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       “Put me down!”

      She fought him the best she could, a hundred and twenty pounds of wriggling fury. “Don’t do this. Whatever you think you are doing, I know you are going to regret it.”

      He did already.

      “Are you crazy?”

      He could get them out of there, away from the grenade blast site, in a hurry. He fitted his free hand to her shapely behind to hold her place. Smooth skin, lean limbs, dangerous curves. He tried not to touch more than was absolutely necessary. Yeah, she could probably make him do a couple of crazy things without half trying.

      And if they made it out alive he’d be tempted to find out what those were.

       Available in October 2009 from Mills & Boon® Intrigue

      Baby’s Watch by Justine Davis & A Hero of Her Own by Carla Cassidy

      Christmas Spirit by Rebecca York & Beast of Desire

      by Lisa Renee Jones

      Beneath the Badge by Rita Herron & Match Play by Merline Lovelace

      The Heiress’s 2-Week Affair by Marie Ferrarella

      Veiled Truth by Vivi Anna

      Tall, Dark and Lethal by Dana Marton

      Dana Marton is the author of over a dozen fast-paced, action-adventure romantic suspense novels and a winner of the Daphne du Maurier Award of excellence. She loves writing books of international intrigue, filled with dangerous plots that try her tough-as-nails heroes and the special women they fall in love with. Her books have been published in seven languages in eleven countries around the world. When not writing or reading, she loves to browse antique shops and enjoys working in her sizable flower garden where she searches for “bad” bugs with the skills of a superspy and vanquishes them with the agility of a commando soldier. every day in her garden is a thriller. To find more information on her books, please visit www.danamarton.com. She would love to hear from her readers and can be reached via e-mail at the following address: [email protected].

      TALL, DARK AND LETHAL

      BY

      DANA MARTON

      MILLS & BOON^®

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      With many thanks to Allison Lyons, Louise Rozett and

      Priya Ravishankar for all their help, and to my family

      for their never-ending support.

       Chapter One

      He would kill a man before the day was out. And—God help him—Cade Palmer hoped this would be the last time.

      He’d done the job before and didn’t like the strange heaviness that settled on him. Not guilt or second thoughts—he’d been a soldier too long for that. But still, something grim and somber that made little sense, especially today. He’d been waiting for this moment for months. Today he would put an old nightmare to rest and fulfill a promise.

      In an hour, Abhi would hand him information on David Smith’s whereabouts, and there was no place on earth he couldn’t reach by the end of the day. He’d hire a private jet if he had to. Whatever it took. Before the sun comes up tomorrow, David Smith will be gone.

      He headed up the stairs to his cell phone as it rang on his nightstand. Wiping the last of the gun oil on his worn jeans, he crossed into his bedroom. He was about to reach for the phone when he caught sight of the unmarked van parked across the road from his house.

      The van hadn’t been there thirty minutes ago. Nor had he seen it before. He made it his business to pay attention to things like that. At six in the morning on Saturday, his new suburban Pennsylvania neighborhood was still asleep, the small, uniform yards deserted. Nothing was out of place—except the van, which made the hair on the back of his neck stand up.

      The only handgun he kept inside the house—a SIG P228—was downstairs on the kitchen table in pieces, half-cleaned. He swore. Trouble had found him once again—par for the course in his line of work. Just because he was willing to let go of his old enemies—except David Smith—didn’t mean they were willing to let go of him.

      “Happy blasted retirement,” he said under his breath as he turned to get the rifle he kept in the hallway closet. From the corner of his eye, he caught movement. The rear door of the van inched open, and with a sick sense of dread, he knew what he was going to see a split second before the man in the back was revealed, lifting a grenade launcher to his shoulder.

      Instinct and experience. Cade had plenty of both and put them to good use, shoving the still-ringing phone into his back pocket as he lunged for the hallway.

      Had he been alone in the house, his plan would have been simple: get out and make those bastards rue the day they were born. But he wasn’t alone, which meant he had to alter his battle plan to include grabbing the most obnoxious woman in the universe—aka his neighbor, who lived in the other half of his duplex—and dragging her from the kill zone.

      He darted through his bare guest bedroom and busted open the door that led to the small balcony in the back, crashing out into the muggy August morning. Heat, humidity and birdsong.

      At least the birds in the jungle knew when danger was afoot. These twittered on, clueless. Proximity to civilization dulled their instincts. And his. He should have known that trouble was coming before it got here. Should have removed himself to some cabin in the woods, someplace with a warning system set up and an arsenal at his fingertips, a battleground where civilians wouldn’t have been endangered. But he was where he was, so he turned his thoughts to escape and evasion as he moved forward.

      Bailey Preston’s half of the house was the mirror image of his, except that she used the back room for her bedroom. Cade vaulted over her balcony, kicked her new French door open and zeroed in on the tufts of cinnamon hair sticking out from under a pink, flowered sheet on a bed that took up most of her hotpink bedroom. Beneath the mess of hair, a pair of blue-violet eyes were struggling to come into focus. She blinked at him like a hungover turtle. Her mouth fell open but no sound came out. Definitely a first.

      He strode forward without pause.

      “What are you doing here? Get away from me!” She’d woken up in that split second it took him to reach her bed and was fairly shrieking. She was good at that—she’d been a thorn in his side since he’d moved in. She was pulling the sheet to her chin, scampering away from him, flailing in the tangled covers. “Don’t you touch me. You, you—”

      He unwrapped her with one smooth move and picked her up, ignoring the pale-purple silk shorts and tank top. So Miss Clang-and-Bang had a soft side. Who knew?

      “Don’t get your hopes up. I’m just getting you out.”

      She weighed next to nothing but still managed to be an armful. Smelled like sleep and sawdust, with a faint hint of varnish thrown in. Her odd scent appealed to him more than any coy, flowery perfume could have. Not that he was in any position to enjoy it. He tried in vain to duck the small fists pounding his shoulders and head, and gave thanks to God that her nephew, who’d been vacationing with her for the first part of summer, had gone back to wherever he’d come from. Dealing with her was all he could handle.

      “Are you completely crazy?” She was actually trying to poke his eyes out. “I’m calling the police. I’m calling the police right now!”

      She was possibly more than he could handle, although that macho sense of vanity that lived deep down in every

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