Shotgun Honeymoon

A startled glow went through Janina. She blushed for the first time in…well, it felt like forever. Maybe it was. “I—I don’t know what to say. Thank you. You—I—”

The oh-so-gentle tip of Russ’s forefinger touched her mouth. “Dance with me?”

“Yes.”

The one word was like magic, as though she’d said “Abracadabra.” Just that quickly, the outside fell away, she was in his arms and the music and Russ’s heartbeat were the only things she heard, felt, knew. The rhythm of her heart keeping time to Russ’s was what she moved to, the feel of his body against hers was all the cue she needed, the slightest pressure of his hand in the small of her back, of his thighs against hers, his knee between them while they swayed.

She reached her arms around him as far as they would go, to hold him, hold on to him. Make sure he was really there. “Neither one of us is dreaming. We’re both really here. Together, same wavelength. For a change.”

Dear Reader,

No doubt your summer’s already hot, but it’s about to get hotter, because New York Times bestselling author Heather Graham is back in Silhouette Intimate Moments! In the Dark is a riveting, heart-pounding tale of romantic suspense set in the Florida Keys in the middle of a hurricane. It’s emotional, sexy and an absolute edge-of-your-seat read. Don’t miss it!

FAMILY SECRETS: THE NEXT GENERATION continues with Triple Dare by Candace Irvin, featuring a woman in jeopardy and the very special hero who saves her life. Heir to Danger is the first in Valerie Parv’s CODE OF THE OUTBACK miniseries. Join Princess Shara Najran as she goes on the run to Australia—and straight into the arms of love. Terese Ramin returns with Shotgun Honeymoon, a wonderful—and wonderfully suspenseful—marriage-of-inconvenience story. Brenda Harlen has quickly become a must-read author, and Bulletproof Hearts will only further her reputation for writing complex, heartfelt page-turners. Finally, welcome back Susan Vaughan, whose Guarding Laura is full of both secrets and sensuality.

Enjoy them all, and come back next month for more of the most exciting romance reading around—only from Silhouette Intimate Moments.

Enjoy!

Leslie J. Wainger

Executive Editor

Shotgun Honeymoon

Terese Ramin

TERESE RAMIN

The granddaughter of an Irish Blarney Stone kisser (who, lowered by her ankles to do so, kissed it last at the age of ninety-six) and the oldest of eight, Terese Ramin has been surrounded by kids, chaos and storytelling all her life. At the request of her siblings she told outrageous stories late into the night, which caused a great deal of giggling among the kids and aggravation for her parents, who merely wanted them all to Go To Sleep! Terese lives in Michigan with five dogs, three cats, two kids and a husband who creates sawdust.

To all the waitresses who have waited on and fed me throughout the years, especially the ones at Little Chef in Brighton, MI. You guys are the best. And to the gang in the BT Bayou: thanks for the silliness factor.

For my darling daughter, Brynna, who goaded me into writing a different book from the one I originally had in mind. I love you with all my heart. Also for C. Rita Brigham, friend and student, who at eighty-plus may be full of vinegar but has failed miserably at turning into it. To shared laughter. Love you, my dear.

Acknowledgments

My sincere thanks to the following people: Annette Mahon, Cat Brown, Kristi Studts, and Karen K.—Arizona. Lillian Stewart Carl—title. Special thanks to Intimate Moments authors Melissa James, Lindsay Longford, Vickie Taylor and Linda Wisdom, who responded to a friend in need. As ever, all leaps of faith, lapses of reality and flat-out mistakes are wholly my own.

“Like newborn calves we will not be afraid of tigers.”

—2000 Chinese men’s Olympic gymnastics team motto

Contents

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

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Prologue

Winslow, Arizona

July 17. Thirteen years ago

The worst nights didn’t start with a body on the ground. They began with a dispute that could end with a body on the ground, possibly his.

Russ Levoie, nineteen, and only three months out of the police academy, had known this going in. He’d seen it up close and personal on the Havasupai reservation where he’d grown up—not in his own family, but in too many of the other families. Poverty begat fear begat the need to numb it begat drinking—or some other form of self-medication—begat dispute begat violence. And the cycle didn’t alter with the scenery, it simply changed addresses. Nevertheless, here he was, headed into a trailer park on his own on a “see the woman” domestic-violence call because no one else was close enough to take it with him. And hot damn, didn’t that just make him feel peachy-safe.

On the other hand, if he’d really meant to feel safe for the rest of his life, he’d have chosen another line of work. But this was all he ever remembered wanting to do. Adrenaline pumping, he parked his car, radioed in his position, alighted and slid his nightstick into place on his left hip before unsnapping the holster flap on his right.

Across the dusty street, he saw a white curtain flutter back into place. The neighbor that had called in, he guessed, peeking out to see who’d arrived. He headed in that direction. The door was cracked open and a hand beckoned him through the chicken-scratch front yard. “They’ve stopped now,” the woman behind the screen said. Her voice was hushed as though in deference to the dusk. She carried a cigarette to her lips, lit it, inhaled and blew smoke from the corner of her mouth back into her trailer, away from Russ. Crossed an arm beneath her flat chest and propped her other elbow on it. The hand that held the cigarette to her mouth trembled.

Behind her, almost hidden in the shadows, was one of the young waitresses from the diner he frequented almost every evening before he went on duty. Janina. Young, pretty, everyday made astounding by a pair of huge heavily fringed mahogany eyes and a thick, roughly halved mane of hair the midnight side of brown. His heart and libido did the same damn telltale hop-skip-and-pucker it’d done any time he’d wound up in her vicinity lately. Damn because at maybe sixteen and still in high school Janina was jailbait. Still she was a cute little thing. He hoped her future would be more attractive than her present appeared to be.

“I don’t get involved,” Janina’s mother recalled his attention by saying, “but this time it’s bad, worse’n I ever heard. Hadda call, y’know? Lotta bangin’ around—someone gettin’ hit, like. Body hittin’ walls, furniture bustin’ ’n all. Then I hear her scream and she runs out the house all bloody. Her brother runs out after, drags her back in. Their old man’s waitin’ for ’em in the door, hits her good in the stomach ’afore he and the boy throw her inside an’ it sounds like they start goin’ on her again.”

Russ flicked a glance at the teenager who nodded slightly in frightened confirmation. Russ’s mouth thinned. Nobody’s kid should have to live in a place like this.

No woman of any age should have to live here, either.

Once again his attention stuttered. His libido loosed its hold on him, turned over to his youthful heart. One regulation-clad foot slid him protectively nearer to the screened door and the young woman inside the trailer. Her eyes flared at the movement, lit with something akin to…

Welcome, worship, recognition…

Skittishness.

And more insight than he wanted her to possess.

Russ felt his Adam’s apple bob, his sliding foot stammer and slip back where it belonged: under his control, no longer betraying him.

Or his seditious heart.

Deliberately he returned his attention to the mother. She put the cigarette between her lips and dragged hard. “Little while later I hear this sound, pop-pop, like that. Then it comes again, pop-pop, an’ I see the old man run out the door lookin’ like he don’t believe what happened. I see he’s been shot, ’cuz he’s bleedin’ down the side of his head somethin’ fierce. Don’t slow ’im down none, though. He just gets in that old car ’a theirs an’ takes off. All the while I hear this pop-pop-pop-pop goin’ off over there. Then it went all quiet. That’s when I called you.”

The demon of Russ’s temper battered his temples, demanding release from the cage in which he kept it. He short-chained it to the floor. “You waited until after to call?”

The woman nodded. “Seemed safest.” She cast a suddenly wise glance over Russ that seemed to take in his youth and his lack of backup. “Fer ever’body.”

Except the woman in that trailer, he wanted to snap at her. But didn’t. Instead he asked, “There was only the three of them in there?”

She nodded again. “Far as I can tell. Three of ’em’s all there ever is—’cept when they bring in paid company t’bang on that girl. Wasn’t none of that today though.”

“And you haven’t heard anything more from inside?”

“Nope.”

“Do you know their names?”

The woman shrugged. “Ever’body knows ’em ’roun’ here. Girl’s kinda the local hooker. Her daddy an’ her brother bring guys to her. Don’t think she likes it none, but she ain’t got much choice. Name’s Maddie Thorn, her brother’s Harold, daddy’s Charlie—”

“Damn.” At Maddie’s name, Russ yanked his handie-talkie off his shoulder and radioed for help, crossed the street and unholstered his gun before crashing through his former high-school classmate’s—his best friend’s, his prom date’s—front door.

And damn her to hell for not asking him for help.

As Russ crossed the narrow street, Janina Gálvez flew across the room to lift her absent father’s ever-loaded Winchester down from its rack on the wall. Weapon in hand, oblivious to her mother’s weak protests, she fled out the far door to carefully work her way around the edge of the trailer.

She wasn’t stupid. She kept to the shadows behind the propane tank and beneath the awnings as much as possible. She knew how to handle herself and her daddy’s gun and she really couldn’t let that boy-cop go out there alone. She just couldn’t. If anything happened to him, she wasn’t sure she could bear it. Not when she’d only just made up her mind three weeks ago that the instant she could, she intended to marry one rookie police officer named Russ Levoie, the most wonderfully gorgeous hero she’d ever laid eyes on. And if he got himself killed trying to save Maddie Thorn again, why she’d…

Janina swallowed. She didn’t know what she’d do. The only thing she was certain of was that she intended to save the taciturn hero from himself for herself.

Period.

Chapter 1

Winslow, Arizona

July 17. 7:00 p.m. Present

He lived like a freaking monk.

Frustrated and furious with himself because of it, Russ Levoie slammed through the door of his trailer, causing it to bounce on its hinges. For the first time in his thirty-two years he was really sitting up and taking notice of all the things he’d never done, didn’t have in his life.

What he noticed most was that he was damn-it-to-hell lonely in a way he’d never felt before.

All because of his brothers and their wives.

Damn them and bless them.

Jamming a fist through what there was of his neatly trimmed hair, Russ made his way to the refrigerator, yanked it open and grabbed a beer. For an instant he studied the unopened can, then loosed a virulent oath and threw the brew the length of the neat-as-a-pin trailer. The can burst against the far wall, spewing beer floor to ceiling, and spraying the sofa he spent most nights sleeping on—alone, always alone—as well as the table and chair beside it.

“Damn.”

He viewed the mess tiredly. He rarely lost his temper, and certainly not like this. Not that he didn’t have one. No, he had a decided temper. He’d simply learned young that allowing it to have its way with him tended to frighten people and got him nowhere.

Of course, holding it in check all the time wasn’t necessarily the best alternative, either.

Cleanliness is next to Godliness. His elderly sixth-grade teacher, Sister Ann Henry, niggled across his memory. Turning, Russ grabbed a couple of rags and a bottle of spray cleaner from under the kitchen sink, strode across the trailer and began to mop the beer off the industrial-grade tile flooring he’d put down a year ago.

Judas-stinking-Billy-goats, he was envious of his brothers. Shoving air between his teeth in disgust, Russ caught up the exploded beer can, drained what remained of the beer in a long swallow then angled his body to pitch the can the length of the trailer. The can bull’s-eyed the kitchen sink, clattered briefly about the stainless-steel sides and settled. He grimaced. He hadn’t been a three-letter jock in high school for nothin’.

Tiredly he turned back to the job at hand. He’d never before envied his brothers anything. Guy, Jeth and Jonah were all younger than him and there’d never been anything they’d had that he’d wanted. Sure, he’d occasionally wished he could be as laid-back about life as Guy, and once, he’d wished for a little of Jeth’s recklessness, but he didn’t remember ever wishing for a bite of Jonah’s loose-cannon hotheadedness. He had enough of that commodity of his own to worry about.

Not that he let anybody see it. Hell, you couldn’t be a hothead and maintain your cool as one of only two local police lieutenants.

But his lack of sibling envy had been before Jeth and Guy had gone off and found themselves wives.

Russ moved up to scrub the wall paneling. He’d known before he’d gone out tonight that he should never have agreed to have dinner with the lot of them. He’d needed tonight’s guys-only annual blowout, dammit, but not the way Guy and Jeth had set up this particular so-called remembrance day.

He never liked remembering what had happened thirteen years ago today, what he’d walked into the middle of in that trailer. So much blood, the terrible disfigurement Maddie had suffered—the nightmares that hadn’t ended there but begun. But this year was worse than most. This year he’d had to go tell his best friend that her psychopathically abusive, pedophile of a father had been released from prison and was looking for her. She’d spent the past twelve years learning to feel safe for the first time in her life, learning to have a life at all, because Russ had assured her Charlie would be permanently incarcerated for the things he’d done to her. And now he wasn’t. Because Russ had missed one parole hearing in twelve years and the psychologists and psychiatrists had gotten their way.

But of course, he couldn’t back out on his family. They’d expected him. They’d done the bar thing for him tonight. Instead of it just being Guy, Jeth, him and a rip-roaring drunk to the destruction they too often saw on the job, they’d all been there, including Jonah and their brilliant oldest sister, Mabel, who hated boredom, dabbled in herbs and did investigative work for the state’s forensics crime lab when she wasn’t needed elsewhere. Including Jeth’s glowing-with-new-pregnancy wife, Allyn—now teaching marine paleontology for the University of Arizona in the field at her grant-approved study site not far from Havasu Falls—and Guy’s nearing-delivery pregnant wife, Hazel. Even his youngest brother, Jonah, the newest addition to the Levoie law enforcement legacy, was present. The only one of his siblings who was missing was the youngest, Marcy, killed on this date several years ago during a kidnapping gone wrong on Jeth’s watch. It had taken them all a long time to get over that one, Jeth especially, and then only with Allyn’s help.

Russ knew Marcy’s murder at age ten was part and parcel of what ruled him now where his life on the job was concerned, this annual drunk he and his peace officer brothers went on “in memory” of both their baby sister and the piece of his soul Russ had lost on this same date thirteen years ago when he’d burst into Maddie’s trailer and seen for the first time what her father and brother had been doing to her for years.

Life was not always as easy as it seemed in a small town, especially for a cop whose best friend was both abuse victim and whore. Suspicion followed one like gossip, and these annual nights out with his brothers were a lifeline he needed to keep him sane, grounded—and also, sometimes, to keep him from thinking too much.

Thank God they’d left Guy and Hazel’s adolescent daughter, Emily, and Jeth and Allyn’s almost-four-year-old son, Sasha, at home. If they’d brought the kids, too…

It would be one thing if he envied his brothers the love they’d found or their subsequent happiness, but he didn’t. No, his envy was far more complicated than that.

What he envied was their contentment.

With a snort of self-derision, Russ gave the wall a final swipe and returned the rag and spray to the kitchen. The blinking red light on the counter caught his eye. He punched the button to listen to his messages. A reminder about a meeting in Gallup scheduled for the following morning. A suspiciously timed call from his mother telling him she hadn’t heard from him in too long. A circumspectly inquiring message from Jeth and a follow-up one from Guy, neither of whom had missed the tension vibrating through him by the time he’d left the restaurant.

And finally a voice almost too deep and husky to be feminine, though it was: Maddie. His best friend since as long as he could remember, his first adolescent crush, his prom date—and the child-girl-woman he’d spent most of his life trying to rescue and protect from more horrors than he cared to remember.

Maddie Thorn, who’d been abused unmercifully by her father, before he had finally attempted to kill her that night thirteen years ago…

“Russ?”

She sounded edgy, as though she looked over her shoulder while she spoke. Not at all the way she’d sounded three weeks ago when he’d let her know that her father was going to be released from prison early because the psychologists and psychiatrists who’d been working with him thought he was rehabilitated enough—medicated enough—to walk about in polite society again despite his track record as being, well, not.

Russ, who’d seen the man over the years, listened to his rambling assertions on having found religion and wanting to set things right with his daughter, had told Maddie that Charlie might be looking for her. Maddie, truly and completely happy for the first time in her life and with other things on her mind, had more or less blown him off.

And now here she was, exactly as he’d known—as he’d felt, with that strange extra sense with which he’d been gifted, with what his brothers called his spider sense—she’d be.

“God, Russ, where are you? I need to see you. You were right about him. He found me. He said you—” She broke off suddenly. He heard her breathing, raggedly. Afraid. “No,” she whispered, though not directly into the phone. “Oh God, no. He can’t have. He couldn’t—no.” Then a deep, steadying breath and more strongly, firmly, “No!” And into the phone again, “I have to go. But God, Russ, please. Be there. Please.”

The receiver on the other end of the line clattered into place hard, and Russ’s machine beeped once and announced, “End of messages.”

Russ could only stare at the message light for a moment. He’d come in not quite thinking about her, his heart on Janina—the woman he’d wanted across almost every single hot cup of coffee she’d served him for the past thirteen years—and the current Maddie-involved reasons he’d yet to act on his longings for her.

And here Maddie was calling him.

Needing help again.

Palms flat on the counter to hold himself erect, he gave her call for help some thought. Whispered “screw it” to the cupboards because he knew there was no way he’d ever walk away from Maddie, no matter what happened.

Maddie had been a different person when they were younger, a messed-up abuse case beyond what even he’d realized at that time. And he’d been the only friend, only person, to see her, know her and love her for who she was.

And now she’d gotten herself together and found Jess, the life partner who made her happy and…

Now this.

All of this.

Her father out of prison and looking for…something. Revenge, maybe. Reconciliation, he’d said, but Russ didn’t believe that for an instant. The cop’s gut in him crawled, remembering Charlie’s eyes. The man in him, the friend, simply unhooked the chain that held his temper and withdrew any pretext of masking the savage within the trappings of civilization should Charlie get too close, legally released from prison or not.

Russ rubbed his hands hard across his eyes. He didn’t know what he was going to do. Because as well as he understood Maddie, as good as he was at working with wounded females, he was no damn good at emotions, or at figuring them out. Not his own, and not women’s. Particularly not while Maddie needed rescuing by him yet again, and Janina—who constantly tortured his dreams—seemed to him about as obtainable as the moon.

Always had been, truth be known.

Emotions. Geez-oh-Pete. God save him from female best friends, who pulled themselves out of hell by their toenails when offered the slimmest of chances, feminine soul mates with nerves of steel and hearts of gold and courage as raw as anything he’d ever seen—yeah, Janina thought he didn’t know about her shadowing him that night thirteen years ago, right? Wrong!—and freaking, obfuscating emotions.

With an oath, Russ turned his back on the kitchen and headed for the small room at the back of the trailer that should have been his bedroom but was now where he kept his silversmithing and lapidary equipment. He opened the heavy safe he kept there, withdrew the envelope he’d placed inside six months prior and emptied its contents into his hand. It was a sort of Guinevere-style ring he’d designed in platinum with a single large not-quite-square piece of green Baltic amber canted diamondwise in the center and offset by a small but exquisitely cut and flawless diamond at each of the amber’s points. The wedding ring lay heavy in his palm, spoke to him of plans and cowardice, a life lived in faux courage.

Oh, he could take down bad guys, face bullets, walk into domestic quarrels, go through fire with the best of ’em—hell, he’d even had enough chutzpah, damn it, to make her a ring—but put him in front of Janina and say anything remotely having to do with a you and me—a we—and ha! It came out sounding like, “I’ll have today’s special and coffee.”

Dating was simply beyond his limited verbal capabilities.

Russ started to drop the ring back into its envelope, putting Janina away for another time once again in favor of seeing what he could do to help Maddie, always Maddie. Suddenly he felt the hair on his neck stand up and stopped, hand poised.

Even before the knock came low on his screen door he knew Maddie was there.

Nerves alight, he shoved Janina’s ring into his pocket and went to push open the door.

“Hey, Maddie,” he said quietly, and stepped aside to let her in.

“Hey yourself.” She crossed the threshold with a shaky laugh.