A Kiss In The Dark. Jenna Mills
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“You’re pregnant?”
“I don’t owe you any explanations.” Bethany said, trying to push past Dylan. She might as well have tried to move a boulder.
“If you think I’m going to let you walk out of here by yourself, you’re out of your mind. You told me yourself you’d do what it took to protect your child. No way am I going to risk you driving off into those mountains and never coming back.”
“I appreciate your concern, Dylan, but I’m not some fragile flower, and I don’t need you playing bodyguard or bounty hunter or whatever it is you think you’re doing.” Even if for a few dangerous moments she wanted to feel his arms close around her more than she’d ever wanted anything.
His expression darkened. “I’d call it father.”
Everything inside her went very still. “W-what?”
“This child you’re carrying, Bethany. This child is mine.”
Dear Reader,
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Enjoy!
Leslie J. Wainger
Executive Senior Editor
A Kiss in the Dark
Jenna Mills
JENNA MILLS
grew up in south Louisiana, amid romantic plantation ruins, haunting swamps and timeless legends. It’s not surprising, then, that she wrote her first romance at the ripe old age of six! Three years later, this librarian’s daughter turned to romantic suspense with Jacquie and the Swamp, a harrowing tale of a young woman on the run in the swamp and the dashing hero who helps her find her way home. Since then her stories have grown in complexity, but her affinity for adventurous women and dangerous men has remained constant. She loves writing about strong characters torn between duty and desire, conscious choice and destiny.
When not writing award-winning stories brimming with deep emotion, steamy passion and page-turning suspense, Jenna spends her time with her husband, two cats, two dogs and a menagerie of plants in their Dallas, Texas, home. Jenna loves to hear from her readers. She can be reached via e-mail at [email protected], or via snail mail at P.O. Box 768, Coppell, Texas 75019.
A book about a woman who longs for the joys of motherhood deserves to be dedicated to the wonderful women who’ve loved, nurtured and supported me—my mother, Sharilynn Aucoin, my dear grandmothers, Rosemary Aucoin and the late Marie Allison, and my special mother-in-law, Judith Miller.
You’re the best!
Contents
Prologue
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
Chapter 15
Epilogue
Prologue
“Had laws not been, we never had been blamed; For not to know we sin is innocence.”
—William D’Avenant
“Stop!”
The broken cry shattered the silence of the night. He awoke abruptly, heart hammering, adrenaline surging. Disoriented, he sat upright on the sofa and blinked against the grainy dryness of his eyes, tried to focus. The cabin was dark, shadows blurring detail. Nothing moved save for the orgylike frenzy of snowflakes outside the window.
A dream, he told himself. Just another nightmare. They were stronger here in the cabin, where memories crowded in from every direction like ghosts in a desecrated cemetery.
He was a fool to keep coming back.
“D-don’t kill him!”
This time there was no mistake. He was on his feet in a heartbeat, running across the cold wood floor toward the hallway. She didn’t belong here. Not here. But the snowstorm had turned vicious, rendering the roads too treacherous for driving.
“S-stay away! Stay away from me!”
The pain in the voice he’d never forgotten, despite the passing of six long years, pierced deep.
“Don’t touch me…”
He reached the closed door at a dead run, knew it was locked before he tried the knob. He pulled back, then rammed his body against the wood, crashed inside the room.
The sight greeting him almost sent him to his knees. The need to protect, to comfort, reared up from somewhere dark and forgotten and sent him toward the bed, where she fought the tangled sheets, lost in a nightmare he knew too well.
“My baby…”
He reached the bed and pulled her to his body, holding her against his chest. “It’s just a dream,” he assured roughly, running his hands along her back. She was thinner than he remembered. And she was trembling. “Just a dream.”
Her arms twined around his waist, her soft palms stinging like ice against his bare back. “S-so real,” she murmured as he held her, rocked her. “Just like before.”
“It’s this place,” he reasoned, trying to ignore the feel of her soft breasts pressed against his chest. “Too many memories.”
“S-so c-cold.”
He pulled back to look at her and felt something deep inside splinter. Her sable hair was tangled, her devastated eyes an impossible shade of arctic blue, her skin like ice, the coral of her lips practically translucent. His threadbare black and blue flannel shirt had slipped over one shoulder, baring the curve he’d once loved to skim his mouth along.
A long time ago.
In the years since then, he’d lived without her. He