LITMIR.BIZ

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      SHERI WHITEFEATHER

      lives in Southern California and enjoys ethnic dining, attending powwows and visiting art galleries and vintage clothing stores near the beach. Since her one true passion is writing, she is thrilled to be a part of the Silhouette Desire line. When she isn’t writing, she often reads until the wee hours of the morning.

      Sheri’s husband, a member of the Muscogee Creek Nation, inspires many of her stories. They have a son, a daughter and a trio of cats—domestic and wild. She loves to hear from her readers. You may write to her at: P.O. Box 17146, Anaheim, California 92817. Visit her Web site at www.SheriWhiteFeather.com.

      When Silhouette invited me to participate in this series, I was thrilled. Of course I had no idea an Italian mobster would be my hero. I was expecting, well…an American Indian. But being of Italian/American descent, I became quickly attached to my new hero. I’d never paid much attention to the long-since-dead mobsters barely mentioned in my family, but as I researched this project, I couldn’t help but ask my mom all sorts of questions about them. Simply put, this story blends fact, fiction and some creative liberties.

      Special thanks to Joan Marlow Golan for offering me this book and assigning Mavis Allen as the editor. To Ann Major, a major star and dear lady, for encouraging me to write faster and strive for new goals. And finally—to Kathie DeNosky, a rising star and treasured friend, for burning the midnight oil. Getting our plot-obsessed minds together was a workaholic’s delight. I can’t wait to create heroes and villains with you again.

      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

      One

      Life was complicated. That much twenty-eight-year-old Lourdes Quinterez could attest to.

      Her only ranch hand had returned to Mexico to attend to a family emergency today. By all indications he would not be coming back.

      His understandable defection was the least of her worries, she supposed. Painted Spirit, the once-thriving horse farm she’d inherited from her grandfather, suffered from financial neglect. Back taxes had culminated into bank loans, and honoring those loans had drained the ranch’s resources dry, making other debts nearly impossible to pay.

      As the dry Texas wind scorched her cheeks and whipped her unbound hair away from her face, Lourdes entered the barn and headed to the granary to take inventory, telling herself to keep her wits. Her family—a surrogate grandmother, a visiting teenager and her sweet four-year-old twins—depended on her to make ends meet.

      If only those ends weren’t so frazzled. If only the farm hadn’t gotten so run-down. If only—

      Suddenly a shadow, a dark intrusion behind a pallet of grain, snared her attention. Was it a predator?

      She froze, hugging the clipboard she carried to her chest. Lourdes didn’t scare easily, but the distorted figure, or what she could see of him near the ground, appeared human.

      She preferred the animal variety.

      A man in her barn meant trouble. Was he a drifter? A drunk sleeping off a hangover? Someone prone to violence?

      She glanced around for something to use as a weapon, and spotted an old, rusted hay hook stored with several dilapidated boxes of junk in the corner.

      Thank goodness long days and exhausted nights had left her too busy to haul away the collected debris.

      She inched forward and latched on to the hay hook, setting down her clipboard in the process.

      The human shadow didn’t move. But she did. Slowly, cautiously, silently cursing the shuffle of her timeworn boots.

      She peered around the view-obstructing pallet and caught her breath.

      The intruder, a broad-shouldered man slumped against the wall, was in no condition to fend off an attack, not even by an adrenaline-pumped female wielding metal prongs.

      He was already bruised and bleeding.

      She moved closer. He’d been beaten, pummeled, she presumed, by hard-hitting fists. His rumpled clothes, a denim shirt and a pair of jeans, bore signs of a struggle. Had his face taken the brunt of the beating? Or had he sustained other injuries, as well?

      She knelt at his side, and for a moment their gazes locked.

      Then

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