Harlequin Superromance May 2016 Box Set Read online

  Harlequin® Superromance brings you a collection of four new novels, available now! Experience powerful relationships that deliver a strong emotional punch and a guaranteed happily ever after.

  This Superromance box set includes:

  The Baby He Wanted

  Brothers, Strangers

  Janice Kay Johnson

  Detective Bran Murphy doesn’t believe in love, but he wants a wife and family, which seem unattainable when his fiancée breaks it off. Drowning his sorrows the night before what was supposed to be the big day, he finds comfort with Lina Jurick, a woman who leaves without a word the next morning. The next time they meet, it’s during a criminal investigation, and Lina is a witness. She’s also six months pregnant!

  One Rodeo Season

  Sarah M. Anderson

  Ian Tall Chief will take on any bull inside the arena—but making peace with his past to create a future with a beautiful ranch owner coming to terms with her own devastating family secrets? That’s a tall order

  His First Choice

  Where Secrets are Safe

  Tara Taylor Quinn

  A house call throws social worker Lacey Hamilton for a loop when she’s irresistibly drawn to Jem Bridges and his precocious four-year-old son. As she gets closer to the family, she recognizes vulnerabilities in the gorgeous single dad that tell her she has to step back and put her job first.

  Protecting the Quarterback

  Kristina Knight

  Quarterback Jonas Nash and sports reporter Brooks Smith know everything about football, but nothing about falling in love. When their on-the-field rivalry takes a turn for the seductive, will they learn how to love, or will there be a flag on the play?

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  Harlequin Superromance May 2016 Box Set

  The Baby He Wanted

  One Rodeo Season

  His First Choice

  Protecting the Quarterback

  Janice Kay Johnson

  Sarah M. Anderson

  Tara Taylor Quinn

  Kristina Knight

  Table of Contents

  The Baby He Wanted

  By Janice Kay Johnson

  One Rodeo Season

  By Sarah M. Anderson

  His First Choice

  By Tara Taylor Quinn

  Protecting the Quarterback

  By Kristina Knight

  It’s a dream come true...if only she’ll say yes

  He doesn’t believe in love, but Detective Bran Murphy does want a wife and family, which seem unattainable when his fiancée breaks it off. Drowning his sorrows the night before what was supposed to be the big day, he finds comfort in Lina Jurick, a woman with a sad story of her own. And then, inexplicably, she disappears without a word the next morning.

  It’s a good half a year before Bran runs into Lina again, during a murder investigation. Lina is the key witness. In fact, she’s the only witness, and she becomes the killer’s next target.

  She’s also six months pregnant.

  The look she gave him held such misery.

  “Oh, hell, Lina,” he said and rose, pulling her to her feet and into his arms. For a moment she stood stiff. He was about to release her when she made a muffled sound, leaned on him and seemed to go boneless. They stood like that for a long time. Inhaling her scent, he cradled the back of her head with one hand while he held her up with his other arm.

  The hard mound of her belly felt odd wedged between them. It was like a purse or a—no, not a basketball—a soccer ball. Maybe one of those kid-sized ones. Then he had the dazed thought that what he felt between them wasn’t kid-sized—it was a kid. A whole, complete person in the making.

  The fact that this particular baby might be his was something he couldn’t let himself think about, not yet.

  Dear Reader,

  As you may have noticed by now, I have a thing about men who have trouble admitting to the softer emotions. Of course, many of my heroes are cops, who have to be tough guys. How else can they protect themselves from the awful things they see every day? But honestly, as with so many of the themes I come back to over and over, I suspect this one has to do with my own family and childhood.

  I remember meeting my paternal grandfather, who was probably a good man but was cold enough to make you shiver. I’m willing to bet that man never in his life told a woman he loved her, never mind his two sons. Dad grew up in the Depression in the worst of poverty, his mother an invalid, his father trying to keep them together. Result: a man who cared deeply, but had a really hard time issuing compliments or saying such simple words as I love you. Dad has been gone for fifteen years now, but I still sometimes think I hear his truck coming down the hill to my house. He’d show up, mow my lawn or clean my gutters, and leave, sometimes even without stopping in the house to say hi. But I always knew that was love in action.

  My heroine in this book, Lina Jurick, was betrayed by a man once and doesn’t know how to trust Bran Murphy, emotionally remote. I hope you enjoy their struggle—his to accept what he feels and articulate it, hers to understand that love can be expressed in many ways.

  Janice Kay Johnson

  The Baby He Wanted

  JANICE KAY JOHNSON

  An author of more than ninety books for children and adults, Janice Kay Johnson writes about love and family—about the way generations connect and the power our earliest experiences have on us throughout life. An eight-time finalist for a Romance Writers of America RITA® Award, she won a RITA® Award in 2008 for her Harlequin Superromance novel Snowbound. A former librarian, Janice raised two daughters in a small town north of Seattle, Washington.

  Books by Janice Kay Johnson

  HARLEQUIN SUPERROMANCE

  Brothers, Strangers

  The Closer He Gets

  The Baby Agenda

  Bone Deep

  Finding Her Dad

  All That Remains

  Making Her Way Home

  No Matter What

  A Hometown Boy

  Anything for Her

  Where It May Lead

  From This Day On

  One Frosty Night

  More Than Neighbors

  To Love a Cop

  Two Daughters

  Yesterday’s Gone

  In Hope’s Shadow

  The Mysteries of Angel Butte

  Bringing Maddie Home

  Everywhere She Goes

  All a Man Is

  Cop by Her Side

  This Good Man

  A Brother’s Word

  Between Love and Duty

  From Father to Son

  The Call of Bravery

  SIGNATURE SELECT SAGA

  Dead Wrong

  Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com.

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  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN


  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER ONE

  COMPANY OF ANY kind wasn’t on Bran Murphy’s mind when he walked into the tavern. His plan was to find a stool at the bar well away from anyone else.

  But there she was, sitting alone, with hair the color of dark honey laced with sunbeams flowing in waves down her back.

  He let his gaze pause on her only briefly before he scanned the entire room. As with most cops, looking for trouble had become automatic. He didn’t spot any tonight. A local country band played a ballad and three couples shuffled on the small dance floor. A crowd hooted and called good-natured insults around the pool tables. People seemed to be having a good time.

  He locked onto her.

  She’d chosen to sit at one end of the bar, six stools separating her from the closest patron, a man hunched morosely over his drink. Completely still, she looked even more alone than the physical distance suggested. Her head was bent and she seemed to be gazing into her drink as if the glass held tea leaves that would reveal arcane secrets.

  Nothing about her suggested that she sought companionship. Giving in to impulse for the second time tonight, Bran took the stool only one away from hers anyway.

  She glanced his way, giving him a glimpse of a perfect oval face and gray-green eyes filled with grief or anger, he couldn’t be sure. Then she went back to pondering the mixed drink she hadn’t touched.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, even though he hadn’t walked in here with any intention of being sociable, either. In fact, he didn’t know why he was here. He should have stopped at the store for a bottle of whiskey or a couple of six-packs of dark beer and gotten stinking drunk in the privacy of his apartment. But the first impulse of the evening, a sudden one, had made him turn into the tavern parking lot instead.

  Hell, maybe this was smarter. He wouldn’t let himself get so drunk he couldn’t drive home, which meant he wouldn’t feel quite so shitty come morning.

  On his wedding day.

  “I’m not sick, if that’s what you mean,” the blonde said, softly enough he had to lean toward her to hear.

  Bran signaled the bartender, ordering a pitcher instead of the whiskey he’d intended.

  Looked like he had something in common with the blonde. Sure as hell, neither of them was here to celebrate.

  He nodded his thanks for the pitcher and poured himself a glass, then took a swallow.

  “You want to talk about it?”

  She gave that some thought before answering. “No.” This time she studied him. “If you’re planning to hit on me, you’re wasting your time.”

  “Hadn’t crossed my mind,” he told her, although that wasn’t entirely true. No, it hadn’t, but it would have eventually, and now that the subject had been introduced, his mind stuck on it.

  “Oh. Okay,” she said.

  Damn, she was beautiful. Her tan was more pale gold than brown, her nose small, her mouth pretty... Skinny jeans molded to slim legs that he thought might prove to be reasonably long. Well-rounded hips and generous breasts suggested she had a genuine hourglass figure. Bran liked curves.

  Paige hadn’t had many of those.

  She went to the gym almost daily, determined to pare every hint of extra flesh from her body. As the wedding approached, she’d become fanatical about her diet and exercise, striving for some notion of perfection that wasn’t his. He’d given up reasoning with her. In fact, he hadn’t had much chance, since wedding preparations made her even more unavailable than she’d already been.

  Paige wasn’t here. A beautiful blonde was.

  As he watched, she finally picked up her glass and guzzled what looked like a mixed drink as if it was water and she was parched. A shudder went through her before she plunked the glass down on the polished bar.

  The bartender, a balding guy in his forties, appeared. “You want another one? Whiskey sour, right?”

  “Yes, please.”

  Her choice suggested she wasn’t much of a drinker.

  Bran was on his second glass when the band began another ballad. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the dance floor empty.

  “Would you like to dance?” he asked.

  The blonde blinked as if she was having trouble bringing him into focus, but her voice sounded clear. “Okay.”

  She slid off the bar stool and into his arms as if she belonged there. She might be five foot six, he guessed, which made his shoulder a perfect resting place for her head.

  He barely moved his feet. Mostly, they swayed. He didn’t press her as close as he would have liked, figuring it wouldn’t be gentlemanly, given that he had a serious hard-on. Bran closed his eyes and rested his cheek against her head, inhaling a familiar scent that threw him back a lot of years. Mint.

  A patch of the plant had grown beside the back steps of his childhood home. Even brushing the leaves was enough to awaken the fragrance. His mom used to make a sweetened drink with orange and lemon juice, orange peels and mint leaves pulled from that plant.

  Until this moment, he’d forgotten all about that drink and how much he loved it. Twenty-five years was a long time.

  He nuzzled the honey-colored hair, as smooth and luxuriously textured as heavy satin. The woman in his arms moved her head a little, as if she was rubbing her cheek against him. She gave a small sigh that shot straight to his groin.

  The last notes of the song died, but neither of them moved for a minute. Finally, reluctantly, he released her. Her hands slid down his chest and she stepped back, shy.

  Back on their bar stools, he said, “I’m Bran. Short for Brandon.” He held out a hand.

  She slowly extended her much smaller, fine-boned hand. “Lina. Short for Alina.”

  “Lina.” He liked that. “Well, Lina, what do you usually do for fun?”

  She crinkled her nose. “Not this. Um... I’m a huge reader. Movies are fine, but usually I’d rather read.”

  He smiled. “Me, too.”

  “Really?” She brightened, her expression almost...hopeful.

  He felt strange for a minute, as if his heart had contracted, briefly depriving him of oxygen. His voice came out husky when he said, “Really. A lot of nonfiction. Mysteries and thrillers, anything random that grabs me.”

  She liked mysteries, too. They compared authors, then argued about a few books one of them had loved and the other hated. She suggested an author he hadn’t tried, and he did the same. Eventually, they segued to movies, then music. She swam laps three or four times a week at the high school pool, she told him, and admitted to having been on a youth team and her high school team.

  She made a face. “I’m not built to be fast, though.”

  His gaze dropped to her breasts, and his blood headed south again. As far as he could see, she was built just right.

  They slow danced a couple more times. Lina didn’t seem any more interested in line dancing than he did.

  She had a couple more drinks. He finished his pitcher but figured he was still—barely—safe to drive, given how long he’d been working on it.

  When the bartender came to offer her another refill, Bran shook his head. Lina scowled at him. “Why’d you do that?”

  “Honey, you’re sloshed.”

  “I’m not your honey.” She slipped off the stool and wobbled, grabbing it to restore her balance. “Not anyone’s honey.”

  He was glad to hear that. “You planning to drive home?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “You’re not.” He took out his wallet and tossed down enough bills to cover both their drinks. “I can call you a taxi, or drive you home.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “How come you’re not shlosh...sloshed, too?”

  “I’m bigger than you. I can drink more
without getting hit as hard.” When he stood, his head swam, but his balance was okay. He wrapped an arm around her, gratified when hers slipped around his waist and she leaned into him.

  “’Kay,” she murmured.

  They stepped outside into a too-warm June night. A slap of cold air would have felt good. Bran looked around the now-crowded parking lot in perplexity, unable to remember where he had left his Camaro.

  He had keys, he knew he did. He patted his pocket. There they were. Just no car.

  The neon sign right across the road from the tavern drew his eye. Motel. Vacancy. The “No” part was turned off. As lodging went, it was pretty basic, but decent as far as he knew. It wasn’t on the sheriff’s department radar for drug dealing or prostitution, at least.

  “We should get a room,” he decided.

  “No hitting on me. You said.”

  “I changed my mind,” he admitted. “But if you just want to sleep, that’s what we’ll do.”

  “I changed my mind, too,” she confided in a small, husky voice.

  Rocketed to full arousal that easily, he steered her across the road into the motel office, where a bored kid who looked to be barely of legal age swiped Bran’s credit card and asked for a signature.

  Bran took the key—yes, a real key—as well as the card with their room number on it and collected Lina from the chair where he’d parked her.

  The flight of outside stairs was a challenge, but they made it, Lina giggling as he tried to jam the key in the lock. Hell, he was drunk. Sloshed. Plowed. It worried him that she was, too. Did this qualify as taking advantage of her?

  The key finally turned and he pushed the door open. He all but fell in. Lina giggled again.

  Oh, yeah, she was drunk.

  She closed the door behind them and flipped a switch that turned on lamps on each side of the queen-size bed. Bran stood, doing battle with his conscience.

  “Will you kiss me?” Lina asked timidly.

  He cleared his throat. “I’d like to kiss you. But Lina... Are you going to be sorry in the morning?”

  He waited, suspended in fear that she’d come to her senses now. Of course she would. She wasn’t a one-night-stand kind of woman. But, God, he hoped she wouldn’t change her mind.