A Kiss In The Moonlight

“Is that what you think of me?” Lyric asked.

Trevor set his hat more firmly on his head. “Let’s just say that I don’t think much of a woman who kisses one man while engaged to another.”

“Lyle needed me—especially after the accident.”

“The car wreck wasn’t all that serious,” Trevor said with undisguised bitterness. “It didn’t maim him or call for a life-or-death operation, did it?”

Lyric hesitated. “No,” she said. “It didn’t.”

“Would you have broken the engagement and come to me…if I’d asked?”

Lyric thought of endless nights at the hospital, Lyle thinking that he was going to be all right, not realizing he was slipping further and further away…

Studying the strong, healthy man beside her, she sighed. “No. I couldn’t have come then.”

Trevor’s face hardened. “Then why the hell did you come now?”

Dear Reader,

It’s hard to believe that it’s that time of year again—and what better way to escape the holiday hysteria than with a good book…or six! Our selections begin with Allison Leigh’s The Truth About the Tycoon, as a man bent on revenge finds his plans have hit a snag—in the form of the beautiful sister of the man he’s out to get.

THE PARKS EMPIRE concludes its six-book run with The Homecoming by Gina Wilkins, in which Walter Parks’s daughter tries to free her mother from the clutches of her unscrupulous father. Too bad the handsome detective working for her dad is hot on her trail! The M.D.’s Surprise Family by Marie Ferrarella is another in her popular miniseries THE BACHELORS OF BLAIR MEMORIAL. This time, a lonely woman looking for a doctor to save her little brother finds both a healer of bodies and of hearts in the handsome neurosurgeon who comes highly recommended. In A Kiss in the Moonlight, another in Laurie Paige’s SEVEN DEVILS miniseries, a woman can’t resist her attraction to the man she let get away—because guilt was pulling her in another direction. But now he’s back in her sights—soon to be in her clutches? In Karen Rose Smith’s Which Child Is Mine? a woman is torn between the child she gave birth to and the one she’s been raising. And the only way out seems to be to marry the man who fathered her “daughter.” Last, a man decides to reclaim everything he’s always wanted, in the form of his biological daughters, and their mother, in Sharon De Vita’s Rightfully His.

Here’s hoping every one of your holiday wishes comes true, and we look forward to celebrating the New Year with you.

All the best,

Gail Chasan

Senior Editor

A Kiss in the Moonlight

Laurie Paige

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® 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

Lyric Gibson felt the headache as a throb centered behind her eyes. She tried to consciously relax the tension that tightened the muscles of her forehead and those across her shoulders. That worked as long as she concentrated, but she was looking for road signs, and her attention was on that task.

“Have we passed it, do you think?” her great-aunt, Fay Gibson, asked in slightly querulous tones.

Lyric flinched as guilt joined the other emotions that swirled through her innermost self. She should have stopped in Boise for the night. Her aunt was sixty-eight years old and, although usually cheerful and persevering, much too tired from the long hours they’d spent on the road.

But it had been early afternoon—not quite four—so there’d been hours of July daylight left when they’d driven through the city. The mountain town of Lost Valley was only an hour north of there, according to her information, so she’d pushed on. They’d found the town without a problem.

The Seven Devils Ranch, their hoped-for destination, was supposed to be less than an hour west of Lost Valley, so they should have arrived by six at the latest.

It was now half past eight.

She had no idea if they were any closer to their destination now than they’d been an hour ago. Glancing at the western sky, she fought worry and the headache that accompanied it. She was no longer sure where they were. The back roads of Idaho all looked the same, and she’d obviously taken a couple of wrong turns. Or three or four.

Maybe this whole trip was a mistake. She’d been stunned when her great-aunt had delivered the invitation that had included her. Then she’d been elated. Now she was simply unsure.

“It’ll be dark soon,” Aunt Fay said, then gave an impatient tsk. “I’m sorry, Lyric. I shouldn’t have said that. I know you’re concerned about me, but this wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been lost and slept in a car.”

Lyric managed a confident laugh. “We’ll find it. We’re bound to be close. We passed a sign that said He-Devil Mountain was thataway.” She pointed toward the west. “The ranch is supposed to be within sight of the peak. We’re just taking the scenic route.”

A shiver ran over every nerve in her body as she recalled a dark-haired, blue-eyed, tall, handsome cowboy who’d once told her about his family’s ranch and its splendid view, its crystal streams and lakes, the majestic sweep of the land.

She’d longed to explore the mountains and valleys with him, but fate had intervened, temporarily at any rate.

Trevor had listened to her rushed, disjointed explanation of why she’d had to leave, first in disbelief then with growing anger. With his jaw set as hard as stone, he’d nodded as if he understood, but then he’d left. Without a word. Without a backward glance.

That had been almost a year ago.

During the endless fall and winter, through storms that brought floods to much of the southwest, she’d waited, sure he would write. But he hadn’t contacted her, not even when she’d sent a note that explained more fully. She’d given up hope. Then out of the blue came an invitation to visit the ranch. That had to mean something.

She put the shaky elation and haunting doubts aside to concentrate on finding the right road. She didn’t want to make another wrong turn.

“I see a trail of dust,” she said, peering through her driving glasses at this welcome indication of another vehicle. It was on a side road off to the right of the county road they traveled, which was also a gravel surface. The other driver had probably seen her dust, too.

The earlier concern eased a bit. “We can stop the driver and get directions.”

“He’s coming awfully fast. Be careful. He may be a rustler or something.”

Lyric cast her aunt a partly amused, partly exasperated glance at this bit of advice.

Rustlers? Ask her if she cared.

She slowed in anticipation of flagging the oncoming vehicle at the intersection of the two roads. “At present, I’d face down the devil himself if he would help get us to our destination.”

Her aunt laughed at the quip. The older woman was like a grandmother to Lyric and her two younger brothers. Aunt Fay had never married, but she’d taken in her nephew, Lyric’s father, years ago when his parents had died in a traffic accident. She’d always treated the family as if they were her children.

“Oh!” the spinster gasped.

Lyric swung the steering wheel hard to the right as a truck tore out of the gravel side road at breakneck speed and nearly hit them. She felt the compact station wagon graze a large rock as they careened into a shallow ditch at the side of the road.

The back tires slid sideways. She turned into the skid and took her foot off the brake. The rear skittered back and forth on the loose gravel. As the tires regained traction and she had the car under control once more, a pile of stones encased in a section of fence to form a corner post loomed before them.

“Oh, no,” she said.

They hit the stones with a resounding thud.

Air bags blossomed on each side of the front seat. Lyric spared a worry for her relative as the bag hit her face, smothering her for a few seconds and pressing her glasses painfully onto her nose.

Dizzy and frightened, Lyric remembered to turn the engine off, then she thrashed her way free of the collapsing air bag and turned to her aunt. After pushing the plastic aside, Lyric searched the older woman’s face for damage.

“Aunt Fay?” she said.

The other woman didn’t answer, didn’t move.

“Hey, are you okay in there?” a male voice asked.

“My aunt,” Lyric said. “I think she’s hurt.” She snapped open the seat belt and reached for her aunt’s wrist to check her pulse.

“Don’t move her,” the man ordered.

He went around the station wagon and opened the door. With a competence that was reassuring, he checked the unconscious woman after removing her glasses, which by some miracle weren’t broken, and sticking them in his pocket.

Lyric watched his hands run gently over Aunt Fay’s head, down her neck, where he paused to check her pulse, then continue over her shoulders and along her arms. His fingers were long and slender, the skin evenly tanned to where the white shirtsleeves were rolled up on his forearms. A hat hid most of his face. He bent farther into the car and examined her aunt’s knees and legs.

Lyric looked, too, and saw red marks indicating the bruises that would be forming soon.

He raised his head. “Ms. Gibson?” he said. “Can you hear me? Can you open your eyes?”

Lyric’s heart stopped, then pounded with a fierce, staccato beat. She gasped like a heroine in a melodrama as she studied the man in disbelief.

“Trevor?”

He faced her then, his eyes, which she knew to be as blue as the summer sky, appearing dark as midnight in the fading glow of the sunset. “Yeah, it’s me.”

They stared at each other in silence, a thousand questions and memories wrapping around their frozen forms. One thing for sure—there was no welcome in his gaze.

Aunt Fay opened her eyes and focused on one, then the other of them. “Where are my glasses?”

“Here,” Trevor said. He slipped the thin gold frames gently onto the older woman’s face.

“Are you all right?” Lyric asked, searching her beloved relative’s face for signs of pain.

“I’ve felt better,” her aunt said, then gave the man a smile. “Hello, Trevor. How are you?”

“I’m okay…other than feeling like a heel. There isn’t usually much traffic out this way.”

“I’m sure,” her aunt agreed with dry humor.

“Let me check the damage to your car, then we’ll see if it’ll run. It’s only a couple of miles to the ranch.” He paused and looked at Lyric. “How did you get on this back road, anyway?”

“A seriously wrong turn, I think.”

He nodded, his face grim but otherwise without expression. After getting a flashlight from his truck, he looked over the front end of the station wagon. “A badly dinged bumper and a slightly crumpled nose, but otherwise it looks okay. The radiator seems intact. I don’t see any fluid leaking out. Crank it up and let’s see if she’ll run.”

Lyric turned on the key. The engine purred to life at once. Trevor returned to the front of the vehicle. He nodded in her direction, indicating everything looked fine.

“Back up,” he said, coming to her window. “Keep the wheels straight.”

She cautiously backed onto the road. Trevor gave the car a push when one tire slipped on the gravel and dirt in the shallow ditch.

“Okay,” he called when she was clear. “Follow me.”

After he turned his truck around, she fell into place behind him, far enough back that his dust didn’t choke them. In less than five minutes they pulled up before a horse rail in front of a sprawling ranch house, its center portion made of massive logs, the wings on either side more modern structures of stone and wood.

Trevor honked his horn, then climbed out of the truck and came to the passenger side of the station wagon. “Watch your step now,” he said to Aunt Fay. “Careful. Lean on me while we see if your legs are okay. You have pain anywhere?”

“I’m not sure,” the older woman said. “I seem to be numb at the moment.”

With the gentlest of care, he escorted her aunt toward the house. The door opened and an older man peered out. His hair gleamed silver in the light from the room behind him. He was as tall as Trevor and had the same lean, rangy frame.

A total stranger would have known they were kin at a glance. The man had to be Trevor’s uncle Nick.

“What happened?” Mr. Dalton asked, realizing something was wrong.

“Accident,” Trevor said. He quickly explained about taking the old logging road and cutting the station wagon off at the county road, causing her to run into the ditch.

The older man came out on the porch, then stepped down on a giant flat granite boulder that served as the step to the front porch that ran all the way across the log portion of the house.

“My God,” he said. “Fay, is that you?”

“Yes, Nick,” her aunt replied with a smile in his direction. She clasped Trevor’s arm and walked with a decided limp toward the porch.

“I’d given up on you for today.” The Dalton uncle, wearing only socks, rushed to her other side and wrapped a supporting arm around her waist. “Call Beau,” he ordered his nephew. “He’s a doctor,” he said to Lyric’s aunt.

“Let’s get the women in the house first,” Trevor suggested with a hint of impatience.

Lyric followed behind the three, rather like a stray pup who hoped the others would take her in. She was beginning to feel very apprehensive about being here. Trevor didn’t seem thrilled to see her.

In the house, after Aunt Fay was seated in an easy chair and checked over again, Lyric stood inside the door and wondered what to do.

Finally the older man noticed her. “Are you all right?”

Lyric nodded. She had to clear her throat in order to talk. “Yes. I think so,” she amended, suddenly aware of pain in her knees, as if her body had come back to life at that instant and now reminded her of aches she hadn’t known she had.

“Nicholas?”

The Dalton patriarch turned back to her aunt and took her hand. “Now don’t you worry about a thing. We’ll have you right as rain in no time. Trevor, have you called Beau yet?” he questioned with a stern glance at his nephew.

Lyric was aware of Trevor’s gaze on her, of the tight set of his mouth, of the unwelcoming stance in his strong, lithe body. She felt terribly confused and disoriented.

He turned away. “I’m doing it now.” He went into the kitchen. In a minute she heard his voice explaining the situation to the nephew who was a doctor.

Lyric hadn’t met any of the Dalton family except Trevor, but she knew them all. Her aunt Fay had been a cousin and best friend to Milly Dalton, who had been married to Trevor’s uncle Nick. Milly had died in an automobile accident many years ago. Their daughter, Tink, had been taken from the scene of the accident and never found again.

At least, that was what was assumed. The three-year-old had disappeared. She could have wandered away and died in the wilderness, but the sheriff had concluded the child had been abducted for some reason, because the child’s body had never been found.

A tremor rushed over Lyric at the thought. One time a stranger had tried to grab her while she was on her way home from school in Austin, Texas.

She’d screamed and kicked and bit the man as hard as she could, the way her father had taught her, and had gotten free. She’d been lucky. A schoolmate on the next block had been kidnapped later the same afternoon. A month went by before the body was found in a lonely section of woods. That summer Lyric’s parents had moved to the ranch her father had inherited from his dad.

Another tremor ran down her body and lodged in her legs. Alarmed, she realized her knees were about to give way. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but…”

The words were barely a whisper.

She tried again. “I’m sorry, but…”

“Catch her,” a voice said from far away as the room became dark and mysterious.

Lyric blinked rapidly as strong arms closed around her. She knew these arms, this embrace.

Pressing her face into the clean expanse of the white shirt, she inhaled deeply and was filled with the scent of masculine aftershave, fresh-as-the-outdoors laundry and something more—a faint aroma that she recognized somewhere deep inside her. Yes, she knew this man.

She relaxed as he lifted her. She looped her arms around his shoulders and closed her eyes. Safe. She was safe. And home. Home at last.

“Here,” Trevor said, putting Lyric on the leather sofa. “Lie still,” he ordered when she started to sit up. He removed the glasses from her face, then winced at the redness on each side of her nose and running down under her eyes. The air bag had hit her hard, he realized. He laid the glasses on the end table.

A memory wafted into his mind—him removing her glasses, her laughing protests about not being able to see, his suggestion that she close her eyes, then the kisses…the hotter-than-molten-steel kisses, the fireworks that had gone off in his brain, stunning him with the force of the passion between them…and the feelings, the found-my-other-half joy of holding her….

“Get some ice,” his uncle said. “Fay needs some on her face and knees.”

“So does Lyric,” Trevor said.

His throat closed after he said the name. Last fall he’d vowed never to say it again.

He silently mouthed all the expletives he could remember while going to the kitchen and grabbing several first-aid ice bags from the freezer. The ranch always had a good supply of such items on hand for the occasional kick from a recalcitrant horse or stubborn cow.

Along with dish towels and clothespins, he took the ice bags to the living room.

“When will Beau be here?” his uncle asked.

“He won’t. He and the midwife have a difficult delivery going on. Since nothing is broken or bleeding and they’re both coherent, he said to bring them to the clinic in the morning and he’d check them out.”

“Mmm,” Uncle Nick said in his disapproving tone.

Ignoring Lyric, who now sat upright and as prim as a spinster, Trevor ministered to her aunt, affixing two ice bags and dish towels to her knees with the clothespins and advising her to put the other on her face.

Finished, he went to Lyric. “Put this on your nose,” he said, handing over the wrapped bag and noting the glasses were back in place. He couldn’t help but steal a glance at her left hand and the bare ring finger. Forcing his gaze to the task at hand, he knelt and, as careful as a doctor performing brain surgery, rolled up her pants.

He winced when he saw the abraded skin of her knees and the blotches that indicated more extensive bruising than her aunt had suffered. As the driver, she’d had her seat closer to the dashboard so she could reach the brake pedal and accelerator. That meant she’d hit the dash harder.

At five feet, five inches, she’d felt small and delicate in his arms. But curvy. For months after he’d come back to the ranch, he would wake from a sound sleep, clutching the pillow to his chest, and know he’d been dreaming about her, about the way she’d felt cuddled against him.

However, he and Lyric had never slept together. She’d been engaged to another guy the whole time she’d been responding to his caresses.

Mentally cursing, he forced the memory into the battered tin box of the past. He was over it now, over her and the wild emotion he’d thought was love. A cheating woman wasn’t on his list of most-wanted things.

Quickly, he secured the ice packs on her knees and moved away from the smoothness of her skin, the warmth of her body, the spicy scent of her powder and cologne.

“Have you two had dinner?” Uncle Nick asked.

“Yes,” Lyric answered.

“No,” her aunt said at the same time. The older woman continued, “Lyric was so anxious to get here that she didn’t want to stop, so we had a salad at a fast-food place in Boise. That was hours ago. If I could bother you for some toast, that would be plenty for me.”

“I recall that you like chocolate cake with ice cream,” Uncle Nick said, his eyes all soft and glowing.

Lyric’s aunt removed the ice pack from her nose and grinned at the older man. “You don’t happen to have some of that, do you?”

“Well, now, I reckon we do.” He rose from the matching chair next to the aunt’s with a big smile. “You ladies sit still. Trev and I will get it.”

Trevor refrained from rolling his eyes at his uncle’s gallant manner. If the old man sparkled much more, they could wire him up to the light bulbs and save the cost of the electricity.

He followed the other man into the kitchen and helped prepare the treat. Glancing at the freshly made cake and the homemade ice cream, he frowned, recalling the way his uncle had insisted on preparing the dessert, even though the Fourth of July had been last week, which was when they usually made ice cream, and this was Tuesday, July the eighth. Since none of the orphaned Dalton cousins that Uncle Nick had taken in and raised as his own were expected at the ranch—they were all busy with new wives and jobs and the like—he’d wondered at the reason for the unusual activity.

Setting his jaw, he admitted he hadn’t suspected a thing, even though his uncle had made it plain he hadn’t wanted Trevor to head over to a neighboring ranch for a visit that evening.

Glancing toward the living room, he said in a low voice, “You knew they were coming, didn’t you?”

Uncle Nick nodded, busily spooning ice cream onto the saucers. “Fay and I have kept in touch for years, mostly cards at Christmas. She said she was restless and lonely this past winter, so I told her to come up for the wildflowers this spring, but she couldn’t make it until her niece had time to drive her.”

“You could have told me.”

Eyes as blue as his own glanced his way. “I did. Last month, right after we got things straightened out between Roni and Adam. I distinctly recall mentioning it at Sunday dinner when everyone was here.”

In May, Roni, one of the orphaned cousins and the only girl in the family, had married Adam. His younger sister, Honey, was married to Trevor’s older brother, Zack.

Trevor sighed. The family connections were becoming complicated, with his two brothers and his three cousins all getting hitched during the prior fourteen months.

Five weddings.

He was the only bachelor left of the six kids whose four parents had been wiped out in a freak avalanche twenty-three years ago. His father and uncle had been twins, the same as he and Travis were. Uncle Nick, the oldest of the three Dalton brothers, and Aunt Milly had taken all six children in and raised them as their own.

Glancing at the older man, who was acting as frisky as a new colt, Trevor experienced a clenching in the vicinity of his heart. Uncle Nick seemed okay now, but he’d had a heart attack last spring and a couple of weak spells since then.