Darling Jack
Jack Hazard Needed A Wife And Anna Matlin was the perfect woman for the job.Though she seemed like a timid mouse, Jack was convinced that the file clerk possessed a multitude of charms. Charms that he would soon expose as he drew her into his dangerous game of revenge. Anna's colorless existence ended the day she became the "wife" of her hero, Jack Hazard.But though she was learning that beneath legendary Pinkerton detective's dashing exterior was a haunted, lonely man, still she longed for the brief assignment to become the role of a lifetime!
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Table of Contents
This was no way for a Pinkerton agent to behave,
Anna reminded herself as she rushed along.
It was no way for a self-respecting woman to behave, either. To be so flummoxed by a kiss. To have her legitimate and quite serious concerns turned into frilly bows and butterflies by a man’s mouth on hers. And it wouldn’t happen again.
Jack Hazard came to a halt. His dark face glowered down on her. “I apologize,” he snarled. “It won’t happen again, Mrs. Matlin. Mrs. Hazard. Whoever the hell you are.” He let go of her arm to drag his fingers through his hair.
Had the kiss affected him, too? There was a definite flush to his face that Anna had never seen, and his fingers trembled as they threaded through that shiny black hair. Jack Hazard, master spy, seemed nearly as unsettled as she…!
Dear Reader,
Welcome to Harlequin Historicals. Whether you’re a longtime fan of Mary McBride or have just discovered her, we know you’ll be delighted by her new book, Darling Jack, the touching tale of a handsome Pinkerton detective, driven by revenge, and the steady, unassuming file clerk who poses as his wife for an assignment Don’t let this terrific story slip by you.
Dulcie’s Gift, from Ruth Langan, is the prequel to the contemporary stories in the Harlequin cross-line continuity series, BRIDE’S BAY. When a boatful of women and children seek refuge on his island, Cal Jermain isn’t pleased with the added responsibility, especially when he finds himself falling for their secretive leader, Dulcie Trenton.
This month’s books also include a new medieval novel from Claire Delacroix, My Lady’s Champion, the story of a woman who must marry in order to protect her holdings, and a Western from newcomer Carolyn Davidson, Loving Katherine, about a lonely woman who has struggled to keep the family horse farm, and a drifter who teaches her that there’s more to life.
We hope you’ll keep a lookout for all four titles.
Sincerely,
Tracy Farrell Senior Editor
Please address questions and book requests to: Harlequin Reader Service
U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269 Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont L2A 5X3
MARY McBRIDE
is a former special education teacher who lives in St. Louis, Missouri, with her husband and two young sons. She loves to correspond with readers and invites them to write to her at:
P.O. Box 411202
St Louis, MO 63141
With deep affection to my friends in The Lounge
Anna Matlin was invisible.
As a child in the grim coal-mining hills of southern Illinois, she had learned her lessons well. In a family of thirteen, the squeaking wheel got backhanded and burdened with extra chores. In any forest, it was the tallest tree that suffered the lightning.
So Anna, early on, had decided to be a shrub.
She had blossomed once—and briefly—at the age of sixteen, when she eloped to Chicago with Billy Matlin. But Billy had soon looked beyond her, to Colorado and the promise of gold.
“I’ll send for you,” he’d said. But Billy never had. He’d died instead, leaving his young widow pale and even more invisible.
Under bleak winter skies, in her somber wools and black galoshes, Anna Matlin was barely distinguishable from the soot-laden banks of snow along Washington Street as she made her way to number 89, the offices of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, where she had been employed for six years, filing papers and transcribing notes and more or less blending into the wainscoting.
In summer, in her drab poplins and sensible shoes, she seemed to disappear against brick walls and dull paving stones.
Whatever the season or setting, Anna Matlin was—by her own volition—invisible.
But every once in a while, particularly in summer, when the sun managed to slice through the smokedense Chicago sky, it would cast a rare and peculiar glint from Anna’s spectacles, a flash that for an instant made her seem exceptional and altogether visible.
As it did on the morning of May 3,1869…
ChicagoMay 3, 1869
“I need a wife.”
“That’s impossible, Jack. Entirely out of the question.” Allan Pinkerton leaned back in his chair. He raised both hands to knead his throbbing temples, then closed his eyes a moment, wishing—praying, actually—that when he opened them again both the headache and Mad Jack Hazard would be gone.
But—damn it—they weren’t. The nagging pain was still there, and so was his best and bravest operative. The man was a headache in human form, slanted back now with his arms crossed and his brazen boots up on the boss’s desk.
“I need a wife, Allan,” Hazard said again, in that voice that still had a touch of English mist, even after all these years.
