for comfort food.

  She’d have to change the lunch special, she decided. And make sure there was oatmeal for the regulars who came into her café for breakfast every morning like clockwork. They’d want plenty of coffee. And it went without saying that she’d have to double up on the cinnamon rolls. The smell of cinnamon always put a smile on the grumpiest face on a cold morning.

  Suddenly realizing she was lying there wasting time, grinning like an idiot while the clock ticked off precious moments, she threw off the covers and headed for the bathroom. If she was going to be ready for the morning rush, she had to get a move on.

  She got only as far as the bathroom door when the vision came out of nowhere to engulf her. One second she was fumbling for the light switch in the dark, and the next a scene unfolded in her mind, consuming her, sucking her into it. There was no time to brace herself, no time to fight the powerful pull of the vision. Not that it would have done any good to resist. She’d learned a long time ago that the experience was much less traumatic if she didn’t fight the image that for some God-given reason she was supposed to see.

  Frozen, standing as still as death, she found herself staring through the open door of a room she’d never seen before. Decorated in chintz and lace and furnished with expensive antiques, it was obviously the bedroom of a wealthy woman. A wealthy older woman. Faded sepia photographs from a bygone era were prominently displayed on the dressing table and nightstands, and lingering on the air was a loneliness that Jennifer could almost reach out and touch it was so palpable.

  The elderly lady who suddenly sat up in the ornate poster bed in the corner and clutched the covers to her thin bosom ached for the loved ones she had lost, but it wasn’t her pain that caused Jennifer’s heart to suddenly beat jerkily in her breast. It was fear. The kind that crept out of the shadows of the night and chilled the blood. Shivering, Jennifer wanted to believe that it was just
the rustling of a branch against the eaves that had alarmed the old lady, but she knew better. The visions that had haunted her for as long as she could remember were never concerned with the mundane. Where there was fear, there was almost always danger, and there was nothing she could do to warn the old lady. She was only an observer, fated to stand and watch as events beyond her control unfolded.

  Braced for God knew what, she gasped when a giant of a man rose up out of the darkness like the devil himself emerging from the smoky gates of hell. Easily six foot four or more, he was steeped in the foul odor that only clung to the really wicked. Instinctively Jennifer slammed her eyes shut, but the nightmare was there, in her head, inescapable. With her mind’s eye, she saw the man, his features horribly distorted by a stocking mask, lunge for the old lady and grab her around the throat. Shrunken and frail, she never stood a chance. Her screams silenced by his powerful hands, she went limp and didn’t make so much as a whimper when he tossed her aside like an old rag doll. Before she hit the floor, he was stepping over her, reaching for the jewelry case on the dresser.

  Chapter 1

  The bar was nothing but a sleazy dive on the west side, an old gas station that went bust during the oil embargo of the 1970s and sat empty until the present owner bought the building and turned it into a “private club.” The place was no more a club than the Alamo was an amusement park, but it did have a membership that was notorious. Drug pushers, pimps and ex-cons from all over the city patronized the joint, and it wasn’t just the cheap liquor that drew them there. According to rumor, on any given night you could buy or sell anything from young boys to the finest grade of china white.

  Sam Kelly had raided the place more times than he cared to remember, usually without success, thanks to the eagle eye of Jason, the bouncer who stood guard outside the front door till all hours of the night, regardless of the weather. An ex-wrestler with hands the size of hams, he could spot an undercover cop half a mile down the road in the time it took to blink.

  Tonight, however, Jason was in the hospital recovering from an emergency appendectomy. It was four o’clock in the morning, and the guard substituting for Jason had nodded off more than thirty minutes ago. Parked in the dark down the block, Sam could see that the bouncer was snoozing like a baby.

  “This is it,” he told his partner, Tanner Bennigan, as he drew his service revolver. “If we wait much longer, the jerk’s going to wake himself up with his own snoring.”

  Tanner, relishing the thought of waking the thug himself, grinned in the dark. “Poor baby, this’ll be the last time he sleeps on the job.” Drawing his own gun, he gave a quiet command in his radio, signaling the team of uniformed officers waiting patiently in the shadows for the word to move in. “Let’s go, men. It’s party time.”

  It should have been a piece of cake. Another well-organized bust that went down without a hitch. But right from the second they rushed the front door, Sam knew something was wrong. When Tanner jolted the goon on guard duty awake, he didn’t so much as sputter in alarm. Instead, he gave them a smug smile and invited them in for a drink at the bar. The second they hustled him inside, they knew why. The lowlife who patronized the place were wide-eyed and innocent and there wasn’t an illegal substance in sight.

  Swearing, Sam watched in growing frustration as first one, then another customer was patted down and searched without success. When the only damning evidence they came up with was an unpaid parking ticket, it didn’t take a Ph.D. to figure out that they’d been made by someone. His jaw clenched on an oath, Sam just barely resisted snarling. Weeks, he thought in disgust. The raid had been planned for weeks, and all they had to show for it was a damn parking ticket! No wonder the jerk guarding the door had nodded off like a baby.

  It was not, needless to say, the ideal way to end his shift, and by the time Sam arrived back at the police station downtown, he was in a bear of a mood. It was going on six in the morning, and it would be at least another hour or more before he finished typing up his report and explaining to the lieutenant what went wrong with a bust that should have gone down like clockwork. It wasn’t an explanation he was looking forward to, especially when he still didn’t know what the hell had gone wrong.

  Going over the details again in his mind as he began the tedious task of writing his report, he never noticed the woman who stepped into the detective-squad room and headed straight for his desk until she spoke. “Excuse me, I’m sorry to interrupt you, but I’m looking for Detective Sam Kelly.”

  Scowling at his half-written report, he didn’t even glance up, but simply pushed the nameplate on his desk to the front. “You found him,” he said curtly. “Give me a second and I’ll be right with you. I’ve got to finish this while it still makes some kind of sense. Have a seat.”

  Without a word she took the chair in front of his desk and sank into it. She didn’t fidget or fiddle with her hair; she just sat there and waited patiently for him to look up from his work. Sam shouldn’t have been distracted. He never had trouble concentrating, not even when the squad room was at its craziest. But he could feel the woman’s steady gaze on him, studying him, and he didn’t like it. Determinedly he dragged his attention back to the report, only to misspell two words in one sentence.

  Irritated, he sat back in his chair and lifted a jaundiced eye to his visitor. She was young—mid-twenties—and pretty, in spite of the haunted look in her green eyes. Small-boned and fragile, with a cloud of honey blond hair that fell in loose curls about her shoulders, she had an air of vulnerability that another man might have found impossible to resist. Sam, on the other hand, had no such trouble. As far as he was concerned, young, pretty and vulnerable was a combination he wanted nothing to do with.

  His angular face set in hard lines, he growled, “What can I do for you?”

  “I want to report a crime,” she replied. “Robbery and assault.”

  All business, Sam immediately reached for pen and paper. “Your name and address?”

  “Jennifer Hart. I live at 205 West Commerce, but—”

  “Were you the victim or a witness?”

  “A witness, but—”

  “Where and when did the crime take place? Was the assailant armed? Did you get a look at his face?”

  “Yes. I mean, no! Yes, he’s armed—at least I feel like he was—but I couldn’t see his face.” Flustered by his rapid-fire questions, the images still so vivid in her mind she couldn’t stop shaking in reaction, Jennifer said, “Please, you’ve got to do something! An old lady could be seriously hurt—”

  “You didn’t call an ambulance?” Swearing, he snatched up the phone and immediately punched in 911. “Where is she? What was her condition when you left her?”

  “I didn’t leave her,” she blurted, stung that he thought she would just walk away from someone in trouble. “She hasn’t been hurt yet, but she will be if you don’t do something.”

  His midnight blue eyes suddenly dark with suspicion, he carefully replaced the phone in its cradle. “What do you mean, she hasn’t been hurt yet? When exactly did this robbery take place?”

  It was a logical question, one Jennifer had been dreading from the moment she walked in the door. Reluctantly she admitted, “It hasn’t happened yet. At least I don’t think it has. I just had the vision this morning, so in all likelihood, it won’t take place for a couple of days.”

  “A vision,” he repeated flatly. Tossing down his pen, he leaned back in his chair and all but rolled his eyes. “You’re psychic.”

  From his tone, that made her lower than a snake and not much better than a con artist. Once she would have flinched just at the idea of anyone thinking so poorly of her, but she’d learned the hard way that she couldn’t be concerned about what people thought. She had to do what was right. If other people had a problem with that, they’d just have to deal with it.

  Lifting her chin, she looked Sam Kelly right in the eye and dared him to mock her. “Yes, Detective Kelly, I’m a psychic. Obviously you don’t have much
use for people like me, but I’m not here to ask you to join my fan club. Just take a few minutes to listen to me, then check out my story.”

  If she’d expected him to be suitably chastised, she might as well have saved her breath. Making no effort to hide his skepticism, he retorted, “If there’s a story, it will be checked out. Where does this woman live?”

  “On the northeast side.”

  That was all she could tell him, and not surprisingly, he jumped on that like a duck on a Junebug. “The northeast side, huh? That covers a little less than a half a million people. Where would you suggest I start knocking on doors?”

  He was so smug Jennifer wanted to smack him. Why, out of all the detectives she could have dealt with, had she been handed an insufferable one with a smart mouth? Giving him a too-sweet smile, her green eyes sparking fire, she confided softly, “I think you must have me confused with God, detective. I’m not omniscient, just psychic. Believe me, if I knew which door to knock on, I’d do it myself, but I was only given a limited amount of information.”

  “Isn’t that convenient?” he drawled. “You don’t know who the old lady is, where she lives, or when some monster’s going to try to choke the life out of her and rob her, but I’m supposed to find her beforehand and prevent it. And just how would you suggest I do that, Ms. Hart? With a crystal ball? Or maybe I should call 1-800-psychic. Just give me a clue about where to begin and I’ll be happy to get started.”

  Oh, she’d give him a clue, all right, she fumed. A clue about just what he could do with a crystal ball, and she hoped he choked on it!