Praise for the reigning queen of romance
DIANA PALMER!
âPalmerâs talent for character development and ability to fuse heartwarming romance with nail-biting suspense shine in Outsider.â
âBooklist
âA gentle escape mixed with real-life menace for fans of Palmerâs more than 100 novels.â
âPublishers Weekly on Night Fever
âThe ever-popular and prolific Palmer has penned another sure hit.â
âBooklist on Before Sunrise
âNobody does it better.â
âNew York Times bestselling author Linda Howard
âPalmer knows how to make sparks flyâ¦heartwarming.â
âPublishers Weekly on Renegade
âSensual and suspenseful.â
âBooklist on Lawless
âDiana Palmer is a mesmerizing storyteller who captures the essence of what a romance should be.â
âAffaire de Coeur
âNobody tops Diana Palmer when it comes to delivering pure, undiluted romance. I love her stories.â
âNew York Times bestselling author Jayne Ann Krentz
It had been a jarring encounter.
Callie Kirby felt chilled, and it wasnât just because it was November in south Texas. She watched the stepbrother she worshiped walk away from her as casually as if heâd moved around an obstacle in his path. In many ways, that was what Callie was to Micah Steele. He hated her. Of course, he hated her mother more. The two Kirby women had alienated him from the father he adored. Jack Steele had found his only son wrapped up in the arms of his young wifeâCallieâs motherâand an ugly scene had followed. Callieâs mother, Anna, was sent packing. So was Micah, living mostly at his fatherâs home while he finished his last year of residency.
That had been six years ago, and the breach still hadnât healed. Jack Steele rarely spoke of his son. That suited Callie. The very sound of his name was painful to her. Speaking to him took nerve, too. Heâd once called her a gold digger like her mother, among other insults. Words could hurt. His always had. But she was twenty-two now, and she could hold her own with him. That didnât mean that her knees didnât shake and her heartbeat didnât do a tango while she was holding her own.
She stood beside her little second-hand yellow VW and watched Micah bend his formidable height to open the door of the black convertible Porsche he drove. His thick, short blond hair caught the sunlight and gleamed like gold. He had eyes so dark they looked black, and he rarely smiled. She didnât understand why heâd come home to Jacobsville, Texas, in the first place. He lived somewhere in the Bahamas. Jack had said that Micah inherited a trust fund from his late mother, but heâd sounded curious about his sonâs luxurious lifestyle. The trust, he told Callie privately, wasnât nearly enough to keep Micah in the Armani suits he wore and the exotic sports cars he bought new every year.
Perhaps Micah had finished his residency somewhere else and was in private practice somewhere. Heâd gone to medical school, but she remembered that there had been some trouble in his last year of his residency over a lawsuit, stemming from a surgical procedure he refused to do. Neither she nor his father knew the details. Even when heâd been living with his father, Micah was a clam. After he left, the silence about his life was complete.
He glanced back at Callie. Even at a distance he looked worried. Her heart jumped in spite of her best efforts to control it. Heâd had that effect on her from the beginning, from the first time sheâd ever seen him. Sheâd only been in his arms once, from too much alcohol. Heâd been furious, throwing her away from him before she could drag his beautiful, hard mouth down onto hers. The aftermath of her uncharacteristic boldness had been humiliating and painful. It wasnât a pleasant memory. She wondered why he was so concerned about her. It was probably that he was concerned for his father, and she was his primary caretaker. That had to be it. She turned her attention back to her own car.
With a jerk of his hand, he opened the door of the Porsche, climbed in and shot off like a teenager with his first car. The police would get him for that, she thought, if they saw it. For a few seconds, she smiled at the image of big, tall, sexy Micah being put in a jail cell with a man twice his size who liked blondes. Micah was so immaculate, so sophisticated, that she couldnât imagine him ruffled nor intimidated. For all his size, he didnât seem to be a physical man. But he was highly intelligent. He spoke five languages fluently and was a gourmet cook.
She sighed sadly and got into her own little car and started the engine. She didnât know why Micah was worried that she and his father might be in danger from that drug lord everyone locally was talking about. She knew that Cy Parks and Eb Scott had been instrumental in closing down a big drug distribution center, and that the drug lord, Manuel Lopez, had reputedly targeted them for revenge. But that didnât explain Micahâs connection. Heâd told her that he tipped law enforcement officials to a big drug cargo of Lopezâs that had subsequently been captured, and Lopez was out for blood. She couldnât picture her so-straitlaced stepbrother doing something so dangerous. Micah wasnât the sort of man who got involved in violence of any sort. Certainly, he was a far cry from the two mercenaries whoâd shut down Lopezâs operation. Maybe heâd given the information to the feds for Cy and Eb. Yes, that could have happened, somehow. She remembered what heâd said about the danger to his family and she felt chilled all over again. Sheâd load that shotgun when she and Jack got home, she told herself firmly, and sheâd shoot it if she had to. She would protect her stepfather with her last breath.