A professional tracker finds unquenchable passion with a mysterious young woman across 19th century America in this historical romance.
A legendary tracker of missing persons, Wolf is known from San Francisco to Boston and beyond. His most relentless search of all is for the man who killed his mother when he was only a boy. His dark and feral gaze misses nothing. But now it has fallen on an enigmatic beauty unlike any he has seen before.
At first, Wolf tells himself that Alanna Malone is nothing more than a welcome distraction from his work. But soon, he comes to realize that their connection is much deeper than a simple affair. He begins to see her everywhere—across America, across the ocean, even in his dreams. Driven for so long by his passion for revenge, he now finds himself driven by his passion for her…
"Gripped me from the opening page. . . kept me reading long into the night." --Jodi Thomas
A professional tracker finds unquenchable passion with a mysterious young woman across 19th century America in this historical romance.
A legendary tracker of missing persons, Wolf is known from San Francisco to Boston and beyond. His most relentless search of all is for the man who killed his mother when he was only a boy. His dark and feral gaze misses nothing. But now it has fallen on an enigmatic beauty unlike any he has seen before.
At first, Wolf tells himself that Alanna Malone is nothing more than a welcome distraction from his work. But soon, he comes to realize that their connection is much deeper than a simple affair. He begins to see her everywhere—across America, across the ocean, even in his dreams. Driven for so long by his passion for revenge, he now finds himself driven by his passion for her…
"Gripped me from the opening page. . . kept me reading long into the night." --Jodi Thomas
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Overview
A professional tracker finds unquenchable passion with a mysterious young woman across 19th century America in this historical romance.
A legendary tracker of missing persons, Wolf is known from San Francisco to Boston and beyond. His most relentless search of all is for the man who killed his mother when he was only a boy. His dark and feral gaze misses nothing. But now it has fallen on an enigmatic beauty unlike any he has seen before.
At first, Wolf tells himself that Alanna Malone is nothing more than a welcome distraction from his work. But soon, he comes to realize that their connection is much deeper than a simple affair. He begins to see her everywhere—across America, across the ocean, even in his dreams. Driven for so long by his passion for revenge, he now finds himself driven by his passion for her…
"Gripped me from the opening page. . . kept me reading long into the night." --Jodi Thomas
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781420135312 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Kensington |
| Publication date: | 11/01/2014 |
| Series: | When Hearts Dare , #2 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 368 |
| File size: | 489 KB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Alanna
By Kathleen Bittner Roth
KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.
Copyright © 2014 Kathleen Bittner RothAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4201-3531-2
CHAPTER 1
San Francisco—1854—Twenty-four years later
"Tell me something, Wolf. How long do you intend to track down everyone else's problems before you decide to find whoever it was that murdered your mother?"
A ghost-cold finger ran up Wolf's spine at the serious edge to the feminine voice floating across the table, snapping him out of his torpor. He shifted in his seat, glanced about the elegant dining room of the hotel Dianah's family owned, and realized silence hadn't pervaded the space after all. In fact, the air around him buzzed with conversation, the hard edges softened by the mellow notes emanating from a piano set in a far corner.
After drinking steadily for two days, Wolf had turned to sipping water these past few hours. Nonetheless, his mouth went dry. Years of living on horseback while he tracked lost people had left him with a fatigue that could no longer be abated. He'd been on the trail for weeks with Trevor Andrews, searching for his fiancée, who'd been snatched by Indians, and then spent the winter bringing the woman safely to San Francisco. The thought of climbing on his horse in the morning and heading back home to Missouri left him about as excited as he would be to eat a plank of wood.
How many predators would he fight before he made a fatal mistake? How many more times would he turn his bounty over to someone who paid him well, only to find himself alone once he rode off? And how many more goddamn months or years before he simply dropped from the saddle and didn't bother getting up?
"Well?" The prompt came from Cameron Andrews, Trevor's cousin and co-owner of the lucrative Andrews Shipping Company Limited, who sat next to Dianah.
Cameron's serious tone unsettled Wolf nearly as much as Dianah's questions. They were the only two friends he had left now that Trevor and Celine had married and sailed off to China. And these two weren't friends very long in the making. "Go ahead, Dianah. Speak your piece, because I have nothing to say."
Cameron lifted a forkful of chocolate cake to his lips. "Ever the diplomat, aren't you?"
Wolf shoved his plate aside and regarded both Cameron and Dianah. Cameron spoke with an odd mix of French Creole Southern drawl and British accent—the former from his roots in the French Quarter, the latter from a Cambridge education. As for Dianah, her Southern accent would likely remain thick as honey, no matter how long she lived in San Francisco.
She reached over the table and gently touched the garnet earring in Wolf's ear. "Does your search have anything to do with why you wear this?"
"Don't recall." Irritation hardened the edge of his already set jaw.
When he didn't say anything else, Cameron spoke. "There are three kinds of memory, Wolf—good, bad, and convenient. Since we're your friends, a convenient memory seems unnecessary."
"You just got boring." Wolf liked his life kept private. Very private. "But that's what I get for making friends who meddle in my affairs."
Cameron threw him a vexed look. "Meddle in your affairs? For God's sake, we don't even know your last name. We know so little of you and yet, after what you did for my cousin and his wife, we have given you our trust and loyalty. The least you can do is offer something in return. You intend to leave tomorrow, and we don't know when or if we'll see you again. I don't call that sporting."
Cameron's words cut through Wolf's chest like an arrow piercing a dove's breast. "You know the earring belonged to my mother and that someone murdered her. What the hell else do you need to know?"
"As much as will lighten your heart." Dianah lifted a silk fan to her face and blinked her green cat eyes at him. After an interminably long silence, she sighed and lowered the fan. "When you return to Missouri, either figure out who killed your mother, or remove that ear bob and bury it with her."
She reached over and covered his hand with hers. "You simply cannot wander around in the middle of nowhere without purpose forever. You're a prisoner of your own life choices, and it's wearing on you."
Wolf set his jaw again.
"And don't try masking your feelings with anger," she said. "I won't have it."
He'd never talked about his mother to anyone. Not once. He didn't know if he could get the words out. He slumped back in his chair and fingered the rim of his glass. "The murder didn't take place anywhere near Missouri." He cleared his throat, embarrassed by the way his voice broke.
Dianah gasped, while Cameron's brows knit together. "Then where?" he said.
To hell with just water. Wolf filled his glass with sherry. "Boston. It happened in Boston."
Cameron and Dianah shot curious glances at one another. "Boston?" Dianah asked. "You ... you're not originally from Missouri?"
"Did I ever say I was?"
Cameron leaned over the table. "You never say much of anything, so how the devil were we to know you came from elsewhere? You've always referred to St. Joseph as your home. Not to mention, that's where my cousin located you. I have a ship leaving for Boston in two days. You could be on it. It's a clipper, the fastest-sailing vessel in the world. You'd be there in no time."
Christ, not on the water. Never again on the water. Wolf hedged. "I can ride back on my roan until I get to St. Joe, where I can hook up with a train heading east."
"Aha!" Cameron punctuated the air with his fork. "I've seen that look on a man's face before. You, mon frère, detest sailing." He dived back into his dessert with gusto. "But sail you must."
Wolf downed the sherry in one gulp and reached for a refill. "You pompous ass." He studied Cameron and Dianah for a long while. A realization that they were both right settled deep in his bones—it was time to resolve this once and for all. Past time. At the finality of his decision, a sudden shift in mood overcame him. He leaned back in his chair, lifting the front legs off the floor. "You've got a boat sailing in two days, you say?"
Cameron's eyebrow spiked. "Repeat after me. Ship. Never utter the word boat aboard one of my fine crafts or you'll be tossed overboard by the captain himself."
Dianah reached into a hidden pocket in her gown and stretched her closed fist over the table toward Wolf. "I was hoping you'd say yes. Hold out your hand."
Wolf slipped his hand under hers. A small golden hoop and a gold chain fell into his cupped palm. "What's this?"
"One of a pair of earrings I had as a child, and a chain on which to carry the one in your ear. Even though it's been over twenty years, if whoever murdered your mother is still alive, he might recognize that earring you wear." She reached out and touched the garnet at his lobe.
He gave a jerk of his head.
"I know this is sacred to you, but wearing it could place you in jeopardy. It would behoove you to keep it under your clothing."
She shoved the golden hoop and chain his way. "This can stand as a symbol for your mother's."
Cameron reached over to inspect the earring. "Maybe you should forget a replacement altogether. Besides, this thing is too small for your elephant ear. Merde."
"Oh, hush." Dianah slapped at Cameron's fingers with her fan. She reached to remove the garnet earring from Wolf's lobe.
A cold, hard pain shot through him. He grasped her hand and slowly lowered it to the table. "I'll think on it."
Dianah's eyes widened a fraction. "All right." She wriggled her fingers free. "They're yours should you decide to take my advice."
Cameron grinned. "That hoop's so small, you'd look like an underpaid pirate."
Dianah waved Cameron off with her fan. "Cameron's going daft from drinking too much liquor."
Cameron stopped eating, his gaze directed to the door. "Don't all ogle at once, but would you look at the beauty who just walked in?"
Dianah inclined her head to the door. "That would be Mr. and Mrs. Malone and their daughter, Alanna. They are guests here at the hotel, so pray, be civil."
With a slow turn of his head, Wolf caught sight of the family in question.
The maitre d'hôtel escorted the tall, portly man and his equally thick-waisted wife past them to a table, their noses in the air. In between the two floated their daughter.
"That lovely frock would be from Paris," Dianah murmured.
Cameron snorted. "He's not looking at the dress, Dianah. I doubt he could even name the color if his life depended on it."
The young woman wore a white gown emblazoned with large, navy flowers outlined in shimmering beads. But the bold design wasn't all that caused her to stand out in the room. The raven-haired beauty would have caused every head to turn no matter what her clothing. She was taller than her mother, and much more slender, and there was something strangely elusive about her that caused Wolf's blood to heat.
As the trio passed, so close Wolf caught the faint scent of cinnabar and roses, the girl turned her head and stared boldly at him, her cool demeanor at odds with the fire in her eyes. And then her lips parted, as if she needed more air. A punch of lust hit Wolf's groin.
Cameron leaned over the table. "She certainly cast a rather brazen glance your way, old boy."
Wolf checked an urge to shift about in the suddenly uncomfortable chair. He shrugged. "She has striking eyes."
Dianah lifted a finely arched brow. "In case you haven't looked in the mirror lately, you have the very same striking blue eyes."
Cameron sniggered. "I do believe he's fishing for a compliment, Dianah. What say you?"
Wolf moaned and leaned forward on his elbows, clutching the stem of his glass. "Since the human eye isn't found in too damn many colors, that leaves you about as clever as a preacher in a whorehouse." He drank his sherry in one guzzle, set his glass on the table with a thud, and leaned back in his chair. "Color's not what makes eyes remarkable. It's what's behind them that does. Maybe that's why yours have such a dull cast to them."
Dianah laughed softly as she tipped the bottle of spirits into Wolf's glass once again.
"No," Cameron said. "Although my eyes are indeed a decidedly clear, intelligent amber, monsieur, yours are of a different ilk. And they match Miss Malone's."
Wolf snorted. "Amber? Your eyes have a definite shade of bullshit to them, mon sewer. Comes from being filled with it." He shot Dianah a quick glance. "Sorry. This friend of yours drives me to the brink. Made me forget my good manners."
"Good manners?" Cameron was at the ready, but Dianah splayed her fingers across his chest, stopping him. "Wolf, the blue of your eyes is edged in black that makes them stand out against the whites, just like Miss Malone's. I know, I've seen her up close." The increased flicking of Dianah's fan gave away her cat-and-mouse game. "And by the way, she now studies you rather shamelessly."
He fought an intense urge to glance over Cameron's shoulder and across the room to the table holding the very intriguing Miss Malone.
Cameron eyed Wolf's untouched plate. "Do you intend to eat that?" Not bothering to wait for a response, he slid the plate his way. "You can forget about getting within ten feet of her." He raised a hand, stopping Wolf before he could make a snide retort. "Don't bother. Did you see the way her parents marched in here like a couple of gendarmes with their daughter stuffed between them?"
"Who said I was interested?" Wolf shot back.
Cameron smirked. "Your thinly veiled admiration, old boy. Would you like a surgeon called in to have your eyeballs set back in place?"
Dianah's velvet laughter bubbled over. "I'm willing to wager that because of her parents, you could not get close enough to Miss Malone to so much as speak her name."
"Not interested." Wolf quit fighting the urge—he glanced across the room. Alanna Malone's sharp blue eyes struck the distance between them like summer lightning. But oddly, her exquisite face held no expression whatsoever. Caught squarely off guard again, Wolf raised the glass of sherry to his lips and watched her over the rim until she looked away.
"Care to wager?" Cameron was at it again.
"No."
"Ah, a man of so many words. Well, you would have lost." Cameron turned to Dianah. "I'll bet that chain hanging from her father's vest pocket doesn't hold a timepiece at all. Said pocket hides a key to a chastity belt. And one guess who's wearing the belt."
"I don't believe so, Cameron." Dianah tapped him on the shoulder with her folded fan. "If anyone carries a key to a chastity belt, it would be the mother."
Wolf shook his head and retreated from the conversation.
Mock seriousness knitted Cameron's brows together. "How so?"
"The mother has taken note of her daughter's reaction to Wolf." Dianah leaned discreetly over the table, whispering wickedly. "A woman knows that certain look. Believe me, the mother is the one who would carry the key to the belt, not the father."
Wolf rolled his eyes. "Jeezus. Together, you two form one demented brain. All of this in thirty seconds of someone's passing by?"
"Oh, it hasn't been just thirty seconds." Dianah fanned her face again until only her cat eyes appeared above the starched folds. "They were here when you wandered in two days ago."
Cameron set down his fork. "Miss Malone couldn't possibly have recognized him as the same man. Look at him now. Good Lord, he looks completely different. Almost humanlike."
Dianah tilted her head and with a sly grin, appraised Wolf. "I think women find you deliciously appealing. By the way, Miss Malone is still focused entirely on you. I think she knows you're the same man."
"Mind like a steel trap, this tracker of lost people," Cameron responded.
Wolf ignored Cameron. "You're picking at me, Dianah. Why?"
"Sweetheart, other than seducing women on the run, you fight intimacy with everyone you encounter. Why, that horse of yours is the only living creature you have for company for months on end and have you bothered to give it a name? I swear if I hear that beast referred to as the roan one more time, I'll shoot it."
"So why are you picking at me?" Wolf studied her now with a calm intensity, his voice smooth but insistent.
"I suppose I'm trying to make you think about a few things before you leave us. I sense a shift taking place in your life, and I sincerely hope the change will include opening up to the idea of loving someone."
"What makes you think something like that would be good for me?" Wolf managed his words without inflection.
"Because, dear one, we all need the balm of love. Love is what keeps us at peace. It heals our wounded souls, and Lord knows, yours is in need of a good healing."
Wolf's thoughts returned to the captivating young woman sitting across the room. As he glanced over her father's shoulder, the raven-haired woman met Wolf's gaze once again. His body wasted no time imagining nothing between the two of them but bare skin.
* * *
At the sight of him sitting very still in his chair, boldly staring at her, a buzz raced along Alanna's skin, then slipped inside and warmed her. There was pure sin in his startling blue eyes. The moment hung suspended between them, and then expanded as his feral gaze held hers, until finally, she tucked a smile into one corner of her mouth and looked at her plate. That her mother was aware of the silent communion between her daughter and this stranger held little significance.
Stranger? Not to Alanna. He went by the name of Wolf, and he was a legend in these parts. No one knew much about him other than that he roamed the West as a relentless tracker of lost persons. She'd seen him enter the hotel two days before wearing dusty buckskins and a gun belt slung low on lean hips. His disheveled hair grazed his fringed shirt and a full beard obscured his face. There appeared to be not an ounce of fat on his broad-shouldered frame. Hard to recognize that man as being the same person who now sat across the room dressed in tailored clothing that rivaled any worn in London or Paris. Sun-streaked hair, clubbed at his nape with a black ribbon, shone tawny gold beneath the gas-lit chandeliers. Clean-shaven now, his chiseled face could pass for a work of art.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Alanna by Kathleen Bittner Roth. Copyright © 2014 Kathleen Bittner Roth. Excerpted by permission of KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP..
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