An Officer And A Millionaire

A book in the Man of the Month series, 2009


Dear Reader,

I’m so proud to be a part of Harlequin’s 60th anniversary celebration! As a member of the Silhouette family, I’m delighted to be able to write romances with interesting characters, memorable stories and especially, happy endings.

For sixty years, Harlequin books have provided an escape from the everyday world. They’ve shown us that true love exists. That fidelity is still important. That promises made should always be kept. The Silhouette Desire line provides drama, comedy, passionate love stories and, most importantly, hope. Hope that no matter what else is going on in the world, love continues to be the goal all of us strive for.

In An Officer and a Millionaire, you’ll meet Hunter Cabot, Navy SEAL. Hunter’s a loner and he likes it that way. His only family is a grandfather he rarely sees. Until he gets a sixty-day leave, goes home and discovers that he also has a wife he’s never met.

Margie Donohue is a loner, too-the only difference is that she’s tired of being alone. She’s looking for a place to belong. When her “husband” shows up unexpectedly though, she may be forced to give up the home she’s finally found.

I hope you enjoy Hunter and Margie’s story-I had a lot of fun writing it! Please visit my Web site at www.maureenchild.com and let me know what you think of the book!

And happy anniversary, Harlequin!

Maureen Child

To Silhouette Desire Readers,

You’ve made all of this possible with your loyalty

and your enthusiasm for what we do!

Thank you all.


One

Hunter Cabot, Navy SEAL, had a healing bullet wound in his side, thirty days’ leave and apparently a wife he’d never met.

On the drive into his hometown of Springville, California, he stopped for gas at Charlie Evans’s service station. That’s where the trouble started.

“Hunter! Man, it’s good to see you! Margie didn’t tell us you were coming home.”

“Margie?” Hunter leaned back against the front fender of his black pickup truck and winced as his side gave a small twinge of pain. Silently then, he watched as the man he’d known since high school filled his tank.

Charlie grinned, shook his head and pumped gas. “Guess your wife was lookin’ for a little ‘alone’ time with you, huh?”

“My-” Hunter couldn’t even say the word. Wife? He didn’t have a wife. “Look, Charlie…”

“Don’t blame her, of course,” his friend said with a wink as he finished up and put the gas cap back on. “You being gone all the time with the SEALs must be hard on the ol’ love life.”

He’d never had any complaints, Hunter thought, frowning at the man still talking a mile a minute. “What’re you-”

“Bet Margie’s anxious to see you. She told us all about that honeymoon trip you two took to Bali.” Charlie’s dark brown eyebrows lifted and wiggled.

“Charlie…”

“Hey, it’s okay, you don’t have to say a thing, man.”

What the hell could he say? Hunter shook his head, paid for his gas and, as he left, told himself Charlie was just losing it. Maybe the guy’d been smelling gas fumes for too long.

But as it turned out, it wasn’t just Charlie. Stopped at a red light on Main Street, Hunter glanced out his window to smile at Mrs. Harker, his second-grade teacher, who was now at least a hundred years old. In the middle of the crosswalk, the old woman stopped and shouted, “Hunter Cabot, you’ve got yourself a wonderful wife. I hope you appreciate her.”

Scowling now, he only nodded at the old woman-the only teacher who’d ever scared the crap out of him. What the hell was going on here? Was everyone but him nuts?

His temper beginning to boil. He put up with a few more comments about his “wife” on the drive through town before finally pulling into the wide, circular drive leading to the Cabot mansion. Hunter didn’t have a clue what was going on, but he planned to get to the bottom of it. Fast.

He grabbed his duffel bag, stalked into the house and paid no attention to the housekeeper, who ran at him, fluttering both hands. “Mister Hunter!”

“Sorry, Sophie,” he called out over his shoulder as he took the stairs two at a time. “Need a shower; then we’ll talk.”

He marched down the long, carpeted hallway to the rooms that were always kept ready for him. In his suite, Hunter tossed the duffel down and stopped dead. The shower in his bathroom was running. His wife?

Anger and curiosity boiled in his gut, creating a churning mass that had him moving forward without even thinking about it.

He opened the bathroom door to a wall of steam and the sound of a woman singing-off-key. Margie, no doubt.

Well, if she was his wife…Hunter walked across the room, yanked the shower door open and stared in at a curvy, naked, temptingly wet woman.

She whirled around to face him, slapping her arms across her naked body while she gave a short, terrified scream.

Hunter smiled. “Hi, honey. I’m home.”

“Who-what-how-who-”

“Now, honey,” he drawled the words out, completely enjoying watching the shock ripple across her features, “is that any way to greet your husband?”

“I-I-”

He had her nervous-that was for damn sure, he told himself. Easy enough to see by the way her eyes darted from one side of the room to the other, as if looking for an escape route.

Well, there wasn’t one. She wasn’t going anywhere until he had some answers. But that wasn’t to say he couldn’t make her as uncomfortable as possible. No better than she deserved for pretending to be his wife, for God’s sake.

The shower area was directly behind her, and steam twisted in the air like fog. A quick glance around the once familiar bathroom allowed Hunter to notice the jars and bottles of lotions women seemed to be unable to live without. Plus, the black towels he preferred had been replaced with navy-blue. Not to mention a vase full of flowers in the corner of the marble vanity counter.

Looked as though she’d made herself damned comfortable in his home, too. Which meant she’d been lying to his grandfather. Damn it. Fresh anger churned in his gut, and he had to fight to contain it. This naked, curvy, all-too-delectable woman had been lying to a lonely old man. Probably wormed her way into his affections and was no doubt stealing him blind to boot. Well, her game, whatever it was, was up. He didn’t care how good she looked naked. Well, he cared, but not enough to let himself get sidetracked.

He took a step closer and caught the delicious scent of her. Jasmine, if he wasn’t mistaken, and something inside him stirred. It had been a while since he’d had a woman. He’d been too busy with mission after mission and hadn’t wanted to bother. But now, with a naked, wet, terrific-smelling woman within arm’s reach, his body was snapping to attention despite the fact that he was as furious as he was aroused.

She was watching him as though she were a rabbit and he a cobra.

So, she was perceptive as well as a liar.

“What, no kiss?” he asked, moving in even closer. If she dropped one arm, he’d have another look at her high, full breasts. “Didn’t you miss me, honey?”

She jerked a quick look behind her, saw no help there and whipped her head back around to glare at him. The action sent tiny droplets of water flinging from the ends of her dark red, curly hair, and they hit Hunter’s face like raindrops.

“You just keep your distance, you…pervert.”

“Pervert?” He snorted a laugh and wiped the water from his face with one hand. “I’m just a husband trying to greet his wife.”

“There’s no greeting going on here. At all.” Sidestepping fast, she snatched a navy-blue towel off the closest rod and wrapped it around herself in the blink of an eye.

Too bad. Hunter had enjoyed the view and the glimpse of peaked pink nipples he’d had just before she’d covered up. If nothing else, his “wife” had a body designed to make a man want to spend some time exploring those curves.

Now, though, she was managing to look down on him even though she was a full foot shorter than he was. The ice in her emerald-green eyes was enough to give a lesser man frostbite. But Hunter had the fires of righteous anger on his side, so he wasn’t moved. Meeting her stare with an icy glare of his own, he demanded shortly, “Who the hell are you?”

“Who am I?” She whipped her head to one side, and her soaking wet hair swung back and out of her eyes, spraying Hunter with another spill of droplets. Frantically, she tucked one end of the towel into the valley between her breasts. But she was breathing so hard, the terry cloth shield she was obviously depending on didn’t look any too stable. “I’m in my bathroom taking a shower, minding my own business when-Oh, God.” Her eyes widened. “You’re…I can’t believe I didn’t recognize you right away. But you scared me and-”

He flicked another lazy glance at her now scantily clad body. “Babe, if I scared you, you had it coming. Imagine how it felt for me to find out from every-damnbody in town that I have a wife.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake…”

“That about covers it,” Hunter snapped, taking another step toward her. His voice was deceptively quiet. “See, I’ve got a month’s leave coming. Decided to head home, do some recuperating, check in with my grandfather…” He walked a small, tight circle around her and enjoyed the watchful look in her eyes as she slowly turned in place to follow his progress.

“Imagine my surprise when everywhere I go in town, people are telling me how excited my wife is gonna be to see me.”

“Well, I’m not. Excited,” she added, as if he’d missed that. “More like irritated,” she said. “Annoyed, really.”