Blue Mist of Morning

• Chapter One
  
• Chapter Two
  
• Chapter Three
  
• Chapter Four
  
• Chapter Five
  
• Chapter Six
  
• Chapter Seven
  
• Chapter Eight
  
• Chapter Nine
  
• Chapter Ten
  
• Chapter Eleven
  
• Chapter Twelve
  

"I Appreciate Your Offer, but I Can't Accept It."


"You mean you won't," he countered, his fingers feathering
over the rapidly beating pulse in her throat. "Anne, stop trying to be
so tough and self-sufficient. We all should know how to take as well as
give. And I think you give too much to your family. It's time you
learned to take something out of life for yourself. Maybe you should
start learning right now."


Before she could react, his thumbs tilted her face up as
he lowered his dark head. She took a swift, startled breath as his
mouth descended to move slowly over her own. She tensed. Her hands came
up to tightly clutch his lapels.


"Relax," he whispered coaxingly, slipping one arm down
around her slim waist to draw her firmly against him. "You do have
needs of your own, Anne. Stop trying to deny them."

DONNA VITEK firmly believes that "I would probably never
have learned to enjoy writing as much as I do" without the influence of
her husband. That love of writing has brought many hours of enjoyment
to her many fans, who eagerly await each new Silhouette by this
talented author.

Dear Reader,

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all of you who
have written in with your comments on Silhouette Romances.

We are always delighted to receive your letters, telling
us what you like best about Silhouette, our authors, or indeed,
anything else you want to tell us. This is a tremendous help to us as
we strive to publish the best contemporary romances possible.

All the romances from Silhouette Books are for you, so
enjoy this book and the many stories to come. I hope you will continue
to share your thoughts with us and invite you to write to me at this
address:

Jane Nicholls

Silhouette Books

PO Box 177

Dunton Green

Sevenoaks

Kent

TN13 2YE

Copyright© 1983 by Donna Vitek

Map by Ray
Lundgren

First printing 1983

ISBN 0 340 34370 2

Other Silhouette Books by Donna Vitek

A Different Dream

Showers of Sunlight

Promises from the Past

Veil of Gold

Where the Heart Is

Valaquez Bride

Garden of the Moongate

Game of Chance

Sweet Surrender

The narrow ribbon of road wound over the crest of
Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains. Below, the green rolling hills of the
Shenandoah Valley lay darkly shadowed beneath a gray overcast sky.
Through the heart of the valley, its famous silver river threaded a
serpentine path of intricate coils and loops. In the summertime,
bluegrass meadows and shaded secluded glens enhanced the pastoral
beauty, but Anne Fairchild reluctantly ignored the scenic view and
instead gazed intently at the road ahead. A late March snowstorm,
unexpected and, therefore, unnerving, was making driving difficult. As
a chilling wind swirled the fine, thickly falling flakes against the
windshield, she slowed her speed, then sensed she was being watched by
the man in the seat beside her.

As she glanced warily at her new boss, Ty Manning, her
honest gray eyes quickly took in his large, lean yet muscular frame
clad in a superbly tailored charcoal gray pin-striped suit. His coat
was unbuttoned, as was his vest and, although his wine-colored tie was
loosened at the collar and the top button of his white shirt was
undone, he still looked sufficiently authoritative. He didn't smile and
met her swiftly appraising gaze with steady blue eyes.

"Obviously, the weather service didn't foresee this," he
commented matter-of-factly, his voice deep-timbred and pleasantly
melodious. "The road is pretty well covered already. Are you getting
tired of driving?"

Peering intently out the windshield again, Anne shook her
head, then brushed back the strand of thick honey-blond hair that
grazed her cheek. "I'm fine," she exaggerated slightly. "I just slowed
down a little because it's beginning to get harder to see."

With a perfunctory nod, Mr. Manning shuffled through the
papers contained in the open leather briefcase he held on his lap, then
began to peruse an intricate contract Anne had typed that morning. "If
you do get tired, just speak up," he said, almost as an afterthought.
"Mike can drive again."

"Yes, sir," Anne murmured and stole a quick glance back
over her shoulder. A slight smile curved her softly shaped lips.
Stretched out on the back seat, using her uncrushable down coat as a
pillow, Mike Bennett, one of Manning Consultants' lawyers, was
peacefully asleep.

Actually, she should have been a bit annoyed at him. After
leaving Alexandria at two that afternoon, he had only driven twenty
miles or so before pleading weariness and asking her to take the wheel.
She had been driving ever since, almost three hours, and although the
snow was making the going rough, Mike hadn't once offered to take over
for her. Still, she couldn't really be mad at him. On the contrary, she
was somewhat relieved that he had come along on this trip. The weekend
was going to be spent discussing business with Kirt Callen, one of
Manning's clients. Since she had known Mike for two years and had even
gone out to dinner with him on a couple of occasions, she felt sure his
presence this weekend would make her feel more comfortable. Ty Manning
himself was still practically a stranger.

As she followed the snow-covered road's winding descent,
she eyed her new boss surreptitiously out of the corner of her eye. He
was something of an enigma. Although she had worked for Manning
Consultants for four years, she had never really had much contact with
Ty Manning. She had begun in the stenographers' pool. As the years
passed, other girls had frequently come and gone, but she had stayed
with the firm and moved upward through the ranks to the position of
executive secretary to the vice-president. Then, two weeks ago, Ty
Manning's own secretary, out on maternity leave, had decided to stay
home with her newborn child, and Anne had been promoted. At the
relatively young age of twenty-three, she found it gratifying to be
trusted with the responsible position of secretary to the president of
a firm as large and as diversified as Manning Consultants. And the
increase in salary had been a godsend. Yet, Anne did wish she had a
clearer perception of the person Ty Manning really was. Knowing all the
little quirks and eccentricities of one's boss was compulsory for a
secretary who wanted to be an unqualified success. But, unfortunately,
Anne's two weeks in Mr. Manning's office hadn't provided her with many
enlightening insights into his personality.

Outwardly, he was always polite and thoroughly
businesslike in his dealings with her. Luckily, she had not displeased
him thus far, but she had seen his displeasure directed at others and
had been impressed and somewhat intimidated. He was slow to anger, but
when his temper did erupt, he could wither a person with a searing
stare and chastise without ever raising his voice. A few choice words,
spoken in a deep, deceptively soft tone, could reduce most of his
employees to jelly. He was the perfect executive: calm, cool, decisive
and always in control. So, Anne was striving hard to be the equally
perfect, efficient secretary who could eventually anticipate his every
action and need, thereby becoming indispensable to him. As for actually
being able to relax around him, Anne wasn't sure she ever could. He was
rather aloof and conveyed such strength of will that she was fairly
certain their working relationship would always remain distant,
impersonal and strictly professional.

As she glanced sideways at him again, a tiny frown marred
the ivory smoothness of her brow. Sometimes, she found it difficult to
believe the rumors she had heard about his personal life. According to
the office gossips, he didn't lack for female companionship.
Supposedly, some of Alexandria's most prominent young socialites
competed for his attention, and Anne herself had seen pictures of him
and some of those young women printed on the society page of the local
newspaper. Anne realized that she shouldn't be surprised women found
him irresistible. The girls at the office certainly swooned over him,
whispering constantly about how sexy he was and tittering like
adolescents whenever he happened to speak to one of them. He was
attractive. There was no denying that fact. He was tall and fit,
muscular yet not in the least burly, and there didn't seem to be a
surplus ounce of weight on him. He was thirty-five years old, and
maturity and strength were evidenced in the angular contours of his
lean sun-browned face. There was a rather sensuous curve in his firmly
shaped lips and an aura of virile masculinity about him, but Anne was
immune to the magnetic sexuality the other girls oohed and aahed about.
Ty Manning was her boss, and she never wanted to see him as anything
more than the cool, brusque businessman she dealt with every day. At
eighteen, in her first job, she had been foolish enough to succumb to
the charms of her employer. And that was a mistake she'd resolved never
to make again.

Shifting to a more comfortable position in the bucket
seat, she watched the road ahead carefully, wincing with each sharp,
tortuous curve she had to negotiate. The silence in the car was broken
only by the soft swish of the windshield wipers and the occasional
rattle of papers in Ty Manning's briefcase. About ten minutes later,
Anne cautiously braked to a stop at an intersection. After consulting
the roadmap on which Mr. Manning had traced the route to his mountain
retreat with a red pencil, she turned onto the steeply ascending road
to her left. To make the steep incline, she accelerated more than she
should have, and her heart lurched as the road suddenly swooped down
into a sloping hairpin curve. She hit the brakes, her second mistake,
and suddenly Ty Manning's sleek black Mercedes sedan skidded on a patch
of ice beneath the snow that covered the road. Uttering a soft little
cry, Anne fought to control the swerving car, but it was useless.
Momentum defeated her. Almost as if in slow motion, the Mercedes slid
across the road and settled heavily to rest, atilt in a deep side ditch.