Parker And The Gypsy

“It’s Late. I Should Be Going.” Letter to Reader Title Page About the Author Dedication Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Copyright

“It’s Late. I Should Be Going.”

“No!” Sara’s cry seemed almost involuntary. “I—I mean, you don’t have to. You could...stay.”

There was no mistaking her meaning. Her face was suffused with the delicate flush of passion, the glow of a woman waiting, willing to be loved. He’d never realized that desire could be such a pure and simple thing, almost holy when shining from a pair of deep blue eyes.

She was offering him everything he hungered for, and he didn’t know why he didn’t just reach out and take advantage of it. She was his gypsy lady. All the warmth that had always been missing from his black-and-white world.

He hesitated one moment more before taking the biggest risk of his life.

Mike Parker reached out of the shadows and took Sara’s hand.

Dear Reader,

A sexy fire fighter, a crazy cat and a dynamite heroine—that’s what you’ll find in Lucy and the Loner, Elizabeth Bevarly’s wonderful MAN OF THE MONTH. It’s the next in her installment of THE FAMILY McCORMICK series, and it’s also a MAN OF THE MONTH book you’ll never forget—warm, humorous and very sexy!

A story from Lass Small is always a delight, and Chancy’s Cowboy is Lass at her most marvelous. Don’t miss out as Chancy decides to take some lessons in love from a handsome hunk of a cowboy!

Eileen Wilks’s latest, The Wrong Wife, is chock-full with the sizzling tension and compelling reading that you’ve come to expect from this rising Desire star. And so many of you know and love Barbara McCauley that she needs no introduction, but this month’s The Nanny and the Reluctant Rancher is sure to both please her current fans...and win her new readers!

Suzannah Davis is another new author that we’re excited about, and Dr. Holt and the Texan may just be her best book to date! And the month is completed with a delightful romp from Susan Carroll, Parker and the Gypsy.

There’s something for everyone. So come and relish the romantic variety you’ve come to expect from Silhouette Desire!

Lucia Macro

And the Editors at Silhouette Desire

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

Susan Carroll

Parker And The Gypsy

www.millsandboon.co.uk

SUSAN CARROLL

began her career by writing Regency romances. It was a long way from the starch of the British aristocracy to the sizzle of a contemporary American love story. But, in making the leap, Susan found one thing remained the same: that spark of humor that gives zest to any romance, no matter what the time period.

Susan draws on the same humor in her own life. Currently residing in Illinois, she keeps busy between books, coping with two lively children, two rambunctious cats and one very noisy hamster.

To my friend Paula Jolly, for reading the runes and helping to keep my aura fluffed.

One

Mikey ran through the maze of dark alleys, heart thumping beneath his ragged T-shirt, his grubby sneakers pounding the cold, hard concrete. Behind the kid, the shadow of a man loomed, tall and wavering in the streetlights, like a dangling spider.

Mikey glanced wildly about him for an escape route, but there was none. Brick walls enclosed him on all four sides. A ragged sob tore from his chest as he whirled about. The shadow man crept closer, ever closer. The boy flattened himself against the wall, tears streaking down his dirty cheeks as his stalker stepped into the light.

Mikey could almost see his face now....

“No! Go away,” the boy screamed as the shadow-man grabbed at him, his fingers sinking into Mikey’s shoulder like bony talons. With his other hand, the dark demon raised his knife—

“No!”

The word tore from Mike Parker’s throat as he wrenched awake, his head snapping back against the battered upholstery of his office chair. The leather creaked as he sat bolt upright and clenched the sides of his old oak desk, his brown eyes flying wide open. It took a few moments for him to remember where he was. The four plaster walls, the steel file cabinets and other trappings of his one man detective agency slowly penetrated his sleep-fogged brain.

No dark alleys. No shadow man. No knife. He had just dozed off at his desk, had a bad dream. That was all. But for a brief second, Mike felt all of twelve years old again. Small, helpless and scared. His hand crept reflexively to his shoulder, seeking traces of the wound that had long ago healed. Or should have. Damp patches stained the black T-shirt that hugged the hard contours of his chest, but they were from perspiration, not blood.

Swearing under his breath, Mike shook his head in disgust, raking back uneven lengths of tawny-colored hair from his eyes.

At the age of thirty four, he was too old for this, to be still having nightmares about the bogeyman. Or in this case, a day-mare. Anytime he was overtired or a little run-down, he could almost count on that stupid dream to come creeping up on him again. But after all these years, why, damn it?

“The answer is obvious, Michael,” the grad student from Rutgers he’d once dated had told him. “The dream is a manifest sign about some unresolved issue from your childhood.”

“You don’t say,” Mike had snapped, wondering how they’d gotten around to discussing his restless sleep habits in the first place. He’d been quick to change the subject with a suggestive remark that had brought both the uncomfortable conversation and his dinner date with the lovely Carolyn Saunders to an abrupt end. As she had stormed out of the restaurant, Mike had resolved upon two things. In the future, to steer clear of women who called him Michael. And to keep his dreams to himself.

“Manifest sign,” he muttered, still irritated by the memory of Carolyn’s attempts to play Sigmund Freud. The issues of his childhood had all been resolved quite well as far as he was concerned. Locked neatly away behind the bars of Trenton State Prison and forgotten.

The only thing the damn dream was ever a sign of was a hangover, just like the one that was making his head pound this morning. The dull pain still throbbed behind his eyes despite the cold shower and aspirin tablets that had gotten him awake and into his office earlier that morning.

Rummaging around in his top desk drawer, Mike managed to locate the plastic bottle and shook out two more white tablets into his hand. Uncoiling his six-foot-two frame from the chair, he dragged himself over to the water cooler and filled a stained ceramic coffee cup. He gagged down both aspirin in one huge gulp.

The blasted air-conditioning was on the fritz again and outside his open second story window, the heat and noisy traffic of another Atlantic City summer morning assaulted his much-battered senses in one great oppressive wave. He couldn’t remember how much he’d had to drink last night, but if it had him dreaming about the shadow man again, it had obviously been too much.

It had all started out harmlessly enough—hefting a few cool ones at Boom Boom’s Bar and Grill with his friend Jimmy Potts, in celebration of Jimmy’s upcoming marriage. Mike had spent most of the time staring morosely into his glass and wondering how many months it would take before Jimmy turned up in his office, hiring Mike to get the goods on the little woman when she took to cheating with some new Romeo. That, in Mike’s bitter experience, was how most marital bliss panned out. All those hearts and flowers, promises of love and eternal devotion—just another con game.

Despite his raging headache. Mike congratulated himself on surviving this bachelor party better than he had the last one, when he’d trailed after the girl who’d jumped out of the cake. Darcy Robbins. But she was another nightmare he’d just as soon forget.

Rubbing one hand along his unshaven jaw, Mike tried to summon up the energy to return to his desk and complete the report he’d been working on before he’d fallen asleep. Skip traces on some missing deadbeats for a local finance company. Boring as hell but—

A knock sounded on his office door, nearly startling him into dropping the coffee cup. As he replaced the mug back on top of the water cooler, he grumbled, “Now what?”

He knew it couldn’t be his secretary. Rosa had no respect for a closed door. She barged in whenever she felt like it. The rapping sounded again, causing Mike to wince. “All right, all right!” he snarled. “Just stop the damn pounding and come in.”

The door opened slowly and Mike blinked at the vision that filled his threshold. It was as though a burst of sunlight had pierced his gloom-ridden office and assumed the form of a woman. She was all softness, from the rainbow-hued skirt that clung to the willowy outline of her hips, to the white flowing blouse that shifted half off her creamy shoulders.

Golden ringlets rioted about a heart-shaped face with features as delicate as fine porcelain, from the dainty nose to the small determined chin. She regarded Mike with the most wistful blue eyes he’d ever seen.

She had an angel’s hair, an angel’s eyes, an angel’s mouth. It took Mike a moment to realize he wasn’t breathing and to exhale deeply. It took him a moment longer to snap back to his senses and remember that the only angels he had any use for were the fallen kind.

This young woman had that look of dewy-eyed innocence about her that usually meant nothing but trouble. When she hesitated, fretting her lip, Mike barked out, “What can I do for you, sis? Are you sure you’ve got the right office? The Save-a-Soul Mission’s on the first floor.”

“I’m not looking for the mission,” she said softly.

She had an angel’s voice, too. Mike grimaced.

“I’m looking for Michael Parker.”

“You’ve found him.”

“Oh, no!” Her mouth dropped open in dismay. She took a cautious step closer, her remarkable blue eyes traveling over him. “I—I mean you just can’t be Mr. Parker.”

“I forget a lot of things the morning after I’ve tied one on,” Mike said with a sardonic lift of one brow, “but I generally manage to remember my name.”

“I’m sorry.” A flush rose into her cheeks. “I guess I do see the resemblance now.”

Her shoulders sagged as disbelief appeared to give way to disappointment, but Mike was used to that. He’d been disappointing people all his life—his high school teachers, his foster parents, his ex-wife....

The woman’s gaze flicked from Mike to the newspaper she held clutched in her hand. “It’s just that you don’t look very much like your picture.”

Closing the distance between them, Mike snatched the paper away to see just what she had there. It was a puff piece about him, inserted in the Golden Times Gazette, a weekly magazine distributed mostly to local retirement communities, written and edited by Mrs. Eudora Jenkins, a very grateful former client of his. A more glowing testimonial about the Parker Agency could hardly have been penned by his own grandmother.

Mike didn’t know what was worse: the glaring headline, Mike Parker, Crusading P.I., or the sappy photograph that accompanied the article. He would have been hard-pressed to recognize himself from the picture, his broad shoulders encased in a tuxedo, his slightly crooked mouth angled into a debonair smile.

Mike thrust the paper back at the woman who had invaded his office. “I was doing undercover work,” he explained.

“Oh!” Her brow cleared. “You mean you were on a stakeout last night. That explains...everything.” Her gaze drifted over his disheveled appearance.

No, it didn’t, Mike wanted to argue. What he’d meant was that he’d been doing undercover work when he’d been all trussed up in that tuxedo. His present appearance—the beat-up sneakers, the faded jeans, the T-shirt—was much closer to his natural state.

But somehow he couldn’t bring himself to tell her that. Not with her beaming at him that way, with such a radiant smile.

She had an angel’s smile...

He caught himself wishing that he had at least taken time to shave after his quick shower. Finger combing his hair in a self-conscious gesture, Mike cleared his throat. “I don’t usually see walk-ins. But if you’d like to step out in the reception room and set up an appointment with my secretary—”

“But she isn’t there.”

Mike stepped around her to peer into the outer office. She was right. Rosa’s desk was empty. She had never come in to work.

“Damn! She’s probably planning to call in sick again,” he said. “Off to visit Dr. Blackjack at the United Memorial Casino.”

When his visitor regarded him blankly, Mike explained, “That’s a joke.”

“Oh.” Again that blinding smile.

It galvanized Mike into stalking forward and pulling up one of the seasick green vinyl chairs that comprised his office decor. He couldn’t remember when the last time was he’d leapt to hold a chair for any woman, but he was doing it now.

“As long as you’re here,” he said, “you might as well sit down.”

“Thank you.” She sank gracefully onto the seat. As Mike pushed the chair into place before his desk, he experienced a double assault on his senses. First the sight of her slim, shapely legs as she crossed them. Then the exotic scent that seemed to radiate from the golden cloud of her hair.

The sweet perfume rendered him a little dizzy. Or maybe, he told himself, it was still the effect of last night’s excesses. He stumbled back to his own seat behind the desk and tried to look nonchalant, leaning back in his chair.

“So what can I do for you?”

“Well, Mr. Parker—”

“Please. Mr. Parker was my father.” Or at least it was until the old man traded his name for the number stamped across his prison inmate’s uniform. Mike shoved the grim thought aside before adding, “Call me ‘Mike.’”

“Mike,” she repeated, her smile gone suddenly shy. Her golden-tipped lashes drifted down. “It’s very hard for me to know where to begin.”

“Then why don’t we start with something easy? Like your name.”

“It’s Sara Holyfield. And no h. In Sara, that is.”

“Sara with no h,” Mike murmured, but he was distracted by the silvery glint of her earrings. To his complete fascination, he saw that she was wearing naked fairies dangling off each ear. Very nubile fairies with delicate wings.

And there appeared to be another one suspended from a chain around her neck. This creature poised on top of some kind of crystal. Mike started to lean forward, tracing the path of the fairy where it danced down the front of her blouse, but he caught himself just in time.

Shoving aside the stack of paper that littered his desk—several days’ worth of unopened mail—Mike attempted to assume a more professional stance. He managed to locate a notepad and a pen that actually worked. Jotting down Sara’s name, he pressed her for a few more basic facts such as her address and phone number.

“Aurora Falls, New Jersey, huh?” he commented as he scrawled the information on his pad. “You drove a long way to find yourself a detective.”

“There was no one back there who could help me.”

“Suppose you tell me what the problem is and I’ll see what I can do.”

Sara nodded, but she still appeared reluctant to proceed. Mike had encountered this before in first-time clients—the nervousness, the embarrassment to talk of what were often highly personal difficulties. Usually he lost patience and ordered his customers to cut to the chase.

But something about Sara Holyfield inspired an unaccustomed gentleness in him. Mike tried to set her at her ease by offering her a piece of his favorite peppermint gum. When she declined, he popped a stick in his own mouth, then settled back in his chair with what he hoped was a father-confessor type of expression.

“Just relax and take your time,” he soothed.

She started to speak and ended up fretting with her purse strings instead. She had smooth graceful fingers with neat, well-trimmed nails—nothing like those red-painted talons his ex-wife, Darcy, had sported. Mike had a notion Sara’s hands would feel all warm and silky, just like the rest of her ivory-toned skin.

He clicked the peppermint gum against his teeth, annoyed that he had let his mind go skipping off like that again. After an awkward silence, he probed delicately, “There’s some trouble with your husband perhaps?”

She shook her head vigorously, the fairies swinging with her hair. “I’ve never been married.”

“A boyfriend, then?”

“He’s moved to Texas.”

“And you want me to trace him?”

“No.” Her lips quirked in a wry half smile. “I assure you I don’t want him found.”

“Good! I mean, that’s too bad. I mean—” Hell, Mike wasn’t sure what he meant or why this woman was unnerving him so. Maybe it was because he could usually peg any client within minutes after they’d walked in the door, guess what they wanted before they ever opened their mouths.

But he wasn’t able to do that with her. He didn’t have a clue why she was there. Angels shouldn’t have problems, should they? But something was sure distressing this one. Beyond that serene exterior, he could see it in her eyes. A deep-rooted sadness. If his heart hadn’t been made of shoe leather, it would have moved even him.

“I suppose I should start by telling you a little more about myself,” she said at last. She stood up and paced restlessly to the window. The sunlight filtering through the blinds haloed her hair and rendered her white cotton blouse almost transparent.

“Have you ever had a revelation, Mr. Parker?” she asked.

“No,” Mike croaked. But he was having one now. She wasn’t wearing a bra. He could see the shadow of her small, full breasts quite clearly, down to the pert outline of her nipples.

His response was swift, inevitable and very male. Chewing his gum furiously, Mike forced himself to look away. This surge of attraction was unprofessional, but he couldn’t seem to help it. The life of a private detective was far from glamorous. It was pretty mundane most of the time. After months of pot-bellied men and little old ladies coming through his door, no wonder he was jolted by the sight of a beautiful young woman.

It was like something out of one of those hokey old detective movies that he had a sneaking fondness for. The mysterious dame swishes into the gumshoe’s office, innocent, but alluring, begging for his help.

There would be danger, hairbreadth escapes. Of course, he’d eventually save her life and she would be terribly grateful. Mike got to the point in his imaginings where Miss Sara Holyfield was demonstrating some of that gratitude, slipping that soft blouse off her even-softer shoulders, guiding his hands toward her—

Whoa! This ridiculous fantasy wasn’t doing anything to help his—er—condition. He actually felt beads of sweat gathering on his brow. Sara had finally started talking and he’d hardly registered a word of it.

“...and I realized I’d been wasting my life and talents. After I received the inheritance from my great-aunt Marilla, I walked out of my job at the bank and never looked back. I went to work for myself the very next day.”

Mike risked a peek at her. Mercifully she had stepped out of the revealing pool of sunlight. He didn’t know whether he was more relieved or disappointed.

She turned slowly to face him. “Which brings me to why I’m here. I need to hire you to collaborate with me on a case.”

Mike blinked. Boy, he must have really missed something when he’d been daydreaming. “You are a detective?”

“Of a sort.” Her chin tipped up a notch in an attitude that could have been pride or defiance. “I’m a psychic investigator.”

Mike swallowed his gum and damn near choked. “You—you mean like—like a ghost buster?”

“I don’t bust ghosts, Mr. Parker. I merely explore evidence of supernatural phenomenon.”

“Oh, is that all?”

“I also run a New Age book store and do psychic readings.”

Mike stared at her. She stared back, looking as calm as if she’d just told him she was a dental hygienist. He expelled his breath in a long sigh. Great. He’d finally gotten his alluring, mysterious dame, and with his usual luck, she turned out to be a nut case. Or else she was planning to pull off some incredible hustle on him. Life was so damned unfair.

Swiveling glumly back to the desk, he said, “Sorry, Miss Holyfield, but I don’t think I can help you. I always confine my investigations to this side of the grave.”

“I don’t expect you to go ghost hunting with me, if that’s what you’re afraid of. I have no trouble with that.”

“I’ll bet,” Mike mumbled under his breath.

Bracing her hands upon his desk, she leaned forward. Mike was assaulted again by the scent of her perfume, the soft rise and fall of her breasts.

What a waste. He stifled a groan.

She peered down at him earnestly. “I’m sorry. I’m afraid I haven’t been making myself all that clear. I’m here on behalf of a Miss Mamie Patrick. She’s trying to find her son.”

“Oh. A missing-persons case. Why didn’t you say so to begin with? That’s different. That’s—” Normal Mike almost added. It wasn’t the first time someone like this Patrick woman was misguided or desperate enough to consult a psychic to recover their missing child. Mike wasn’t sure he wanted to get mixed-up in this business. But his interest was piqued enough to reach for his notepad again.

“Okay, sit down,” he said to Sara. “And this time give-it to me straight without the psychic bull—that is, just give me the cold, hard facts.”

Sara sank back into her chair, folding her hands primly. “Well, Mamie—Miss Patrick—first made contact with me about two weeks ago. Her only son, John Francis, was put up for adoption when he was six years old. For her own peace of mind, she desperately needs to see him again.”

Mike noted the name of the Patrick kid on his pad. “And how long has it been since she last saw the boy?”

“John Patrick would be somewhere in his late thirties by now.” Sara added anxiously, “Do you think there’s any real hope that you can find him after all this time, Mr. Parker?”

“Anything’s possible. Although I have to warn you, adoption records in New Jersey are sealed.” Mike shrugged. “I’ll have to talk to this Miss Patrick myself and see what leads she can give me, but frankly, I think you should make sure she really wants this matter pursued. These tender family reunions you watch on the talk shows are not always what they’re cracked up to be. After all this time, Mamie Patrick might be better off forgetting about her son and getting on with her life.”

“That would be difficult,” Sara said quietly. “She’s dead.”

“What!” Mike pressed down so hard with the pen, he punctured the paper.

“Mamie Patrick died over thirty years ago.”

“You mean...you’re telling me this client of yours is—is a—”

“A supernatural manifestation.”

“Let’s use plain English here. You mean a ghost.”

“Well... yes.”

“Ah, jeez!” Mike ripped off the sheet of notebook paper he’d been filling out and crumpled it into a ball that he arced into his metal waste can. Shoving to his feet, he stalked around the desk.

Sara shrank back, looking mildly alarmed as Mike’s hands closed around her arms. He tugged her to her feet.