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Undercover Husband
Undercover Husband Read online
Table of Contents
Cover Page
Excerpt
Dear Reader
Title Page
Books by Leann Harris
About the Author
Acknowledgments
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
Copyright
“The little part of my soul that remained untouched, you saved.”
Lauren closed her eyes. “Don’t do this to me,” she pleaded softly to the man called Greg.
He noticed that she never used his name when she was talking to him. She avoided calling him either Jon or Greg, no doubt trying to keep her emotional distance from him. “Don’t do what?”
“Call up feelings and memories from the past. I can’t deal with them…. I’m not sure who you are…. I’ll help you, but leave the past buried.”
Her words were a challenge, and he wanted to push her into admitting he was Jon, her husband. But what he wanted most was to lose himself in her heat
“All right,” he answered. “I’ll agree to not bring up the past But be warned, when this is over and you’re safe again, I intend to pursue my claim.”
Dear Reader,
We’ve got some great reading for you this month, but I’ll bet you already knew that. Suzanne Carey is back with Whose Baby? The title already tells you that a custody battle is at the heart of this story, but it’s Suzanne’s name that guarantees all the emotional intensity you want to find between the covers.
Maggie Shayne’s The Littlest Cowboy launches a new miniseries this month, THE TEXAS BRAND. These rough, tough, ranchin’ Texans will win your heart, just as Sheriff Garrett Brand wins the hearts of lovely Chelsea Brennan and her tiny nephew. If you like mysterious and somewhat spooky goings-on, you’ll love Marcia Evanick’s His Chosen Bride, a marriage-of-convenience story with a paranormal twist. Clara Wimberly’s hero in You Must Remember This is a mysterious stranger—mysterious even to himself, because his memory is gone and he has no idea who he is or what has brought him to Sarah James’s door. One thing’s for certain, though: it’s love that keeps him there. In Undercover Husband, Leann Harris creates a heroine who thinks she’s a widow, then finds out she might not be when a handsome—and somehow familiar—stranger walks through her door. Finally, I know you’ll love Prince Joe, the hero of Suzanne Brockmann’s new book, part of her TALL, DARK AND DANGEROUS miniseries. This is a royal impostor story, with a rough-aroundthe-edges hero who suddenly has to wear the crown. Don’t miss a single one of these exciting books, and come back next month for more of the best romance around—only in Silhouette Intimate Moments.
Yours,
Leslie Wainger
Senior Editor and Editorial Coordinator
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
Undercover Husband
Leann Harris
Books by Leann Harris
Silhouette Intimate Moments
Bride on the Run #516
Angel at Risk #618
Trouble in Texas #664
Undercover Husband #719
LEANN HARRIS
When Leann Harris first met her husband in college, she never dreamed she would marry him. After all, he was getting a Ph.D. in the one science she’d managed to avoid—physics! So much for first impressions. They have been happily married for over twenty years. After graduating from the University of Texas at Austin, Leann taught math and science to deaf high school students until the birth of her first child. It wasn’t until her youngest child started school that Leann decided to fulfill a lifelong dream, and began writing. She presently lives in Plano, Texas, with her husband and two children.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank the following people for their help on this book:
Linda Deleon-Campbell, who cheerfully answered all my questions on embassies and the Department of State, and went out of her way to help me.
Lt. Dave Davis of the Dallas Police Department, who is always a lifesaver in plotting and police matters. Thank you for getting me out of my tight spot.
Chapter 1
The envelope looked innocent. Plain. White. In the top right corner, Elizabeth II smiled regally. The cancellation stamp read London. Below, “Lauren Michaels” was neatly typed.
After closing the door to her apartment, Lauren turned the envelope over, ripped it open and pulled out the single sheet of paper.
“How Tall Is Red?”
The familiar surroundings of the living room faded as she stared at the note, which was written in a distinctive script that was a unique combination of cursive and printed letters.
The rest of her mail slipped through her numb fingers, falling to the floor.
Cass, her neighbor from across the hall, glanced up from the dining room table. “Are you all right?” she asked.
Quickly Lauren stuffed the note in her skirt pocket and bent to retrieve the scattered envelopes. “Yes.”
“You’re so pale. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear you’d seen a ghost.”
Cassie wasn’t far off the mark. Lauren threw the remaining mail on a wingback chair, then joined her friend at the table. Tonight they were to finish addressing invitations to Lauren’s bridal shower.
Although Cass chatted about the plans for the shower, Lauren couldn’t concentrate on a thing said. The paper in her pocket was burning a hole through her skirt.
Four words. Twelve letters. Not much of a note by anyone’s standards, except she didn’t know any ghosts who jotted messages and mailed them by the Royal Mail.
When Cass left an hour and a half later, Lauren breathed an audible sigh of relief.
“I quite agree. I thought she would never leave.”
Lauren whirled in her chair and gasped at the sight of the tall man who stood inside the open French doors. The upper half of his body was hidden by the shadows. His legs, encased in tan slacks, were in the light. Her heart stopped as if a cold steel hand squeezed her chest, and the fear racing through her veins held her immobile.
“It’s very careless of you to leave your patio doors open,” the man commented casually. “Anyone could get in.”
Lauren tried to speak, but her tongue seemed glued to the roof of her mouth. She swallowed to moisten the dry interior, then said, “Who are you?”
The intruder stepped forward, and it was then that she noticed the cane in his right hand. He did not lean heavily upon it, but his slight limp was evident.
“I’m the one who sent the letter.” His accent told her he was American, like her. His voice was deep and gravelly, as if something terrible had happened to it. He settled himself in the chair Cass had recently occupied.
Staring wide-eyed, Lauren took in every detail of the man’s appearance, from his mane of black hair to his brown eyes to the close-clipped salt-and-pepper beard and mustache. It was a handsome face, but not one she knew.
“That’s impossible.”
“Why?”
“Because my husband wrote that note, and he’s dead.”
There was a long pause. Then he said, “Do you often receive mail from dead people?”
Lauren leapt to her feet, her chair skidding backward. Anger eclipsed her fear. “Who are you and what do you want?”
“I am the one who wrote that note,” he calmly repeated. “I’m Jonathan Michaels.”
>
“Stop it!”
He leaned forward. “Would you like for me to tell you what the note says?”
Raising her chin, she accepted his challenge. “Yes, tell me.”
“How tall is red?”
She fumbled for the chair behind her. If she didn’t sit down immediately, she’d fall flat on her behind.
“That’s the title of the mystery you always wanted to write. You and I thought it up one afternoon on our honeymoon, when we were on the beach in Ayr.”
Lauren felt as if she’d just gotten off the Tilt-A-Whirl at the state fair, disoriented, confused and sick to her stomach. “That’s not possible.”
“We rented a little cottage about a half mile from the beach,” he continued.
“We?” she whispered.
“Don’t you remember? On a clear day, we could see Northern Ireland. You loved Ayr, wanted to rent a cottage for the summer and write your novel. Only we never got a chance.”
Carefully she studied the man before her who claimed to be Jon. His slim nose and sensuous lips, framed by his beard and mustache, combined to make a very handsome man in spite of the thin scar that ran from his left temple into his beard.
“If you expect me to believe a lie that big, you should at least have brown hair and blue eyes like Jon had.”
He ran his fingers through the black thickness, ruffling it and causing several strands to fall onto his forehead. “The hair’s dyed, and I’ve got colored contacts to hide my true identity.”
“Prove it,” she demanded.
Without a moment’s hesitation, he took out the rightcontact. His eye was blue.
“Take out the other.”
He shrugged, put in the contact on his finger and took out the other. Blue again. Her stomach knotted into a tight ball.
“Satisfied?” he asked, replacing the second contact.
“No,” she said, fighting against confusion tugging at her reason. “Lots of people have blue eyes.”
“You’re being your usual stubborn self, Lauren.”
He said her name in an intimate tone that made her think of dark nights and heated passion. It was too much for her to bear. “This is absurd. You’re not Jonathan Michaels, and if you’re not out of here in thirty seconds, I’m going to call the cops.”
His hand covered hers. The movement startled her, but his hold was gentle. And spine tingling. That was the thing that had first drawn her to Jon, the fiery chemistry between them.
“Give me five minutes. If I can’t explain everything to your satisfaction, then I’ll leave with no trouble.”
She wanted to deny his request, but he seemed to know too many things that no one besides Jon would know. She needed to hear his explanation or be forever haunted. “All right. You have five minutes.” She glanced at her watch.
His mouth curved in a smile that drew Lauren’s attention to his lips. “I always did like your no-nonsense ways.”
Lauren pushed aside the awareness and said, “You now have four minutes and thirty-nine seconds.”
He rubbed his hand over his chin and mouth, then fingered the thin scar by his left ear. “What did the embassy tell you when they informed you of my death?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“It’s important, Lauren, what you know of the circumstances surrounding my alleged death.”
“I was told the brakes on my husband’s car failed as he was driving through the Alps. What I still don’t understand is why he was in France when he was supposed to be building a hotel in Belgium.”
The man shook his head. “I was on my way to meet a Czech embassy officer who was going to tell me the identity of a mole who had compromised several key NATO installations and projects. Only I never made the rendezvous because someone tampered with the brakes of my car.”
“What were you—I mean, what was Jon doing meeting that man?”
He shook his head at her refusal to acknowledge him as Jon. “Because, Lauren, that’s what I do. It’s what I was and am. A spy.”
All this talk of spies and espionage was preposterous. Things like this only happened in James Bond movies, not to an east Texas girl who owned a Mexican restaurant in London a block from the American embassy. “I don’t believe you. If Jon had been a spy, I would’ve known. He was a structural engineer who oversaw the building of hotels for American companies in Europe.”
“A cover. The job provided a nice cover, especially in Eastern Europe. My real assignment was counterintelligence. Europe was my speciality. That’s why I was based out of London.”
“I don’t believe you. Since the Communist regimes fell, all this spy business is rather out of vogue, wouldn’t you say?”
His harsh laughter bounced off the walls. “What do you think all those Communist spies did once their paychecks stopped?”
She bit her bottom lip. “I don’t know. Stopped spying?”
“That’s one of the qualities I loved the most about you. Your ability to always hope for the best.” He ran his fingers through his hair and sighed. “No, sweet, those individuals didn’t give up the spying game. They simply found new employers or they went independent and started selling to the highest bidder, the North Koreans, the Chinese, international terrorist organizations.” His hands knotted into fists. “Anyone with enough cash can buy any secret or weapon they want. We’re in worse shape now than before. When the wall fell in Berlin, the guys in the Stasi—the East German secret service—just up and disappeared, and I shudder to think what they are doing now.”
The picture he painted was bleak and something she didn’t want to deal with at this moment. “Okay, I’ll admit you have a point. But what does that have to do with me?”
He smiled sadly. “Nothing. It has nothing to do with you.”
“Then why are you here, claiming to be Jon? For heaven’s sake, you don’t even look like my husband.”
He leaned back in the chair. “My injuries from the accident were extensive. I went through the windshield of the car, but luckily I was thrown clear of the explosion and fire.” Absently he rubbed his right thigh. “My face was messed up and vocal cords damaged. Both my legs and arms were broken in multiple places. After three years of physical therapy, I was well enough to return to London.”
“If that’s true, then why didn’t the hospital contact me? Why send me an urn with ashes? And why, after all this time, have you decided to show up now?”
“Since I didn’t discover the identity of the mole, and the Czech I was to meet died in a nasty accident, my superior and I decided that, for my protection and yours, he would float the story I’d been killed. After I recovered enough, my boss assigned me back to the London station to try to catch this mole. I was introduced as Greg Williams, and I’ve been working quietly here in London for the last six months. Nobody at the embassy knows my true identity.”
Anger washed through her. “Six months? You’ve been here six months and haven’t tried to contact me before now?”
“So you do believe I’m Jonathan, your husband.”
“No,” she snapped, annoyed with herself for momentarily believing his lies.
His gaze held hers, and rivers of fire danced up and down her spine. “I stayed away for your safety. If the mole knew I was alive, he might use you to get to me. The reason I’m here now is because there was a break-in in the embassy a couple of weeks ago. In the course of the investigation, some of the fingerprints lifted were ones belonging to Jonathan Michaels. My superior has tried to keep the information as classified as possible. But the mole may know I’m alive. Only, if he does, he doesn’t know under what cover name I’m operating. I came to warn you to be careful. You might be in danger.”
Lauren felt as if she were being ripped apart inside. If what this man said was true…No. That reality was too painful to contemplate after years of pain and longing for Jon. Suddenly Lauren’s temper flared at the atrocious untruths this man was feeding her. Welcoming the strong emotion because it provided a
shield for her wounded heart, she snapped, “I haven’t heard such an awful lie since my mother’s third husband told her he wasn’t fooling around. Your story stinks, mister. If— and I stress the word if—Jonathan was a spy, why would he marry a simple girl from Kaufman, Texas? I know nothing of spies and lying.”
His deep, rich laugh sent a chill down her spine.
“You were never a simple country girl. Shrewd, resourceful, smart but never simple. And you were honest, something I hadn’t seen in a very long time. You were water to my thirsty soul, Lauren. Loving you made me whole again.”
She took a deep, slow breath, trying to regain control of her ragged emotions. “You’re good with words.”
“You liked that about me. You said I should have been a writer instead of an engineer.”
A sound, somewhere between a sob and cry, caught in her throat. The man stood, walked around the corner of the table and pulled Lauren to her feet. When he tried to embrace her, she slapped away his hands. “Don’t.”
He sighed, deeply, sadly. “I didn’t come back to torment you, sweetheart. I came to warn you.” He picked up one of the open invitations on the table, examined it, then set it down. “I saw your wedding announcement in the paper. We’re still married.”
“Jonathan Michaels is legally dead.”
“Maybe in the eyes of the law. But that doesn’t change the fact that I’m still alive. I still consider myself married to you.”
Her chin jerked up, and tears gathered in her eyes. She tried to blink back the moisture, but a single tear ran down her cheek.
He brushed his thumb across her cheek, wiping away the wetness. “When I saw the announcement, everything in me rebelled. I threw my coffee mug against the wall of my kitchen.” He shook his head. “That’s a bad sign for a spy, Lauren. Emotional attachments are something we can’t afford. They can be used against us. That’s why I stayed away.”