Read an Excerpt

The Bluewater Affair

Harlequin Enterprises, Ltd.

Chapter One

Even before he knocked, Susannah Hobson knew it was Jason Murphy standing outside her door. The sound of his boots on
the steps running along the outside wall of the old house was unmistakable; the sudden spike of her pulse was par for
the course.

She smoothed an unsteady hand over the long, brown hair that he had loved to see down and flowing over her bare
shoulders, then made a quick scan of the living room. Like everything else in the drafty little second-floor apartment,
and in spite of her best efforts, it looked like what it was - cheap, shabby and worn out.

The walls might have once been pale blue, but had long ago faded to dank, dismal gray. The springs on the sofa she'd
bought last year at the secondhand store were shot, as was the floral upholstery. It had been pretty once. So had her
eyes. They'd been a vibrant big-sky blue, full of hopes and dreams and the defiant pride of the very young and the very
naive.

She was still young - at least in years. She was no longer naive. And although she had hopes, she had few illusions
about what Jason's response would be when she broke the news. Over a month had passed since he'd climbed the creaking
stairs to her apartment. He hadn't been happy that she'd tracked him down in Denver; he'd come when she'd asked him to,
though, so she supposed it said something. So did the damning mix of emotions that flooded her when she opened the door
and saw him standing there.

He was cowboy lanky, muscled and lean, and, along with the cold, the scent of leather and horses followed him to her
door. His unusual green eyes and outlaw grin had been her undoing six months ago. She'd known then what he was. He was
a circuit bronc rider; he was on the make. In spite of it - maybe even because of it - she'd still taken the tumble,
just like she had half a dozen times for half a dozen guys who had all found reasons to abandon her in the past four
years.

Each time, she'd hoped this time would be different. Each time, she'd fallen for the pretty face, the smooth
lines and the promise of love everlasting. Each time, her eyes had lost a little luster and her pride had taken another
hit when they'd left her.

"Hey," she said, a small kernel of hope still hovering at the fringe of reality. Maybe she'd been wrong. Maybe this
cowboy would stick. "Thanks for coming."

His smile was forced and tight and as icy as the wind cutting into her apartment through the open door. "Yeah, well,
you said it was important."

"Can you sit? Maybe stay for a while?"

He tucked his bare hands, scarred by his profession, chafed and red from the cold, into the hip pockets of his
Wranglers. "Ah, actually, it's kind of a bad time for me."

It hurt that he wouldn't look at her. His boot tips, caked with sludgy remnants of last night's snow, became the focal
point of his attention. Susannah felt a thick, heavy acceptance settle like the lead-gray clouds scudding across the
dusk sky behind his broad shoulders. They promised more cold and more snow and made her shiver. So did the closed
expression on his face when he finally met her eyes. Her hope shifted, like the icy draft of the March wind, to anger.

"I'm pregnant."

She hadn't meant to blurt it out that way. And, she knew, he hadn't meant to react. She had his attention now, though.
His shocked gaze narrowed on her face then dropped to her stomach. Disbelief, then grim acknowledgment, and finally
anger played across the beautiful face that had hovered above hers in the dark and planted this baby inside her.

He clenched his jaw and stared behind her at some spot on the wall, then cut his gaze back to her face again. "And I
suppose you're going to try to tell me it's mine." The hurtful words, like his breath, hung in the subfreezing air then
drifted away with the last of her hopes.

Stung, but not really surprised, she hugged her arms around herself, suddenly so cold and so tired. "There's no
'suppose' or 'try' about it. It is yours."

He finally closed the door behind him. And stood there.

He looked as cornered as a coyote caught in the crosshairs of a rifle scope now and what had been a knee-jerk
accusation transitioned to hostility - first a spark then a full-blown bonfire. There was a hole the size of a fist in
her bedroom wall. The hand that had put it there curled tight at his side. He wanted to hit her. She knew he wouldn't.
A cowboy had his honor.

Cowboys didn't hit women. They just knocked them up and left them to ride the next wild horse and the next wild woman.
She'd watched it happen often enough to her friends and swore it would never happen to her. Now it had.

She'd never felt so alone. And alone was exactly what she hadn't wanted to be. That was why she'd called him. And until
this moment, she'd thought she'd known what she wanted from him. But as he stood there looking not only trapped, but
helpless and weak, she actually felt sorry for him. He was twenty-three years old, a year older than she was. She'd
thought he was a man. Tonight she saw what he really was. A boy. Scared and selfish and ready to duck and run.

And she felt very old, and very alone.

"This ain't my problem," he said with a set of his jaw that dared her to deny it.

For as quiet as he'd been, he suddenly had a lot to say. It wasn't his fault; she was the one who screwed up; he
wouldn't be trapped; he knew a doctor who would take care of it.

She heard the surly panic in his words like a low hum of static beneath the surprising and sudden clarity of her
thoughts - thoughts that were so strong and so right, she could no longer deny them or push them to the back of her
consciousness and fool herself into believing they weren't the absolute truth. She didn't want Jason Murphy, she
realized as he dug into his hip pocket for his wallet, dragged out three twenties - probably all the money he had to
his name - and held them out to her.

She smiled tiredly, shook her head. "I don't want your money, Jace."

He stood there, his hand extended, a defiant plea for her to take the money, assuage his guilt. "Then what do you
want?"

She wanted to matter to someone. To mean something to someone. Because it was now apparent that concept would be lost
on him, she idn't bother to try to explain it. "I don't want anything. I just thought you should know. Now you do. And
you can go."

When she shouldered around him and opened the door, inviting him to leave the same way he'd come in, he hesitated for
only a moment. He pressed the money into her hand on his way by. Then he walked out of her life without a long look
back.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from The Bluewater Affair
by Cindy Gerard
Copyright © 2003 by Harlequin Enterprises, Ltd..
Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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