Panther On The Prowl

Rennie asked, her voice barely a whisper.

John emitted a long, low breath he’d been holding trapped in his lungs. “The Seminole Indians believe that it is what you do with your life that determines your fate.”

She moistened her lips and tilted her face up to him. “And what do the Seminoles say about two people coming together for only one night? Would they call that fate?”

His whole body tensed. “They would say that a man and a woman coming together can change the course of the world, and must not be taken lightly.”

“I don’t want to change the whole world. Only my world.”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he whispered. “You’re vulnerable right now, and confused. You don’t know what you really want.”

Her hands came up to caress his face. “For the first time in my life, I know exactly what I want.”

Dear Reader,

Valentine’s Day is here, a time for sweet indulgences. RITA Award-winning author Merline Lovelace is happy to oblige as she revisits her popular CODE NAME: DANGER miniseries. In Hot as Ice, a frozen Cold War-era pilot is thawed out by beautiful scientist Diana Remington, who soon finds herself taking her work home with her.

ROMANCING THE CROWN continues with The Princess and the Mercenary, by RITA Award winner Marilyn Pappano. Mercenary Tyler Ramsey reluctantly agrees to guard Princess Anna Sebastiani as she searches for her missing brother, but who will protect Princess Anna’s heart from Tyler? In Linda Randall Wisdom’s Small-Town Secrets, a young widow—and detective—tries to solve a string of murders with the help of a handsome reporter. The long-awaited LONE STAR COUNTRY CLUB series gets its start with Marie Ferrarella’s Once a Father. A bomb has ripped apart the Club, and only a young boy rescued from the wreckage knows the identity of the bombers. The child’s savior, firefighter Adam Collins, and his doctor, Tracy Walker, have taken the child into protective custody—where they will fight danger from outside and attraction from within. RaeAnne Thayne begins her OUTLAW HARTES series with The Valentine Two-Step. Watch as two matchmaking little girls turn their schemes on their unsuspecting single parents. And in Nancy Morse’s Panther on the Prowl, a temporarily blinded woman seeks shelter—and finds much more—in the arms of a mysterious stranger.

Enjoy them all, and come back next month, because the excitement never ends in Silhouette Intimate Moments.

Yours,

Leslie. J. Wainger

Executive Senior Editor

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Nancy lives in New York and Florida with her husband, Talley, who works in the film industry, and their Alaskan Malamute, Max, aka Big Fur. An early love of reading and happy endings led to the publication of her first historical romance in 1980. She has an avid interest in Native American art and culture and takes pride in her collection of nineteenth-century artifacts. In addition to writing, she keep busy with reading, gardening, aerobic workouts and a full-time job in health and education.

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

Rennie Hollander was desperate.

The practiced hands at the controls trembled and her usually steady grip was scared and unsure as she piloted the single-engine Cessna southward, hugging the Florida coastline.

All around, lightning snaked the black sky. The sudden, violent thunderstorm that ripped through the night shortly after takeoff should have forced her to turn around and head back to Palm Beach International, but the radio frequencies were flooded with diverted pilots trying to talk to tower controllers. And besides, it would have been a mistake to go back.

Fixing her coordinates, she flew on into the thick night. The steady hum of the engine was the only reassuring thing as the plane bumped its way through the turbulence.

South Florida was called the lightning capital of the world. It was a reputation well deserved, Rennie thought grimly. Two years ago the senator’s caddy was struck and killed by lightning on the tenth hole, and last summer a workman repairing the roof of the guest house was knocked into the air by a bolt of lightning.

Rennie knew from the weather report she received before take off that she was taking a chance flying in such weather, but she was an experienced pilot, and desperate to get away.

Far below, the Everglades stretched into the darkness. Rennie shuddered, recalling the only time she had ever been to the Everglades. It was the summer after her father died, when her mother’s friend, Senator Trevor Hollander, took her on an airboat ride. Of course, he wasn’t a senator back then, merely an overambitious businessman eager to impress an eight-year-old and her wealthy, widowed mother.

She found the place treacherous and frightening, with alligators sitting like partially submerged logs in the still water. Yet to her child’s eye it was also strangely beautiful. Though Rennie had been too young to understand the dichotomy, the Everglades haunted her until she grew older and came to realize the place mirrored her own life, for it, too, was filled with beautiful things and long, endless stretches of loneliness.