Trading Secrets
A MARRIAGE OF CONVENIENCE–OR FOR KEEPS?Jenny Baker's return to bucolic Maple Mountain was propelled by her desire to mend her broken heart…and to repair a reputation shattered by big-city betrayal. Vowing to stay far away from men, she was surprised to develop an instant connection with her new boss, Dr. Greg Reid.After Jenny's discovery that her troubles had only begun in Maple Mountain, Greg was determined to help in any way he could–even if the only solution was to become the husband of his newest employee. Was this union of convenience just a temporary arrangement, or was it rooted in something more–true love?
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“Are you all right?”
Greg could only imagine what must be going through Jenny’s mind—if she was even able to think at all. She looked shell-shocked.
Jenny gave her head a slow, negative shake.
“I didn’t think you were.”
He murmured the words. He’d never seen anyone look as lost and alone as she did at that moment. Or, if he had, he’d never allowed the depth of that awful helplessness to register. It wasn’t as if he allowed it now. It simply happened as he knelt there, touching her.
Something twisted inside him. Something that made him feel what she felt, and left him feeling as vulnerable as she looked in the moments before he scrambled for the protective detachment that came so automatically with everyone else….
Dear Reader,
Celebrate those April showers this month by curling up inside with a good book—and we at Silhouette Special Edition are happy to start you off with What’s Cooking? by Sherryl Woods, the next in her series THE ROSE COTTAGE SISTERS. When a playboy photographer is determined to seduce a beautiful food critic fed up with men who won’t commit…things really start to heat up! In Judy Duarte’s Their Unexpected Family, next in our MONTANA MAVERICKS: GOLD RUSH GROOMS continuity, a very pregnant—not to mention, single—small-town waitress and a globe-trotting reporter find themselves drawn to each other despite their obvious differences. Stella Bagwell concludes THE FORTUNES OF TEXAS: REUNION with In a Texas Minute. A woman who has finally found the baby of her dreams to adopt lacks the one element that can make it happen—a husband—or does she? She’s suddenly looking at her handsome “best friend” in a new light. Christine Flynn begins her new GOING HOME miniseries—which centers around a small Vermont town—with Trading Secrets, in which a down-but-not-out native repairs to her hometown to get over her heartbreak…and falls smack into the arms of the town’s handsome new doctor. Least Likely Wedding? by Patricia McLinn, the first in her SOMETHING OLD, SOMETHING NEW… series, features a lovely filmmaker whose “groom” on celluloid is all too eager to assume the role in real life. And in The Million Dollar Cowboy by Judith Lyons, a woman who’s fallen hard for a cowboy has to convince him to take a chance on love.
So don’t let those April showers get you down! May is just around the corner—and with it, six fabulous new reads, all from Silhouette Special Edition.
Happy reading!
Gail Chasan
Senior Editor
CHRISTINE FLYNN
admits to being interested in just about everything, which is why she considers herself fortunate to have turned her interest in writing into a career. She feels that a writer gets to explore it all and, to her, exploring relationships—especially the intense, bittersweet or even lighthearted relationships between men and women—is fascinating.
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
O nce a person hit bottom, the only way to go was up.
Not sure if she felt encouraged or depressed by that thought, Jenny Baker absently rubbed beside the sore abrasion on her forehead and unpacked another dish from the cardboard box. The house she would now call home was practically falling down around her. Paint peeled from the cabinets. A crack in the window over the chipped porcelain sink distorted the rain-grayed view of a weed-choked garden. But at least she had a roof over her head.
A pot on the floor caught drips from the ceiling.
Even the weather had turned on her.
Mid-August in northern Vermont was usually warm and sunny, a lovely respite between the harsh winters and the brilliance of the autumn to come. This far north the leaves were always the first to change, and that change would soon begin. In a few weeks, lush green would turn to shades of crimson and burnished gold. The leaf-peepers would arrive in droves. The loons and crows would fly south. But, for now, late summer reigned.
Jenny had always loved Vermont this time of year. The velvet green of the meadows, the farms and the rolling hills, the way the birch and maple leaves shimmered in the sunlight. It had all been exactly as she’d remembered, too, as she’d left the interstate for the slower, winding drive deeper into the country, heading toward Maple Mountain and home.
Unfortunately, the little black cloud that had hovered over her life for the past month had apparently followed her from Boston. Within an hour of prying off boards from a few downstairs windows and unloading her car—the latter of which had taken less than fifteen minutes now that her possessions had been reduced to little more than her luggage and four cardboard boxes—clouds had rolled in, dusk had descended and a summer thunderstorm had put a major damper on her new beginning.
Despite the rain, the optimist in her struggled to surface. Bemoaning her fate wouldn’t change it, so she focused on the good news—which was that the two oil lamps she’d found in the pantry provided plenty of light to see.
