Return To Sender Read online

  “Me?”

  Letter to Reader

  Title Page

  Also by

  About the Author

  Dedication

  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

  Copyright

  “Me?”

  The startled squeak of Sheryl’s voice echoed off the walls of the little-used office.

  “You,” Harry confirmed, pulling a folded document out of his coat pocket. “This authorizes an indefinite detail. You’re on my team, effective immediately.”

  “Hey, hang on here,” Sheryl protested. “I’m not sure I want to be assigned to a fugitive apprehension task force, indefinitely or otherwise. Before I agree to anything like this, I want to know what’s required of me.”

  “Basically, I want your exclusive time and attention for as long as it takes to extract every bit of information I can.”

  Sheryl stared at him. “Exclusive time and attention? You mean, like all day?”

  Harry forced his expression to stay neutral as he answered, “And all night, if necessary.”

  Dear Reader,

  This is it, the final month of our wonderful three-month celebration of Intimate Moments’ fifteenth anniversary. It’s been quite a ride, but it’s not over yet. For one thing, look who’s leading off the month: Rachel Lee, with Cowboy Comes Home, the latest fabulous title in her irresistible CONARD COUNTY miniseries. This one has everything you could possibly want in a book, including all the deep emotion Rachel is known for. Don’t miss it.

  And the rest of the month lives up to that wonderful beginning, with books from both old favorites and new names sure to become favorites. Merline Lovelace’s Return to Sender will have you longing to work at the post office (I’m not kidding!), while Marilyn Tracy returns to the wonderful (but fictional, dam it!) town of Almost, Texas, with Almost Remembered. Look for our TRY TO REMEMBER flash to guide you to Leann Harris’s Trusting a Texan, a terrific amnesia book, and the EXPECTANTLY YOURS flash marking Raina Lynn’s second book, Partners in Parenthood. And finally, don’t miss A Hard-Hearted Man, by brand-new author Melanie Craft. Your heart will melt—guaranteed.

  And that’s not all. Because we’re not stopping with the fifteen years behind us. There are that many—and more!—in our future, and I know you’ll want to be here for every one. So come back next month, when the excitement and the passion continue, right here in Silhouette Intimate Moments.

  Yours,

  Leslie J. Wainger

  Executive Senior Editor

  * * *

  Please address questions and book requests to:

  Silhouette Reader Service

  U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269

  Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont L2A 5X3

  * * *

  RETURN TO SENDER

  MERLINE WVELACE

  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

  Return to Sender #866

  Silhouette Desire

  Dreams and Schemes #872

  †Halloween Honeymoon #1030

  †Wrong Bride, Right Groom #1037

  *Code Name: Danger

  †Holiday Honeymoons

  Silhouette Books

  Fortune’s Children

  Beauty and the Bodyguard

  MERLINE LOVELACE After twenty-three exciting years as an officer in the United States Air Force, Merline Lovelace hung up her uniform and started writing romances. She’s now written more than twenty sizzling contemporary and historical novels and is thoroughly enjoying her new profession. When not glued to the keyboard, she and her handsome hero, Al, enjoy golf, traveling and gourmet meals in fine restaurants—not necessarily in that order!

  Merline can be reached at P.O. Box 892717, Oklahoma City, OK 73189.

  Watch for her next book, If a Man Answers, coming from Silhouette Intimate Moments in September 1998.

  This one’s for Sherrill and Elisha and Peggy and all the

  folks at the S. Penn Post Office—thanks for your

  friendly smiles when I show up all drawn and haggard to

  put a finished manuscript in the mail. Thanks, too, for

  your cheerful professionalism. You’re outstanding

  representatives of the finest postal system in the world!

  Chapter 1

  Rio de Janeiro.

  Mount Sugarloaf rising majestically above the city.

  Streets crowded with revelers in costumes of bright greens and yellows and reds.

  The glossy postcard leaped out at Sheryl Hancock from the thick sheaf of mail. Her hand stilled its task of sorting and stuffing post office boxes. The familiar early-morning sounds of co-workers grumbling and letters whooshing into metal boxes faded. For the briefest moment, she caught a faint calypso beat in the rattle of a passing mail cart and heard the laughter of Carnival.

  “Is that another postcard from Paul-boy?”

  With a small jolt, Sheryl left the South America festival and returned to the Albuquerque post office where she’d worked for the past twelve years. Smiling at the woman standing a few feet away, she nodded.

  “Yes. This one’s from Rio.”

  “Rio? The guy sure gets around, doesn’t he?”

  Elise Hart eased her bulk around a bank of opened postal boxes to peer at the postcard in Sheryl’s hand. From the expression in Elise’s brown eyes, it was obvious that she, too, was feeling the momentary magic of faraway places.

  “What does this one say?”

  Sheryl flipped the card over. “‘Hi to my favorite aunt. I’ve been dancing in the streets for the past four days. Wish you were here.’”

  Sighing, Elise gazed at the slick card. “What I wouldn’t give to dump my two boys with my mother and fly down to Rio for Carnival.”

  “Oh, sure. I can just see you dancing through the streets, eight months pregnant yet.”

  “Eight months, one week, two days and counting,” the redhead replied with a grimace. “I’d put on my dancing shoes for a hunk like Mrs. Gunderson’s nephew, though.”

  “You’d better not put on dancing shoes! I’m your birthing partner, remember? I don’t want you going into premature labor on me. Besides,” Sheryl tacked on, “we only have Mrs. Gunderson’s word for it that her nephew qualifies as a hunk.”

  “According to his doting aunt, Paul-boy sports a thick mustache, specializes in tight jeans and rates about 112 on the gorgeous scale.” Elise waggled her dark-red brows in an exaggerated leer. “That’s qualification enough in my book.”

  “Paul-boy, as you insist on calling him, is also pushing forty.”

  “So?”

  So Sheryl didn’t have a whole lot of respect for jetsetting playboys who refused to grow up or grow into their responsibilities. Her father had been a pharmaceutical salesman by profession and a wanderer by nature. He’d drifted in and out of her life for short periods during her youth, until her mother’s loneliness and bitter nagging had made him disappear altogether. Sheryl didn’t blame him, exactly. More often than not, she herself had to grit her teeth when her mother called in one of her complaining moods. But neither did she like to talk about her absent paren
t.

  Instead, she teased Elise about her fascination with the man they both heard about every time the frail, white-haired woman who’d moved to Albuquerque some four months ago came in to collect her mail.

  “Don’t you think Mrs. Gunderson might be just a bit prejudiced about this nephew of hers?”

  “Maybe. He still sounds yummy.” Sighing, Elise rested a hand on her high, rounded stomach. “You’d think I would have learned my lesson once and for all. My ex broke the gorgeous scale, too.”

  Sheryl had bitten down hard on her lip too many times in the past to keep from criticizing her friend’s husband. Since their divorce seven months ago, she felt no such restraints.

  “Rick also weighed in as a total loser.”

  “True,” Elise agreed. “He was, is and always will be a jerk.” She traced a few absent circles on her tummy. “We can’t all find men like Brian, Sher.”

  At the mention of her almost-fiancé, Sheryl banished any lingering thoughts of Elise’s ex, Latin American carnivals and the globe-trotting Paul Gunderson. In their place came the easy slide of contentment that always accompanied any thought of Brian Mitchell.

  “No, we can’t,” she confirmed.

  “So have you two set a date yet?”

  “We’re talking about an engagement at the end of the year.”

  “You’re engaged to get engaged.” Her friend’s brown eyes twinkled. “That’s so...so Brian.”

  “I know.”

  Actually, the measured pace of Sheryl’s relationship with the Albuquerque real estate agent satisfied her almost as much as it did him. After dating for nearly a year, they’d just started talking about the next step. They’d announce an engagement when the time was right, quite possibly at Christmas, and set a firm date for the wedding when they’d saved up enough to purchase a house. Brian was sure interest rates would drop another few points in the next year or so. Before they took the plunge into matrimony, he wanted to be in a position to buy down their monthly house payments so they could live comfortably on her salary and his commissions.

  “I think that’s what I like most about him,” Sheryl confided. “His dependability and careful planning and—”

  “Not to mention his cute buns.”

  “Well...”

  “Ha! Don’t give me that Little Miss Innocent look. I know you, girl. Under that sunshine-and-summer exterior, you crave excitement and passion as much as the next woman. Even fat, prego ones.”

  “What I crave,” Sheryl replied, laughing, “is for you to get back to work. We’ve only got ten minutes until opening, and I don’t want to face the hordes lined up in the lobby by myself.”

  Elise made a face and dipped into the cardboard tray in front of her for another stack of letters. She and Sheryl had come in early to help throw the postal box mail, since the clerk who regularly handled it was on vacation. They’d have to scramble to finish the last wall of boxes and get their cash drawers out of the vault in time to man the front counter.

  Swiftly, Sheryl shuffled through the stack in her hand for the rest of Mrs. Gunderson’s mail. Today’s batch was mostly junk, she saw. Coupon booklets. Advertising fliers. A preprinted solicitation from the state insurance commissioner facing a special runoff election next week. And the postcard from Paul-boy, as Elise had dubbed him. With a last, fleeting glance at the colorful street scene, Sheryl bent down to stuff the mail into Mrs. Gunderson’s slot.

  It wouldn’t stuff.

  Frowning, she dropped down on her sneakered heels to examine the three-by-five-inch box. It contained at least one, maybe two days’ worth of mail.

  Strange. Mrs. Gunderson usually came into the post office every day to pick up her mail. More often than not, she’d pop in to chat with the employees on the counter, her yappy black-and-white shih tzu tucked under her arm. Regulations prohibited live animals in the post office except for those being shipped, but no one had the heart to tell Inga Gunderson that she couldn’t bring her baby inside with her. Particularly when she also brought in homemade cookies and melt-in-your-mouth Danish spice cakes.

  A niggle of worry worked into Sheryl’s mind as she shoved Mrs. Gunderson’s mail into her box. She hoped the woman wasn’t sick or incapacitated. She’d keep an eye out for her today, just to relieve her mind that she was okay. Pushing off her heels, she finished the wall of boxes with brisk efficiency and headed for the vault. She had less than five minutes to count out her cash drawer and restock her supplies.

  She managed it in four. She was at the front counter, her ready smile in place, when the branch manager unlocked the glass doors to the lobby and the first of the day’s customers streamed in.

  Sheryl didn’t catch a glimpse of Mrs. Gunderson all morning, nor did any of her co-workers. As the day wore on, the unclaimed mail nagged at Sheryl. During her lunch break, she checked the postal box registry for the elderly renter’s address and phone number.

  The section of town where Inga Gunderson lived was served by another postal station much closer to her house, Sheryl noted. Wondering why the woman would choose to rent a box at a post office so far from her home, she dialed the number. The phone rang twice, then clicked to an answering machine. Since leaving a message wouldn’t do anything to assure her of the woman’s well-being, Sheryl hung up in the middle of the standard I-can’t-come-to-thephone-right-now recording.

  Having come in at six-thirty to help “wall” the letters for the postal boxes, she got off at three. A quick check of Mrs. Gunderson’s box showed it was still stuffed with unclaimed mail. Frowning, Sheryl wove her way slowly through the maze of route carriers’ work areas and headed for the women’s locker room at the rear of the station. After peeling off her pin-striped uniform shirt, she replaced it with a yellow tank top that brightened up the navy shorts worn by most of the postal employees in summer. A glance at the clock on the wall had her grabbing for her purse. She’d promised to meet Brian at three-thirty to look at a property he was thinking of listing.

  After extracting a promise from Elise to go right home and get off her feet, Sheryl stepped outside. Hot, dry heat hit her like a slap in the face. With the sun beating down on her head and shoulders, she crossed the asphalt parking lot toward her trusty, ice-blue Camry. She opened the door and waited a moment to let the captured heat pour out. As she stood there in the hot, blazing sun, her nagging worry over Mrs. Gunderson crystallized into real concern. She’d swing by the woman’s house, she decided. Just to check on her. It was a little out of her way, but Sheryl couldn’t shake the fear that something had happened to the frail, white-haired customer.

  With the Toyota’s air conditioner doing valiant battle against the heat, she pulled out of the parking lot behind the post office and headed west on Haines, then north on Juan Tabo. Two more turns and three miles took her to the shady, residential neighborhood and Inga Gunderson’s neat, two-story adobe house. She didn’t see a car in the driveway, although several were parked along the street. Maybe Mrs. Gunderson’s car was in the detached rear garage. Or maybe she’d gone out of town. Or maybe...

  Maybe she was ill, or had fallen down the stairs and broken a leg or a hip. The woman lived alone, with only her precious Button for company. She could be lying in the house now, helpless and in pain.

  More worried than ever, Sheryl pulled into the driveway and climbed out of the car. Once more the heat enveloped her. She could almost feel her hair sizzling. The thick, naturally curly mane tended to turn unmanageable at the best of times. In this soulsucking heat, it took on a life of its own. Tucking a few wildly corkscrewing strands into the loose French braid that hung halfway down her back, Sheryl followed a pebbled walk to the front porch. A feathery Russian olive tree crowded the railed porch and provided welcome shade. Sighing in relief, she pressed the doorbell.

  When the distant sound of a buzzer produced a series of high, plaintive yips and no Mrs. Gunderson, Sheryl’s concern vaulted into genuine alarm. Inga Gunderson wouldn’t leave town without her Button. The two were pract
ically joined at the hip. They even looked alike, Elise had once joked, both possessing slightly pug noses, round, inquisitive eyes and hair more white than black.

  Sheryl leaned on the doorbell again, and heard a chorus of even more frantic yaps. She pulled open the screen and pounded on the door.

  “Mrs. Gunderson! Are you in there?”

  A long, piteous yowl answered her call. She hammered on the door in earnest, setting the frosted-glass panes to rattling.

  “Mrs. Gunderson! Are you okay?”

  Button howled once more, and Sheryl reached for the old fashioned iron latch. She had just closed her hand around it when the door snapped open, jerking her inside with it.

  Gasping, she found herself nose to nose with a wrinkled linen sport coat and a blue cotton shirt that stretched across a broad chest. A very broad chest. She took a quick step back, at which point several things happened at once, none of them good from her perspective.

  Her foot caught on the door mat, throwing her off balance.

  A hard hand shot out and grabbed her arm, either to save her from falling or to prevent her escape.

  A tiny black-and-white fury erupted from inside the house. Gums lifted, needle-sharp teeth bared, it flew through the air and fastened its jaws on the jean-clad calf of her rescuer-captor.

  “Ow!”

  The man danced across the porch on one booted foot, taking Sheryl with him. Cursing, he lifted his leg and shook it. The little shih tzu snarled ferociously and hung on with all the determination of the rat catcher he was originally bred to be. Snarling a little herself, Sheryl tried to shake free of the bruising hold on her arm. When the stranger didn’t loosen his grip, she dug her nails into the back of his tanned hand.