The 14th... And Forever Read online

  Praise

  Letter to Reader

  Title Page

  Also by

  About the Author

  Dedication

  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

  Chapter 16

  Epilogue

  Copyright

  The Holiday Honeymoons series concludes this month as Gulliver’s Travels brings together one more couple—hospital administrator JACK MERRITT and his earthy, exuberant driver, ANGIE PARETTI.

  So if you’ve been enjoying the Holiday Honeymoons series all along—or even if this is your first time—you won’t want to miss this exciting, suspenseful and romantic story by beloved author Merline Lovelace.

  Here is what some of the best-loved authors in romance have had to say about Merline Lovelace:

  “Strong and clever characters populate the Lovelace world in stories that sizzle with a passion for life and love.”

  —New York Times bestselling author

  Nora Roberts

  “Merline Lovelace’s stories are filled with unforgettable characters, scintillating romance, and steeped with emotional depth. She’s the brightest new star in the romance genre. Each new book is an adventure.”

  —Award-winning author

  Debbie Macomber

  Dear Reader,

  Once again, you’ve come to the right place if you’re looking for that seductive mix of romance and excitement that is quintessentially Intimate Moments. Start the month with The Lady in Red—by reader favorite Linda Turner. Your heart will be in your throat as rival homicide reporters Blake Nickels and Sabrina Jones see their relationship change from professional to personal—with a killer on their trail all the while. And don’t miss the conclusion of the HOLIDAY HONEYMOONS miniseries, Merline Lovelace’s The 14th...and Forever. You’ll wish for a holiday—and a HOLIDAY HONEYMOON—every month of the year.

  The rest of the month is fabulous, too, with new books from Rebecca Daniels: Mind Over Marriage; Marilyn Tracy: Almost Perfect, the launch book in her ALMOST, TEXAS miniseries; and Allie Harrison: Crime of the Heart. And welcome new author Charlotte Walker, as she debuts with Yesterday’s Bride Every one of these books is full of passion, and sometimes peril—don’t miss a single one.

  And be sure to come back next month, when the romance and excitement continue, right here in Silhouette Intimate Moments.

  Enjoy!

  Leslie J. Wainger

  Senior Editor and-Editorial Coordinator

  * * *

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  * * *

  THE 14TH... AND FOREVER

  MERLINE LOVELACE

  Books by Merline Lovelace

  Silhouette Intimate Moments.

  Somewhere in Time #593

  *Night of the Jaguar #637

  *The Cowboy and the Cossack #657

  *Undercover Man #669

  *Perfect Double #692

  †The 14th...and Forever #764

  Silhouette Books

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  *Code Name: Danger

  †Holiday Honeymoons

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  MERLINE LOVELACE

  As a career air force officer, Merline Lovelace served tours of duty in Vietnam, at the Pentagon and at bases all over the world. During her years in uniform she met and married her own handsome hero and stored up enough adventures to keep her fingers flying over the keyboard for years to come. When not glued to the word processor, Merline goes antiquing with her husband, Al, or chases little white balls around the golf courses of Oklahoma.

  Merline loves to read and write sizzling contemporaries and sweeping historical sagas. Look for her next book, Countess in Buckskin, coming soon from Harlequin Historical. She enjoys hearing from readers and can be reached via e-mail at [email protected] or at P.O. Box 892717, Oklahoma City, OK, 73189.

  To Caren and Mike Fichtel, two people who know what love is all about Thanks for opening your hearts and your home to Al and me so many times over the years. And thanks, Mike, for all your great insights into the exciting, adventure-filled, exotic profession of accounting.

  Prologue

  “Good morning, Tiff.”

  Tiffany Tarrington Toulouse hung up her coat and returned her office manager’s warm smile. “Mornin’, Lucy.”

  A romantic to the tips of her toes, Tiffany sighed at the happiness underscoring Lucy Falco’s dark-eyed beauty. The woman positively glowed since her remarriage to her former husband, Chris, last month. That their dramatic reunion had occurred right here, at Gulliver’s Travels—in the middle of a New Year’s Eve break-in, no less!—only added to the romance of the occasion.

  That was Tiffany’s considered opinion, anyway. Lucy still grimaced every time she passed the newly repaired wall that the trio of bumbling would-be safecrackers had reduced to rubble.

  “Here.” Lucy offered a hand-painted china mug. “I made some tea. You’d better have a cup to thaw you out.”

  “Thanks!”

  The older woman took the steaming mug gratefully. A native Atlantan, she’d shivered all the way to work in this unusually chilly February weather.

  “Why are you in so early?” Lucy asked curiously. “I thought you said you were going to treat yourself to a Valentine’s Day champagne breakfast at Antoine’s.”

  In a feminine gesture as ageless as time, the travel agent patted her silvery curls. “I decided to let Humphrey treat me to a champagne dinner instead. You know, for a mere boy of fifty-one, he has definite possibilities.”

  “I’m glad,” Lucy replied, her black eyes dancing. “Our agency seems to be specializing in holiday honeymoons lately. Maybe. the next romantic trip you arrange will be yours.”

  “Maybe.” Tiffany’s smug smile faded. “In the meantime, though, I came in early to cancel the arrangements I made for Dr. Merritt.”

  “Well, I tried to warn you he wouldn’t want that Valentine’s Day getaway package you put together for him,” Lucy said gently. “Penthouse suites and stretch limos aren’t his style. You know how he insists on no frills when he travels on business.”

  “But he never goes anywhere unless it’s on business! We’ve been handling travel arrangements for the employees of Children’s Hospital for years now, and Dr. Merritt has yet to take a vacation. Besides, I wanted to do something to show our appreciation for the way he got Jimmy’s daughter into that special asthma clinic.”

  “He’s the chief financial officer at the hospital, Tiff, responsible for audits and fraud investigations and such. He, of all people, can’t appear to be living extravagantly or wasting the hospital’s travel funds on limousines.”

  “I know, I know.” The older woman’s eyes twinkled. “But auditor or not, the man makes this slightly used heart of mine go bumpety-bump every time I deliver tickets to his office. I was hoping a silver limo, some chilled champagne and a view of Washington D.C. in lights might make him forget his facts and figures and bottom lines for a while. Who knows? He might have found someone interestin
g to share this Valentine’s Day with, after all.”

  “He’s going up to D.C. on business,” Lucy repeated firmly. “He’ll probably be in meetings the whole time he’s there. You’d better follow his instructions and cancel those reservations.”

  “I will.” Tiffany heaved a huge, melodramatic sigh. “But what a waste of the most romantic night of the year!”

  Chapter 1

  Jack saw her the moment he walked out of the terminal.

  She was leaning against the fender of a midnight-blue sedan parked illegally in the drop-off lane, hugging a book to her chest. With her eyes closed, her face tipped up to the thin February sunshine, and a river of glossy chestnut curls spilling down her neck, she was completely oblivious of the noisy airport bustle.

  She looked, Jack decided, like a pagan goddess worshiping the first faint hint of spring.

  Since he wasn’t a man who usually indulged in flights of fantasy, the whimsical thought surprised him...as did the little kick of pleasure the sight of her stirred. It was an instinctive and purely masculine reaction, the uncomplicated enjoyment a healthy male takes in the sight of an intriguing female. It was also one he hadn’t experienced in a long time, he realized ruefully. Too long. Not since his divorce five years ago, anyway.

  He’d been working too hard, Jack decided. And worrying too much about this damned testimony.

  Muscles already stiff from the bumpy flight from Atlanta twisted into even tighter knots at the thought of the Senate subcommittee he’d face the day after tomorrow. He was scheduled to meet with the powerful chairman of the subcommittee in less than an hour to go over the thrust of his testimony. Which meant Jack had less than an hour to decide just what the hell he was going to say.

  He shifted his briefcase to his left hand, already burdened with his carryon and trench coat, and rubbed the back of his neck. In a deliberate effort to ease his tightly coiled tension, he allowed his gaze to drift back to the sun worshiper.

  Her thick, curling mane would have snared any man’s attention, tumbling as it did over the shoulders of a smartly tailored black tunic trimmed with a double row of gold buttons. The tunic was paired with a slim skirt slit on one side to reveal a discreet and thoroughly tantalizing stretch of curving, black-stockinged calf. Her high-topped sneakers decorated with glittery red hearts should have looked incongruous with the rest of her elegant attire. Instead, they added a touch that made more than one observer smile, Jack included.

  At that moment, a capricious gust of wind whooshed along the terminal walkway and jerked her from her enjoyment of the sun. It also, Jack couldn’t help noticing, lifted the flap of her skirt.

  Nice.

  Very nice.

  He was contemplating how quickly simple masculine enjoyment could flare into something a whole lot more complex when she shivered and caught his gaze. Her sable brows lifted in feminine amusement.

  He deserved that, Jack admitted. He’d been staring at her like a gawky teen. His only defense was that the woman was eminently starable. Giving her a grin that tried for apologetic but probably fell short by a few degrees, he turned away.

  “Dr. Merritt?”

  His grin slipped, then froze in place. The tension that traveled with him like a second shadow these days snapped back into place. Instantly and immediately wary, he turned to face her.

  She pushed away from the fender. The amusement was gone. In its place was a look of polite inquiry.

  “Dr. Jack Merritt?”

  As vice president and chief financial officer of the nonprofit Children’s Hospital, Jack worked daily with a host of consulting physicians and an ever-increasing patient population. To avoid confusion, he never used the titles he’d earned along with his string of business degrees. Titles didn’t interest him, in any case.

  What did interest him was what this woman wanted with him.

  “I’m Jack Merritt,” he confirmed slowly.

  She tossed the book she’d been holding through the open passenger window and strolled toward him with an easy, long-legged grace.

  “I got word your flight was delayed on the ground by bad weather in Atlanta.” She reached for his bulging leather briefcase. “Did you have a rough trip?”

  “I’ve had better,” he drawled, his free hand closing over her wrist.

  Startled, she jerked her head up. Her eyes were brown, he noted dispassionately, a honey-dipped brown that reminded him of sweet, slow-pouring molasses.

  “Care to tell me why you want to know?”

  Those golden-brown eyes widened, then sparked with indignation. She jerked her wrist free.

  “I don’t want to know, particularly,” she retorted. “I was just making small talk.”

  She must have seen the suspicion in his face. The hand he’d just captured made an impatient circle in the air.

  “Look, I don’t get paid extra for conversation with my pickups. If you want to dispense with the polite chitchat, that’s fine by me.”

  She was good, Jack thought. Very good. No beating about the bush. No coy, suggestive hints. She must have heard that those kinds of games hadn’t worked the last time.

  The stunning blonde who’d struck up a conversation with him during a financial administrators’ conference in Tampa last month had tried a more indirect approach. Their meeting at the hotel bar after a long day of seminars and vendor displays had been casual, seemingly accidental, although the kind of entertainment she’d offered him in a throaty whisper was anything but.

  Amused, Jack had declined her whiskey-voiced invitation to her room. Even if he’d had the time or the inclination, he preferred to choose his own companions. She’d pouted in pretty indignation, and her suggestions for ways to spend the rest of the evening had progressed from seductive to just this side of physically impossible. When Jack got up to leave, she’d scribbled her room number on a cocktail napkin and slipped it in his pocket—in case he changed his mind.

  He’d understood her persistence when he walked back into the bar to sign the tab he’d forgotten. The blonde had been huddled in a dark booth with a representative of a major drug distributing company...the same company that Jack’s audits had hit particularly hard.

  Their subtle attempt to buy him off with invitations to “conferences” in Aruba and Switzerland had failed. Obviously, they’d decided to try a different approach. Jack suspected that if he’d taken the woman up on her offer, embarrassing videotapes would have been delivered to his home, if not to his boss, soon after his return from Tampa.

  The ploy hadn’t worked then. It wouldn’t work now.

  Although...

  Jack had to admit that the idea of attempting a few of those energetic, impossible acts with this doe-eyed woman held far more appeal than they had when suggested by the blonde.

  He’d been working way too hard, he decided. That was the only explanation he could come up with for his inexplicable attraction to the woman eyeing him with something less than cordiality right now. Her expression about twenty degrees colder than the surprisingly mild air, she walked back to the dark blue sedan and pulled open the rear passenger door.

  “Whenever you’re ready.”

  Jack took in her square-shouldered stance and the exaggerated civility in her voice. Belatedly he realized that her elegant military-style tunic and slim skirt were more than just a fashion statement. She was here to pick him up, all right, but not necessarily in the manner he’d first assumed.

  She must be the driver Gulliver’s Travels had offered to provide, despité his instructions to the contrary. Annoyed, and feeling more than a little foolish, Jack crossed the walkway.

  “I apologize if I sounded a bit brusque. It was a rough flight, and I wasn’t expecting anyone to meet me.”

  She eyed him coolly. “Is that why you acted as though I was trying to steal your briefcase?”

  “The possibility did cross my mind.”

  Among others.

  “We’ve established my identity,” he said, extending his hand. “An
d you are...?”

  She hesitated, then took his hand. Her skin was warm and smooth, her grip surprisingly firm.

  “Angela. Angela Paretti.”

  Jack turned the name over in his mind. It struck a familiar chord, but not one he could identify. He hadn’t met her before. That much he was sure of. He would have remembered that generous mouth and spill of glossy hair.

  “I’m Senator Claiborne’s driver,” she amplified, slipping her hand free of his. “We called your office this morning to notify you that I’d be waiting outside the Delta terminal. Obviously, you didn’t get the word.”

  “No, I didn’t,” Jack replied, his annoyance spiking sharply. Claiborne’s name, at least, he recognized immediately. “I didn’t have time to check in with my office before my flight left.”

  Damn! He should have expected the senator to pull something like this. A throwback to the days of good-ol’ -boy deals made in smoke-filled corridors, Senator Henry “Coon Dog” Claiborne had represented South Carolina in the nation’s capital for more than four decades now. Crafty and immensely powerful, he chaired he subcommittee that had started looking into medical reform legislation long before it became a political buzzword. In his role as chairman of that subcommittee, he’d summoned Jack to Washington to discuss the audit program he’d instituted at Atlanta’s Children’s Hospital.

  Jack had tried to avoid, or at least postpone, this trip. His data was too raw, he’d protested. The implications were too far-reaching to present without careful analysis and review. Senator Claiborne wouldn’t be put off, however. As he’d phrased it, this would be a friendly little hearin’. There wasn’t any need for congressional subpoenas between two “Suthrun gentlemen,” but he surely would like to hear more about these audits, the ones causin’ such a stir in the medical community.