Her Holiday Protector

THE WRONG TARGET

While investigating a murder at Rikki Allen’s house, detective Blain Kent realizes the victim looks a lot like Rikki. Could the secretive widow have been the target? He wants answers, but Rikki is unusually cagey. When the killer comes after Rikki at a safe location, Blain finally gets the truth out of her: she’s the daughter of Franco Alvanetti—the notorious crime kingpin. A by-the-book former marine, Blain has made it his life mission to put the Alvanetti family out of business. Yet he has to trust Rikki to protect her from a killer who wants her dead by Christmas.

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Blain would find out everything about her.

But right now he wanted to get Rikki out of here. They were too exposed at this location.

She finally nodded. “I need to get my things.”

After he escorted her to her room, he put her in his car and turned to stare at her. “Where to, princess?”

She swallowed, dropped her head and stared at her hands in her lap. “The Bay Road.”

Bay Road? Blain whistled. Real estate out there was way over his pay scale. “Okay, then.”

Pricey estates out there. A scenic highway surrounding where the big bay met up with Millbrook River and the lake.

When they were under way and out past the city, he turned off and followed the dark water. “What’s the address?”

She finally looked over at him, a defiance in her voice. “2200 First Bay Lane.”

Blain blinked, thinking he hadn’t heard right. “Hey, that’s—”

“The Alvanetti estate,” she finished for him. “Sonia Alvanetti is my mother.”

“And…Franco Alvanetti is your father.”

“Yes.” She nodded and looked out the window.

And suddenly Blain understood so much more about what was going on with Rikki Allen. No wonder she’d been so closemouthed and evasive. No wonder he couldn’t trust her.

She was an Alvanetti.

LENORA WORTH writes award-winning romance and romantic suspense. Three of her books finaled in the ACFW Carol Awards, and her Love Inspired Suspense novel Body of Evidence became a New York Times bestseller. Her novella in Mistletoe Kisses made her a USA TODAY bestselling author. With sixty books published and millions in print, she goes on adventures with her retired husband, Don, and enjoys reading, baking and shopping…especially shoe shopping.

Her Holiday

Protector

Lenora Worth

www.millsandboon.co.uk

But let justice roll on like a river,

righteousness like a never-failing stream!

—Amos 5:24

To Winnie Griggs, Beth Cornelison and Renee Ryan

With gratitude for a wonderful retreat during a storm

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

About the Author

Title Page

Bible Verse

Dedication

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

EIGHTEEN

NINETEEN

TWENTY

TWENTY-ONE

Dear Reader

Extract

Copyright

ONE

The sickle moon dipped down in the dark sky, reaching toward the gray surface of Millbrook Lake like a slinky hand trying to touch the water. The nip of winter covered the dusk in a crisp, fresh-smelling blanket of evening dew.

Blain Kent inhaled a deep, cleansing breath and hit his stride on the path around the big oval lake, the cadence of his nightly run echoing behind him. All around him, the quaint turn-of-the-century houses shone with pretty white lights and fresh evergreen wreaths tied up with bright red bows.

Christmas had come to Northwest Florida. But tonight, Blain had to work off that big Thanksgiving meal he’d enjoyed at his parents’ house two days ago. He also needed to work off his retired law enforcement father’s always critical comments. Blain might have followed in his father’s footsteps by returning from combat to take a job with the Millbrook Police Department, but that was where the similarities ended.

Serving for over twenty-five years in the sheriff’s department and finally becoming the county sheriff, Sam Kent had tried to keep the peace by pandering to the local elite and turning a blind eye on the powerful Alvanetti crime family that tried to run the entire state of Florida. Alleged crime family since no one could ever pin anything illegal on Franco Alvanetti.

While Blain tried to do an honest day’s work and solve crimes by the book, it irritated him to no end that he couldn’t find a single piece of incriminating evidence on the Alvanetti clan. So Blain and his still-influential father had a difference of opinion on which way worked best. Blain didn’t pander to anyone.

Blain rounded a corner, his thoughts centered on the harsh words he and his father had slung at each other while Mom was in the kitchen dishing up pumpkin pie.

“Don’t be so hard on yourself or anyone else around here,” Dad had said in his deep, disapproving voice. “You have to make it work, son. Don’t make waves. Just keep the peace.”

“I want it to work, Dad. For everyone, not just the rich people who live around the lake and out on the canal.”

Blain approached that canal now, out of habit his cop’s gaze taking in his surroundings. He wouldn’t let that conversation with his father ruin his good mood. Not tonight, with that moon hanging over the lake and the whole world alive with the promise of something true and honest around the bend. Christmas was coming. All would be right with the world.