Until You Read online

  The kiss and all it meant, all that it made her want, shook Anna.

  Letter to Reader

  Title Page

  Books by Janis Reams Hudson

  JANIS REAMS HUDSON

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Epilogue

  Copyright

  The kiss and all it meant, all that it made her want, shook Anna.

  “Don’t,” she cried.

  “Don’t what?” he demanded. “Don’t kiss you? Don’t want you? The kissing I can control if I have to. The wanting I can’t. I don’t want to stop wanting you. Don’t tell me you don’t feel the same, because we both know you’d be lying, and you’re a lousy liar, Anna.”

  “It doesn’t matter what either of us feels.”

  “The hell it doesn’t. It’s the only thing that matters.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she repeated, her heart breaking.

  “Gavin, you leaving. So what’s the point?”

  She was right. But the emotion in her voice, the pain he heard, twisted in his chest.

  “Yes, I’ll have to leave soon. But is that supposed to mean that we just turn our backs on whatever this is that’s happening between us and pretend it doesn’t exist?”

  Dear Reader

  During this holiday season, don’t forget to treat yourself special, too. And taking the time to enjoy November’s Special Edition lineup is the perfect place to start!

  Veteran author Lisa Jackson continues her FOREVER FAMILY miniseries with A Family Kind of Gal. All THAT SPECIAL WOMAN! Tiffany Santini wants is a life of harmony away from her domineering in-laws. But there’s no avoiding her sinfully sexy brother-in-law when he lavishes her—and her kids—with attention. Look for the third installment of this engaging series in January 1999.

  And there’s more continuing drama on the way! First, revisit the Adams family with The Cowgirl & The Unexpected Wedding when Sherryl Woods delivers book four in the popular AND BABY MAKES THREE: THE NEXT GENERATION series. Next, the PRESCRIPTION: MARRIAGE medical series returns with Prince Charming, M.D. by Susan Mallery. Just about every nurse at Honeygrove Memorial Hospital has been swooning over one debonair doc—except the R.N. who recalls her old flame’s track record for breaking hearts! Then the MEN OF THE DOUBLE-C RANCH had better look out when a sassy redhead gets under a certain ornery cowboy’s skin in The Rancher and the Redhead by Allison Leigh.

  Rounding off this month, Janis Reams Hudson shares a lighthearted tale about a shy accountant who discovers a sexy stranger sleeping on her sofa in Until You. And in A Mother for Jeffrey by Trisha Alexander, a heroine realizes her lifelong dream of having a family.

  I hope you enjoy all of our books this month. Happy Thanksgiving from all of us at Silhouette Books.

  Sincerely,

  Karen Taylor Richman

  Senior Editor

  Please address questions and book requests to:

  Silhouette Reader Service

  U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269

  Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3

  JANIS REAMS HUDSON

  UNTIL YOU

  Published by Silhouette Brooks

  Amarica’s Publisher of Contemporary Romance

  Books by Janis Reams Hudson

  Silhouette Special Edition

  Resist Me if You Can #1037

  The Mother of His Son #1095

  His Daughter’s Laughter #1105

  Until You #1210

  JANIS REAMS HUDSON

  was born in California, grew up in Colorado, lived in Texas for a few years and now calls central Oklahoma home. She is the author of more than twenty novels, both contemporary and historical romances. Her books have appeared on the Waldenbooks, B. Dalton and Bookrack bestseller lists and earned numerous awards, including the National Readers’ Choice Award and Reviewer’s Choice awards from Romantic Times Magazine. She is a three-time finalist for the coveted RITA Award from Romance Writers of America and is the past president of RWA.

  Chapter One

  It had been a typical, busy week at work, ending with a typical, frantic Friday. All indications pointed to a typical, restful weekend in Oklahoma City’s typical, quiet suburb of Warr Acres.

  Until she got home.

  Anna Collins pulled into her driveway Friday evening and put the car in park. With the engine still running, she got out and walked slowly to the mailbox on her front porch. She wanted to run, but that would have been unseemly.

  Be there, be there.

  When she reached into the mailbox, her hand trembled. She fingered the envelopes, then carefully pulled them out. A bill from Oklahoma Gas and Electric. A coupon for ladies’ day at a local muffler shop. A long brown envelope from—

  It came. It came.

  With a quick look around to make sure no one was watching, Anna hugged the envelope with the return address of the University of Central Oklahoma to her chest and sighed deeply. It came. Finally. Her admission form.

  All she had to do now was fill it out, mail it in with her high school transcript and college entrance exam test scores, then wait to hear if she’d been admitted. There should be no problem there. Then she would enroll and start classes.

  Finally. Anna Lee Collins was going to college.

  Since childhood she had dreamed of going to college. Dreaming wasn’t something Anna Collins normally allowed herself, but this one had been virtually impossible to squelch. It had also been nearly impossible to achieve. She was thirty years old, and just now applying for admission. It had taken her that long to pay off her parents’ debts, straighten out her life, her brother’s life, her own finances.

  But she had the money now. It was finally going to happen. Even though she would have to keep working during the day and attend classes at night, she couldn’t be happier. The accounting degree she coveted was within her grasp.

  College! I’m going to college!

  Still clutching the envelope tightly in one hand, Anna whirled and took two skipping hops before recovering her sense of decorum and walking sedately back to the driveway. She pulled a key from her pocket and unlocked the garage door. After all these years, raising the door shouldn’t be so difficult, but it was old, heavy and liked to stick in damp weather. In Oklahoma, it was always damp. She and the door both groaned with the effort it took to raise it. Then Anna groaned again at the sight that greeted her.

  Her brother’s motorcycle.

  “No,” she said with a quiet moan of despair. Then she uttered a quick prayer for forgiveness. She loved Ben. Really she did. But...but...

  But nothing. Just because he’d come home unannounced—again—didn’t mean he’d come home for money. Again. Did it?

  If he had come for money, what would she do? She had budgeted herself so tightly for the next few years that she knew she didn’t have a penny to spare. But she had never told Ben no before. Was it fair to start now, with no warning?

  Anna chewed on her bottom lip. When she caught herself, she quit. Standing in the garage worrying wasn’t doing any good. She stepped back out onto the driveway and tugged the door down. With his motorcycle parked right in the middle of the one-car garage, there was no room for her eighteen-year-old Chevy.

  She shut the car engine off, gathered her keys and purse, and went back to the front door, the precious envelope from U.C.O. still clutched in her hand. She entered the house quietly in case Ben was sleeping. If he’d ridden a
ll night to get home, which was usually the case, he would be sacked out on the couch or his bed, facedown and dead to the world for maybe as long as eighteen hours. Why any sane person would deliberately choose to punish himself that way, she would never understand. He thought it was a lark to drive all night, and he loved nothing more than to sleep all day.

  Sure enough, there he was, sprawled facedown on the living room couch, apparently dead to the world. He wore nothing but a pair of ratty, faded jeans, the seat of which was worn white and thin. A white T-shirt lay draped over a duffel bag sitting neatly against the wall. Beside it were a pair of brown leather boots, a small black shaving kit, a screaming yellow helmet and...a guitar? When had he started playing the guitar?

  To Anna’s sense of orderliness, the room was a mess. But for Ben, it was actually quite tidy. If he’d been home longer than sixty seconds his belongings were usually strewn from one end of the house to the other. The last time, he’d even had the audacity to stack a pyramid of empty beer cans on her oak-and-glass coffee table sometime during the night while she’d slept.

  Oh, the tongue-lashing she’d given him, not only for that, but for having come home drunk the night before and parking his motorcycle in her flower bed.

  There had been no repeat of that sort of thing, thank heaven. And now here he was, being neat—for him, at least—with his belongings. It was, by all appearances, a miracle.

  She shook her head in wonder and closed the front door behind her softly so as not to wake him. No telling how far away he’d come from this time. Judging by the new lighter streaks in his dark brown hair and the golden tan on his bare back, he may have come from the beach. She just had no idea which one; East Coast, West Coast, or the Gulf. And he’d been working out, too. She didn’t remember his back and arms being quite so muscular the last time he was home.

  “Ben?”

  Nothing. Not even a groan.

  Anna shrugged. She should be used to the way he dropped into her life whenever the mood struck him. Which was when he was broke. He was twenty-four years old. When was he going to settle down, get a job, grow up?

  She frowned and headed for her bedroom to change clothes. She prayed he didn’t need money this time. He’d promised, after that last business with dog racing, of all things, that he would stop gambling, never ask her for money again. That had been more than a year ago, and so far, he’d kept his word. Maybe all her hard work would pay off and he wouldn’t end up just like Daddy after all.

  Anna tucked her precious envelope in her purse and placed the purse on her dresser.

  What would she do if he was here for money? What would she tell him?

  After removing her gray linen skirt and jacket and making sure they hung straight on their hangers, she slipped off her tailored, white cotton blouse, her mind worrying over Ben’s arrival. She knew, deep down inside, that he wouldn’t have come unless he wanted something from her. And the only thing he ever wanted from her was money. It hurt, but that was Ben.

  She slipped on jeans, a cotton shirt, socks and sneakers, then tiptoed past the living room to the kitchen. By the time she had baked a potato in the microwave and tossed herself a salad, she had managed to put her anxiety over Ben from her mind. She would worry about what he wanted when he told her what he wanted.

  As soon as she cleaned up the kitchen, she went to the small desk in the corner of the den and filled out the college admission form. Three times during the process, she had to stop and calm herself so her hand wouldn’t shake with excitement. She didn’t want to take the chance of messing up the form. Not now, when she was finally about to realize her dream.

  If her stomach clenched at the thought of the damage Ben could do to her dream, she ignored it. He wasn’t in trouble. Not this time. Surely not this time.

  Wondering when he’d developed that cute little snore, she left him sleeping on the couch until the next morning. By then she decided he’d slept long enough. She leaned over him and touched his warm, bare shoulder. “You’ve been sleeping forever. Get up and I’ll fix your breakfast.”

  He shifted and groaned and stretched, one of those quivering, all-over body stretches. Even his bare toes hanging off the end of the couch curled and flexed. With his face still buried in the pillow, he muttered in a deep, gravelly voice, “You’re a saint, Mom.”

  Mom?

  Then he rolled over and gave her a slow, lazy grin. Then slowly he opened his eyes.

  It was impossible to determine who was more startled, Anna, or the man on her couch. The man she’d never seen before in her life.

  With a scream, she jerked away, fell backward over the coffee table, and landed hard on her rear.

  The stranger on the couch jumped up and reached across the coffee table toward her. “Are you all right?”

  Seeing him lunge toward her, Anna screamed again and shoved against the coffee table with her feet to push herself out of his reach. The sharp edge of the glass top struck him forcefully in the shins, but she was too terrified to appreciate his grunt of pain.

  If she tried for the front door she would have to pass right next to him and he’d be able to grab her. If she tried for the back door she’d be trapped in the garage, as the side door stuck and the big door was slow to open.

  All of this was assuming her legs would carry her that far in either direction. Since they felt about as substantial as cooked spaghetti, it seemed doubtful.

  That left the phone. She had to get to the phone.

  “Don’t touch me,” she warned, her chest heaving, her mind threatening to go blank with fear.

  “Okay,” he said breathlessly, grabbing his shins as he fell back onto the couch. “Okay. Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. “Damn,” he muttered, rubbing both legs. “That hurt.”

  She didn’t care if she’d broken both his legs. While he was distracted by his pain she pushed herself to her feet and whirled for the wall phone at the end of the kitchen cabinet. She grabbed up the receiver and pressed the nine—

  “You don’t need to do that,” the stranger said in a rush. “My name’s Gavin Marshall.”

  She missed, hit the two, and had to disconnect and start over. Learning his name did nothing to reassure her. Nine—one—

  “I’m a friend of your brother’s.”

  By the time his words registered through the static of fear in her head—Ben? The man had something to do with Ben?—it was too late to stop her finger from pressing the one a second time.

  She whipped her head around to stare at the stranger who’d invaded her home. He wasn’t coming after her as she’d feared. He hadn’t even moved from the couch.

  With her heart thundering, she stabbed her finger over the switch hook to disconnect the call before the 9-1-1 operator could answer. “How do I know you’re Ben’s friend?”

  The man pulled his wallet from the back pocket of his jeans and tossed it toward her. It landed at her feet. “I guess if he’s never mentioned me, I can’t prove we’re friends, but that should at least prove my identity.”

  Anna’s hands shook as she bent and retrieved the wallet. California driver’s license, half a dozen gold and platinum credit cards and some sort of union card all proclaimed him to be who he said he was, Gavin Marshall, of Santa Monica, California.

  She compared the driver’s license picture to the man across the room. It wasn’t fair, she thought, for a man that good-looking to have such a good photo on his license. It looked almost like a studio portrait, the way it showed off those chiseled good looks, his dark, sun-streaked hair, those startlingly blue eyes, a mouth that did funny things to her breathing. He was smiling in the photo. Lord, if he ever smiled at her like that...

  What was she thinking? She didn’t care what the man’s smile looked like. “Where is Ben?”

  “I don’t know,” Marshall said. “But unless he got here before me and has already left, he should be showing up anytime now.”

  “You mean, you didn’t come with him?”

  “No.”
>
  “No, what?” she snapped, her nerves still frayed despite the lessening of her fear. “No, you didn’t mean that, or no, you didn’t come with him?”

  “No, I didn’t come with him.”

  “Then what are you doing with his motorcycle? What are you doing in my house? How did you get in?”

  “Ben gave me his keys.”

  Anna blinked. “Ben never lets anyone drive that motorcycle. Never.”

  The man on her couch shrugged. “That’s what I thought, too. But he wanted to drive my car, so he gave me his keys. I’m meeting him here to swap back.”

  “Here? You came all the way from California to swap vehicles with Ben?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Well, if that didn’t sound like something Ben would think up—“Hey, buddy, let’s meet halfway across the country and trade rides”—nothing did. And as she thought about it, she realized that the name Gavin did ring a bell in the back of her mind. She couldn’t remember why, exactly, but it seemed to be something Ben had told her that she, for once, had approved of.

  This man must truly be a friend of Ben’s. Not one of the creeps he gambled with, but an actual friend.

  Relief weakened her knees. Before she could fall to the floor she pulled out a dinette chair and sat. “You scared ten years off my life.”

  “I’m sorry,” he told her. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep. When I got in I was hot and tired. I just thought I’d rest for a few minutes...” He leaned over and snagged his T-shirt from atop the duffel bag. When he poked his head through the neck hole he looked around the room and frowned. “Hell, surely I didn’t really sleep clear through to Saturday.”