Taken by the Cowboy (33 page)

He was naught but a
boy, but his bayonet was sharp as any other.

Rolling across the
ground, Alex shifted his targe to the other hand to deflect the
thrust of the blade. The weapon flew from the soldier’s hands and
landed on the grass, but before Alex could regain his footing, a
saber was scraping out of its scabbard, and he suddenly found
himself backing away defensively, evaluating his opponent’s
potential skill and intentions.

Blue eyes locked on
his, and the courage he saw in those depths sharpened his wits.

Carefully,
meticulously, they stepped around each other.

“Are you sure you want
to do this, lad?” Alex asked, giving the boy one last chance to
retreat with the others in his regiment. “I’ve done enough killing
this morning. I don’t need more blood on my hands. Just go.”

But why was he
hesitating? The dark fury of battle still smoldered within him.
What difference would it make if he killed one more? All he had to
do was take one step forward and swing. The boy was no match for
him. He could slay him in an instant.

“I’m sure,” the lad
replied, but his saber began to tremble in his hands.

Alex wet his lips.
“Just drop your weapon, boy, and run.”

“No.”

Alex paused. “You’re a
brave one, aren’t you? Or maybe you’re just stupid.”

All at once, the young
soldier let out a vicious battle cry and attacked with a
left-handed maneuver that cut Alex swiftly across the thigh.

He gaped down at the
wound in bewilderment.

Musket fire rang out in
the distance. The morning chill penetrated his senses, steeled his
warrior instincts.

The next thing he knew,
he was whirling around with a fierce cry of aggression. He swung
his targe and struck lad in the head. The young redcoat stumbled
backward. His saber dropped from his grasp.

Then, as if it were all
happening in a dream, the soldier’s hat flew through the air, and
long black tresses unfurled and swung about. The boy hit the ground
and rolled unconscious onto his back.

Alex’s eyes fell
immediately upon a soft complexion and lips like red cherries. All
thoughts of war and the Jacobite triumph fled from his mind as he
realized with dismay that he had just struck a woman.

-End of Excerpt-

Julianne MacLean is a
USA Today bestselling author of 15 historical romances, including
The Highlander Trilogy with St. Martin's Press and her popular
American Heiress series with Avon/Harper Collins. She also writes
contemporary mainstream fiction under the pseudonym E.V. Mitchell,
and her most recent release THE COLOR OF HEAVEN was an Amazon
bestseller. She is a three-time RITA finalist, and has won numerous
awards, including the Booksellers' Best Award, the Book Buyers Best
Award, and a Reviewers' Choice Award from Romantic Times for Best
Regency Historical of 2005. She lives in Nova Scotia with her
husband and daughter, and is a dedicated member of Romance Writers
of Atlantic Canada. Please visit the author’s
website
for more
information.

Harlequin
Romances
:

Prairie Bride

The Marshal and Mrs.
O’Malley

Adam’s Promise

Sleeping with the
Playboy

The American
Heiress Series
:

To Marry the Duke

An Affair Most
Wicked

My Own Private Hero

Love According to
Lily

Portrait of a Lover

Surrender to a
Scoundrel

The Pembroke
Palace Series
:

In My Wildest
Fantasies

The Mistress
Diaries

When a Stranger Loves
Me

The Highlander
Trilogy
:

Captured by the
Highlander

Claimed by the
Highlander

Seduced by the
Highlander

Writing as
E.V.Mitchell:

The Color of Heaven

Read on for more bonus content…

By Bella Andre

(Chase & Chloe -
The Sullivans Book 1)

Excerpt copyright 2011
Bella Andre

All Rights Reserved

Chloe Peterson is
having a bad night. A really bad night. The large bruise on her
cheek can attest to that. And when her car skids off the side of a
wet country road straight into a ditch, she's convinced even the
gorgeous guy who rescues her in the middle of the rain storm must
be too good to be true. Or is he?

As a successful
photographer who frequently travels around the world, Chase
Sullivan has his pick of beautiful women, and whenever he's home in
San Francisco, one of his seven siblings is usually up for causing
a little fun trouble. Chase thinks his life is great just as it is
- until the night he finds Chloe and her totaled car on the side of
the road in Napa Valley. Not only has Chase never met anyone so
lovely, both inside and out, but he quickly realizes Chloe has much
bigger problems than her damaged car. Soon, Chase is willing to
move mountains to love - and protect - her, but will Chloe let
him?

Chloe vows never to
make the mistake of trusting a man again. Only, with every loving
look Chase gives her - and every sinfully sweet caress - as the
attraction between them sparks and sizzles, she can't help but
wonder if she's met the only exception. And although Chase didn't
realize his life was going to change forever in an instant,
amazingly, he isn't the least bit interested in fighting that
change. Instead, he's gearing up for a different fight
altogether...for Chloe's heart.

Chase Sullivan rounded
a curve in the narrowing road that lead to his brother's winery in
the Napa Valley wine country. For the next four days, he was going
to be doing a photo shoot for Jeanne & Annie, a quickly growing
fashion house that combined haute couture with homegrown style. The
models and his crew would be staying in town, but Chase would be
staying in a guest house on the property.

A bolt of lightning lit
up the sky and if there had been enough of a shoulder on the road,
Chase would have pulled over to take some shots of the storm. Chase
loved the rain. Big weather changed the way things looked, could
transform an ordinary field into a marsh full of a thousand birds
making an impromptu pit stop on their trip south for the winter.
Conditions that sent most photographers into a tizzy-especially if
they depended on the perfect sunset to nail their pictures-were
exactly what got him going.

It was in those moments
when everyone was cold and nothing was going "right" that magic
would happen. The models would finally drop their guard and let him
see all the way past their put-on beauty to who they really were.
Chase believed there needed to be a true emotional connection with
the camera for real beauty-along with the beauty of the clothes or
jewelry or shoes that they were wearing-to really shine
through.

The thick hail raining
down on his windshield almost had him missing the flickering light
off on the right side of the two-lane country road. In the past
thirty minutes, he hadn't passed one car. On a night like this,
most sane Californians-who didn't know the first thing about
driving safely in inclement weather-stayed home.

Knowing better to slam
on the brakes-he wouldn't be able to help whomever was stranded on
the side of the road if he ended up stuck in the muddy ditch right
next to them-Chase slowed down enough to see that there was
definitely a vehicle stuck in the ditch.

He turned his brights
on to see better in the pouring rain and realized there was a
person walking along the edge of the road about a hundred yards up
ahead. Obviously hearing his car approach, she turned to face him
and he could see her long wet hair whipping around her shoulders in
his headlights.

Wondering why she
wasn't just waiting in her car, dry and warm, calling Triple A and
waiting for them to come save her, he didn't take the time to put
on a jacket as he got out of his car. The spring rain was as cold
as it came in Northern California, but he was too focused on
getting the woman out of the rain.

She was shivering as
she stood and watched him approach, standing so still Chase
immediately wondered if she was in shock.

"Are you hurt?"

She covered her cheek
with one hand, but shook her head. "No."

He had to move closer
to hear her over the sound of the water hitting the pavement in
what were rapidly becoming hailstones. Even though he'd turned his
headlights off, as his eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness, he
was able to get a better look at her face.

Something inside of
Chase's chest clenched tight.

Despite the long, dark
hair plastered to her head and chest, regardless of the fact that
looking like a drowned rat wasn't too far off the descriptive mark,
her beauty stunned him.

In an instant his
photographer's eye catalogued her features. Her mouth was a little
too big, her eyes a little too wide-set and big on her face. She
wasn't even close to model thin, but given the way her T-shirt and
jeans were stuck to her skin, he could see that she wore her lush
curves well. In the dark he couldn't judge the exact color of her
hair, but it still looked like silk, perfectly smooth and straight
where it lay over her breasts.

It wasn't until Chase
heard her say, "My car is definitely hurt, though," that he
realized he had completely lost the thread of what he'd come out
here to do.

Knowing he'd been
drinking her in like he was dying of thirst in the middle of a
rainstorm, he worked to recover his balance. He could already see
he'd been right about her car. It didn't take a mechanic like his
brother, Zach, to see that her shitty hatchback was borderline
totaled. Even if the front bumper wasn't half smashed to pieces by
the white farm fence she'd slid into, her bald tires weren't going
to get any traction on the mud. Not tonight, anyway.

If her car had been in
a less precarious situation, he would have probably sent her to
hang out warm and dry in her car while he took care of getting it
unstuck. But one of her back tires was hanging precariously over
the edge of a ditch.

He jerked his thumb
over his shoulder. "Get in my car. We can wait there for a tow
truck." He was vaguely aware of his words coming out like an order,
but the hail was starting to sting, damn it. Both of them needed to
get out of the rain before they froze.

But the woman didn't
move. Instead, she gave him a look that said he was a complete and
utter nut-job.

"I'm not getting into
your car."

Realizing just how
frightening it must be for a lone woman to end up stuck and alone
in the middle of a dark road, Chase took a step back from her. He
had to speak loudly enough for her to hear him over the hail.

"I'm not going to
attack you. I swear I won't do anything to hurt you."

She all but flinched at
the word attack and Chase's radar started buzzing. He'd never been
a magnet for troubled women, wasn't the kind of guy who thrived on
fixing wounded birds. But living with two sisters for so many years
meant he could always tell when something was up.

And something was
definitely up with this woman beyond the fact that her car was
half-stuck in a muddy ditch.

Wanting to make her
feel safe, he held his hands up. "I swear on my father's grave. I'm
not going to hurt you. It's okay to get into my car." When she
didn't immediately say no again, he pressed his advantage with, "I
just want to help you." And he did. More than it made sense to want
to help a stranger. "Please," he said. "Let me help you."

She stared at him for a
long moment, hail hammering between them, around them, onto them.
Chase found himself holding his breath, waiting for her decision.
It shouldn't matter to him what she decided.

But, for some strange
reason, it did.

http://www.bellaandre.com/

By Daisy Piper

Excerpt - Copyright
2011 Daisy Piper

All rights reserved

ONE

The
Message

Callie Richards was an
ordinary girl, at least as ordinary as a motherless girl could
be.

She lived with her
father in a big-sized house in a small-sized town. Callie loved her
father, and she knew that he loved her. He took good care of her.
He always hugged her and called her Sport, which always perplexed
her as she was no good at sports, but she appreciated the
sentiment. He tried very hard.

Callie knew that
compared to a lot of other children-children who lived in far-away
lands without televisions and cereal and beds-she was lucky. She
had all those things and more, and she knew the children in those
other lands who didn’t have those things would think Callie
Richards was very lucky indeed.

But Callie was not
lucky. In fact, Callie thought she was probably the unluckiest kid
to have ever lived. Because even though she had a big television,
her choice of a variety of delicious cereals, and a big, soft
double bed, complete with a homemade quilt, Callie did not have the
one thing in the world that most other children took for
granted.

A mother.

Callie had had a mother
once—of course she had. It was difficult to be born into the world
without one. Callie’s mother had been the best mother in the whole
entire world—the whole entire galaxy, even.

And her mom had always
told the best bed-time stories when Callie was little-fantastic
stories about her mom really being a princess from a magical land,
where fire-breathing dragons flew through the air and unicorns
pranced through the streets of the Royal City. In some of the
stories, Callie was the magical princess-the white-blond streak in
her red, wavy hair proved it. In some of her mom’s stories,
Princess Callie had to fight an evil queen.