Home
	The Runaway Daughter --sequel to the Waldenbooks Bestselling, Romantic Times Award Winning The Unknown Daughter, Available, February 2006 Chapter One I shouldn't be doing this. Oakwood Chief Deputy Angie Carter had been trying to talk herself out of trouble, and the dingy pool hall, for over an hour. Ironically, for a woman whose life was all about playing it safe, she wasn't having much luck. The voice in her head knew what it was talking about. She'd let things go too far, which made her an idiot. A woman her age. A self-made tomboy, who'd already lost enough to know playing with fire would only get her singed. But lately, the reasonable voice that protected her from herself wasn't having its say. Her hand slid higher, on a mission she couldn't stop. Up miles of strong muscles covering the chest leaning into to hers. His arms pulled her more solidly against him. Her fingers tangled in layers of chocolate brown hair. I shouldn't be doing this... They both knew better. "Mmm." He nibbled his way to her mouth, from the ear he'd been entertaining with a riot of chill bumps. "So this is what a lady sheriff tastes like." "Not..." She gasped as his hands skimmed the undersides of breasts she'd have sworn didn't remember how to heave. Yet there they were, rising on a fractured breath, then settling perfectly into his palms. "Not the new sheriff yet. But still--" His mouth settled over hers, swallowing the concerns he seemed less worried about tonight than she. Then again, at thirty-three she was ten years his senior, both in the department and in life. She had much more at stake. And he... he was too young, and too handsome, and far too good at kissing to heed warnings she herself had stopped listening to hours ago. I shouldn't be doing this... "N... No." She pushed against the wall of muscle she longed to still be caressing instead. She'd secretly wanted this for months. But what she wanted, and what life was actually okay with her having, were two different things. She'd learned that reality the hardest way possible. Had accepted it, and moved on to building new dreams on top of the charred remains left after her world had crashed and burned around her. The last time life had made sure she understood who was in control. And that it most definitely wasn't her. This time around, there were going to be no surprises and no lose ends. No mistakes. No disasters she couldn't handle, just waiting to rip away what she wanted most. Which meant what she was doing with this gorgeous man who couldn't possibly want more than a couple of nights, a handful of good times, before he left her feeling more empty inside than ever, definitely had to stop. She bent her head away from his mouth, a traitorous sigh escaping when his lips grazed her forehead. "No more. We shouldn't... We can't--" "Feels a lot like we can to me," he teased. His brown eyes twinkled with mischief, but he loosened his hold and let her slide as far away as the confines of the booth would allow. She glanced about the shadowy bar, relieved to find the place typically deserted at such a late hour in the middle of a work week. "No one's here to see your fall from grace, darlin'," he said, following her gaze. The easy timber of his chuckle made her want to smack him and pull him close at the same time. He managed to create fun in everything he did, and she envied that. Work had been the sole focus of her life for years, leaving little time for things like fun. Yet the lightness this man brought to every situation--even the tough ones they sometimes faced on the job, or as they did volunteer work with some of the more mixed up kids at Oakwood's youth center--both tempted her to understand him better, and terrified her with how much more drawn she was to him with each passing day. She looked forward to seeing him, talking with him, sharing space with someone who seemed to have cornered the market on taking everything nice and easy. But-- "Coming here tonight was a mistake," she sputtered. It had been stupid move, and she wasn't stupid. Not anymore. "Mistakes aren't always bad, Carter," he responded, using her last name, the way most officers addressed each other on or off duty. Like a peer on the force would. Like a good buddy. A buddy she'd just been crawling all over. She wiped her lips with the back of her hand. If she could no longer taste him, maybe her mind would reengage. "I'm ten years older than you are," she dug from the fuzziness his nearness made out of the reasonable, organized thoughts that usually ruled her world. "Damn straight! I like my women more experienced than I am." "Don't be an ass," she spit back. He took a sip of his long-neck beer, and raised an eyebrow at her get-real glare. If whatever this was between them was about sexual experience, he was a dirty old man, and she was the jail bait. "Okay," he conceded. "Maybe I like a challenge." "Well, if getting fired is the kind of challenge you're looking for, then I'm your girl." "No one's getting fired." His settled his shoulders against the cushioned seat with an irritated thump. "Lighten up, will ya'?" he added, though there wasn't much punch behind the complaint. "Everything's so damn serious with you. You've got so much moody bottled up inside you, you feel enough for ten people. Maybe that's why we're such a good fit." He chuckled. "Lord knows, there's no other woman in town who can get me within ten feet of talking about feelings." Toying with the label he was shredding off his beer, he wasn't looking her in the eye anymore. And there it was. That hint of something beneath that good ol' boy fascade everyone else in Oakwood, Georgia, accepted a face value. Something deeper that called to every weak thing inside her she'd fought so hard to leave behind. Tony Rivers was Mr. Good Times. He played the part like a Hollywood star. But deeper currents ran beneath all that practiced nonchalance. Glimpses of passion and determination, that she alone seemed to recognize, always at the most unexpected times. A sense of responsibility and duty to others that belayed both his easygoing lifestyle and his age. A spark of intensity flashing behind those come-here-baby brown eyes, that sucked her in even deeper than his smile. And he was poking fun at her moodiness. "Serious is the way my life works." She forced herself to listen to the wisdom of her own words. Serious is all she'd had left. Serious, and being very, very careful not to recreate the her past. "That's how I'm going to get where I want to be. Being serious, working hard, and not making careless mistakes like this." "Maybe you could do with a good dose of not being the most controlled person in the room for a change." When he glanced up, the playful spark had returned to his eyes. "Who knows, Darlin'. You might even like a bit of carelessness in your life." "Carelessness is something I can't afford to develop a taste for." Not anymore. She couldn't be the focus of another man's attention, for more reasons than she could count. The aftershocks of her last trip down that road had nearly killed her. Which is why she went out of her way to avoid even the appearance that she welcomed male attention. Yet there Tony was, tempting her with everything she thought she'd finally succeeded in not wanting. She could be this man's buddy. She'd be as good a colleague and friend as he'd find anywhere. She was a bang-up friend. But she couldn't be his darlin'. She hadn't been anyone's darlin' for ten long years. "I'm leaving," she said, cringing at the school-girl waver in her voice. What was next, calling up one of her sisters to gossip about him, like they had when they were in school and one of their crushes of the week had passed a note during study hall? Back when Angie had the luxury of indulging in flighty things like boys and crushes. She stood, every nerve cell screaming for her to sprint, not walk, toward the door. A hand caught her wrist and stalled her escape. The skin beneath Tony's touch rioted with tiny bumps of excitement she did no better job of controlling now, than she had any other time they'd touched, on or off the job. "I'm, sorry," he said, all teasing gone from his voice. "You're right. This was a mistake, but I just..." Echoes of the words neither of them could afford to say filled the silence between them. How many times had they almost had this conversation? How many months had she let this drag on, as they flirted with the ugly way this would inevitably end? This couldn't happen. They both knew it. But neither one of them seemed strong enough to let it go. Against her better judgement, Angie let her gaze caress his face. What she saw, she was certain, was a sight few in town would believe. Roughness edged the jaw of Oakwood's golden boy. Shadows eclipsed the non-stop cheerfulness he showed the rest of the world. The restraint it took not to smooth away the frown on those movie star lips made her ache. Sometimes she wasn't sure who was lonelier. Her, or this man who was surrounded by both family and friends nearly every minute of every day. And maybe that's what tempted her the most--this unnatural connection they somehow shared. An unexpected common ground, she never should have gotten close enough to recognize. "Let me go, Tony. I have to get out of here." "Damn it, Angie. It won't happen again," he pledged. His grip tightened, as if the words hurt him to say almost as much as they did for her to hear. "But we see each other at work nearly every day. We're going to have to figure out what to do when--" "There's nothing to figure out." She pulled her hand free and mentally slammed the door shut on the emotions she refused to let rule her life anymore. "You're damn right, this will never happen again. I'm your superior on the job, Deputy Rivers. And that means hands-off, for both of us." She turned her back and made herself walk out of The Eight Ball. She'd rebuilt her life around her career and the force. Her job as an Oakwood sheriff's deputy, and then Chief, had saved her, and it was enough. Her career, her sprawling family, and her work with the kids at the center made her happy enough. She'd been happily going through the motions for years. Years of refusing to make the mistake of wanting more. She'd wrestled wanting more into submission years ago, or so she'd thought. When she'd chosen the life she could make for herself, over the life her parent's had hoped for her. So why now, when everything she'd worked so hard for was on the line, waiting for her to succeed or fail, was she letting herself be distracted by a man who had no business even looking twice at a woman like her? Tony Rivers was way out of her league. He could have any other female in town. And he was her boss' kid brother, for heaven sake. All of which made her certifiably off her rocker, for letting things go this far. Please, God, don't let Eric Rivers, Oakwood's outgoing sheriff, discover that his level-headed, all business second-in-command had gotten up close and personal with not only one of his deputies--but the kid brother Eric had raised since his and Tony's father died in the line of duty seventeen years ago. Eric and the rest of the department had enough on their hands, dealing with the influx of drugs into their sleepy community, and the destruction that had followed in its wake, without the added distraction of her temporary insanity. Keeping her hands and her mind off Tony Rivers was her problem. One she was damn well going to do a better job of handling from now on...
Last Updated: Saturday, May 3rd, 2008. Blog updated daily. Get To Know Anna | Awards | Guest Appearances | Coming Soon | Contests | Articles | Bookshelf | Links | Photo Gallery | Blog | Write to Me