Night Talk

“I never should have done it. I should have left you out there to freeze!”

Kristin had been so full of emotion, so intent on getting out all the pent-up anger, she hadn’t really been thinking about what kind of a reaction to expect from him—and for a moment Jake didn’t do anything. He just stood there, staring down at her.

But then the most amazing thing happened. Suddenly he was coming toward her, reaching for her, pulling her close.

“I could have lost you,” he growled, pulling her into him. “I could have lost you.”

His words made their way into her heart and burst through her system like fireworks on the Fourth of July. She forgot about being angry, forgot about being careful and staying in control. Suddenly she understood there were some things worth suffering for—and in that moment she knew Jake Hayes was one of them.

Dear Reader,

Welcome to another fabulous month of the most exciting romance reading around. And what better way to begin than with a new TALL, DARK & DANGEROUS novel from New York Times bestselling author Suzanne Brockmann? Night Watch has it all: an irresistible U.S. Navy SEAL hero, intrigue and danger, and—of course—passionate romance. Grab this one fast, because it’s going to fly off the shelves.

Don’t stop at just one, however. Not when you’ve got choices like Fathers and Other Strangers, reader favorite Karen Templeton’s newest of THE MEN OF MAYES COUNTY. Or how about Dead Calm, the long-awaited new novel from multiple-award-winner Lindsay Longford? Not enough good news for you? Then check out new star Brenda Harlen’s Some Kind of Hero, or Night Talk, from the always-popular Rebecca Daniels. Finally, try Trust No One, the debut novel from our newest find, Barbara Phinney.

And, of course, we’ll be back next month with more pulse-pounding romances, so be sure to join us then. Meanwhile…enjoy!

Leslie J. Wainger

Executive Editor

Night Talk

Rebecca Daniels

REBECCA DANIELS

will never forget the first time she read a Silhouette novel. “I was at my sister’s house, sitting by the pool and trying without much success to get interested in the book I’d brought from home. Everything seemed to distract me—the dog, the kids, the seagulls. Finally, my sister plucked the book from my hands, told me she was going to give me something I wouldn’t be able to put down and handed me my first Silhouette novel. Guess what? She was right! For that lazy afternoon by her pool, I will forever be grateful.” From that day on, Rebecca has been writing romance novels and loving every minute of it.

Born in the Midwest but raised in Southern California, she now resides in the scenic coastal community of Santa Barbara with her two sons. She loves early-morning walks along the beach, bicycling, hiking, an occasional round of golf and hearing from her fans. You can e-mail Rebecca at [e-mail].

TYVMFE! And for Jackson Jerome Phillips:

Aunt Nell has a place at the table for you.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 1

“He said he couldn’t go that long, you know, without…er…without it.”

“Without sex?”

“He’s a man, he has needs.”

“And this was while you were in traction.”

“Right, for six weeks. He said it would just be for then, just while I…couldn’t. H-he promised it would stop after that, he wouldn’t see her anymore once I was…well, once we could…we could…”

“We get the idea. And that was okay with you?”

“He’s a man, he has—”

“Needs, yeah, you mentioned that.”

“But then, when I got home from the hospital I found it. The letter.”

“The Dear Jane.”

“Yes.”

“And he was long gone, right?”

“He went with her to Alaska. They’re going to look for gold.”

“Gold? Oh brother!”

“Gold? You mean like prospect?”

“Yeah, that’s why he said he needed my truck.”

“Your truck?”

“It’s four-wheel drive, he had to borrow it, you know, to get up into the mountain.”

“He didn’t borrow it, lady, he stole it.”

“He took your truck without checking with you first?”

“He just borrowed it. He promised to bring it back once they struck it rich.”

“I don’t call that borrowing, Sally. I call it grand theft auto.”

Jake smiled.

“But I miss him, Jane.”

“Oh jeez, lady, give me a break.”

“Sally, my dear girl, give me a break. You don’t miss this guy, you escaped him. He didn’t leave you, he did you a favor.”

Jake’s smile widened. It wasn’t the first time they’d thought alike. “You tell her, Jane.”

“Count yourself lucky all this relationship cost you was your truck.”

“But…but I love him.”

“Well, if you do, he doesn’t deserve your love, Sally. But there will be someone who does. Anybody agree? Anybody out there have advice for Sally Sad in Savannah, or a story of the love you’ve lost that you’d like to share? Let’s hear from you, 1–800–NIGHT TALK. This is ‘Lost Loves’ and I’m your host, Dear Jane—Jane Streeter—and here’s a little smooth jazz to soothe those aching hearts.”

Jake stretched back as best he could in the narrow lawn chair, listening to the sultry tones of the saxophone drift out from the speaker and up into the night sky. It was late, too late, and he needed to be up early in the morning, but he wasn’t sleepy. He’d gotten caught up in the music and the stories from callers who had phoned into the late-night radio program, caught up in the soft, velvety voice of Dear Jane.

Of course, if anyone were ever to ask, he would deny it to the death that he was part of the legion of listeners across the country who tuned in to the popular call-in program. After all, real men didn’t listen to programs called “Lost Loves.” They went for things like sports and hard-core news. But when you live alone at the top of a mountain, the nights get to be long, and the low, sultry voice of Jane Streeter helped fill the hours.

A tiny flicker of light glimmered suddenly out of the blackness from the far side of the canyon below. Jake sat up, automatically reaching for his binoculars. No flame, no fire, nothing to get excited about, but he would check it out anyway.

He focused the high-powered lens on the tiny spot of light. Just the pale beam from the headlights of a lone vehicle on the narrow mountain road. Too late for campers to be out. Besides, it was off-season. The campground wasn’t set to open for another six weeks yet. More likely one of the handful of locals who lived year-round in the tiny fishing village of Vega Flats, which was three thousand feet and fifteen very rugged miles below his mountaintop perch. It was probably Mac making his way back to his cabin on the ridge after closing up the tavern in town, or maybe Ruby from the bait shop, out looking for night crawlers or tracking down one of her stray colts from the small herd of free-roaming horses she raised.

Jake followed the headlights’ slow progression along the winding mountain pass until they became lost in the dense overgrowth and disappeared. He had planned to swing by the Flats tomorrow to pick up his mail while he was out checking a report of a mudslide along the trailhead leading up the east ridge. He would give that stretch of road a look just to make sure whoever was down there had gotten to where they were going okay. The narrow gravel pass was treacherous in broad daylight; in the dead of night it could be a killer.

“We’re back and we’ve got Miss Priss from Mississippi. What do you say to Sad Sally?”

“Jane, I’ve only got one thing to say to Sally and that’s good riddance to bad rubbish. Let’s hope she’s seen the last of him.”

The loud click on the line had a laugh coming from Dear Jane.

“Okay, Miss Priss, thank you for that. Rita in Rialto, what’s your advice for Sally? What’s a girl to do when her man takes off with her neighbor and her four-wheel drive?”

“Well I’m with you, Jane. Sally honey, if my man did that to me, he’d be doing some serious talking to the business end of my Colt .45.”

“Colt .45, ouch!” Jake laughed, dropping the binoculars to his lap.

“Whoa, Rita, gunplay, that’s a little harsh, isn’t it? After all, isn’t all fair in love and war?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t shoot him, honey, just put the fear of God into him. And if that didn’t work, I’ve got a friend over in San Bernardino who could turn that dude into a dudette.”

Jake laughed again and shook his head. “They grow them mean in Rialto.”

“Well okay, Rita in Rialto, thanks for the call. Let’s go to Harry, calling in from the East Coast. Harry, what’s the word?”

“I think you’re right, Jane. There are a lot of good men out there, Sally. Forget that creep. You’re better than that and don’t let yourself be disrespected like that again.”

“Sage advice, Harry, thanks for tuning in. Now here’s a sad story from the Pacific Northwest. This is Tim from Tacoma. You’re on, Tim. Talk to me.”

Jake leaned back in the chair again and listened as the story unfolded. He stretched out his long legs, hooking his knees over the edge of the deck’s railing. It had been a mild winter and spring had come early. But despite the clement days of early March, midnight on the mountaintop was always cold, and sitting on the deck, which encircled the lookout tower’s dome, it was even colder. Snow still dusted the ground in a few spots and the thermometer hanging on the post beside the sliding door read thirty-six degrees.

He pulled his Gortex jacket around him tightly and reached for the glass of wine on the small metal table beside the chair. He didn’t mind the cold, but even if he had he wouldn’t have gone inside. The midnight sky was brilliant with a million stars and worth risking cold ears and a red nose.

He drained the glass, feeling the alcohol warm a path down his throat, and listened while Dear Jane talked with the caller on the line. There wasn’t another sound on the mountain and her voice drifted out into the darkness like the wind through the redwoods. He’d been first drawn to “Lost Loves” by the jazz, an eclectic mix of new and classic pieces, but it wasn’t long before he found himself listening to the rest of the show—in particular to Dear Jane herself.

Jake wasn’t one for talk radio and normally wouldn’t have much patience for the sad stories phoned in by listeners. But there was something in the way Dear Jane responded to her callers, something so practical, so down-to-earth and rooted in common sense that he could appreciate. She seemed genuine, real, and she refrained from the usual antics of the media to stir up controversy or feign concern in an attempt to promote ratings. It was her manner, her comments, her sense of humor that had him tuning in night after night—well, that and her sexy voice.

“So that winds down another one for tonight. Don’t forget to tune in tomorrow and catch the irrepressible Sly Fox, who will be sitting in for me for the next few days while yours truly takes a little R&R away from heartache.”

“Who broke your heart, Jane?” Jake asked, gathering up the glass and binoculars and slowly rising to his feet.

“But I’ll be back on Monday night with the best in jazz and worst in love. In the meantime, you’re in good hands with Sly Fox.”

“But Sly Fox is no Dear Jane,” Jake commented. The substitute host had filled in for Jane Streeter on several occasions in the six months he’d been listening and Jake would inevitably find himself losing interest in those broadcasts. But he didn’t mind this time. With Ted’s wedding, he wasn’t going to be able to catch the program for the next few nights anyway.

The reminder that all too soon he would be heading down the mountain and returning to Los Angeles again had a mixture of emotions broiling up inside and he suddenly felt cold—the kind of cold that had nothing to do with the brisk night air. The sturdy Gortex could protect him from the elements but it didn’t stand a chance against the dread that pushed itself up from the past.

“And don’t forget, love may be a many-splendored thing, but when it’s over, we’ll be here waiting. This is Dear Jane—Jane Streeter—and you’ve been listening to ‘Lost Loves’. Until next time, dream, hope and love until it hurts. Good night.”

Jake took one last glance across the sky, but like his disturbing sense of dread, the wind had kicked up, whistling through the trees and dropping the temperature another few degrees. He reached up, switching off the small outside speaker mounted on the wall, and pushed the sliding glass door open. The blast of warm air that greeted him from inside the tower felt delicious and inviting, causing him to shiver again.

Ranger Station and Fire Watch LP6, with its solid stone walls and thirty-foot tower perched atop Mount Holloway, was known as Eagle’s Eye, and in the three years since he’d been appointed its ranger, he’d grown accustomed to the volatile weather conditions. The remote assignment in the backcountry of California’s Los Padres National Forest wasn’t usually the first choice of rangers entering the United States Forestry Service. Not many welcomed, or could tolerate, the solitude and the rugged living conditions. But solitude was exactly what Jake had wanted when he’d joined the Service three years ago. He’d wanted to be by himself, wanted to be as far away as he could get from people, from the LAPD and from the memories.

Valerie had accused him of running away—from her, from their marriage and from all the reasons that it wasn’t working. But things hadn’t been working between them for a long time, long before there had been a drug dealer under indictment and a key witness to protect.

He’d been a cop for ten years and had considered himself a damn good one. He’d worked hard to make his way up through the ranks, putting in long hours and many late nights. But while his efforts had paid off, landing him in charge of an elite task force working to bring down a major drug-smuggling operation in the Los Angeles area, the strain it put on his relationship with Valerie had put their marriage in jeopardy. He’d promised her once the assignment was over, he would take some time off and work on making things right between them—and who knows, maybe if things had worked out as they should, they could have salvaged something. But as it was, he’d never know. Fate had stepped in and changed everything.

He hung the binoculars on a hook beside the door and switched off the lights and the stereo. The tower went black and he followed the pale glow of the lights along the spiral stairwell to make his way across the tower’s dome. He didn’t like thinking about those days or about that old life, but sometimes even time and distance couldn’t block out the memories.

Ricky Sanchez. He’d been a man who had worked hard all his life, a kind, decent man with a wife and a family, a man Jake would never forget.

It had been a warm summer night in June when Ricky Sanchez had gone about his normal janitorial duties of waxing floors, emptying trash cans and cleaning the rest rooms after hours in one of L.A.’s towering glass and steel high-rise office buildings. But on that particular night it had been the wrong place to be at the wrong time. From an unseen spot in a maintenance closet, Ricky unwittingly became the eyewitness to a high-level drug deal that had turned deadly.

Ricky hadn’t known at the time that it was notorious drug lord Donnie Hollywood whom he had seen put a bullet in the head of a rival, but instinct had told him the only way to stay alive had been to find a hiding place and stay there, which is exactly what he had done. He’d still been trembling in a crawl space when the police had found him the next morning.

Jake still remembered the rush of adrenaline he’d felt when he’d listened to Ricky tell what he had seen. They had been trying for months to get something on Hollywood, something that would put him out of commission for good, but he’d managed to elude them each time. But now they had him on a murder charge and Ricky’s testimony was going to put him away for life.

It hadn’t come as a surprise when word filtered in from the streets that Hollywood had promised a hefty reward to anyone who succeeded in taking out the prosecution’s star witness. The authorities had already taken steps to protect Ricky, and Jake had been confident they had thought of everything to keep him safe. He’d been stashed in a safe house with around-the-clock security and no one outside of Jake, the D.A. and a small, select number of task force agents—all of whom he had trusted implicitly—knew how to find him.

Unfortunately, it was the one thing Jake hadn’t accounted for that did Ricky in. It had been one of their own, one of his own task force agents who had betrayed him. Hollywood had managed to do the one thing Jake had thought could never happen, turn one of his men against him, and it was a mistake he would regret for the rest of his life. It had not only cost Ricky his life, but the lives of two more task force agents as well.

Jake paused at the top of the stairs, staring down the narrow passage. The sense of betrayal had been overwhelming but the sense of failure had been even worse. Ricky had known the risk, had understood the danger, but he’d agreed to testify anyway. He had trusted Jake and the other members of the task force with his life, and they had let him down. At the funeral, Ricky’s wife had told Jake she forgave him, and her words had haunted him every day since then. How could she forgive him when he hadn’t been able to forgive himself?

He made his way down the stairs and along the corridor to his small apartment. It had been over three years since the funeral, three years since Valerie had left him and he’d decided to resign from the force. He’d failed—both in his personal life and at work. He’d dropped the ball. His wife had suffered and an innocent man had paid with his life. How could he ever forget that?

He’d hoped being alone would help him work through his guilt, would help him put the past behind him and allow him to get on with his life. But he was beginning to think that was never going to happen. Ted had told him he needed time to heal, but in three years the wounds still felt fresh.

He reached inside the door and flipped on the kitchen light. The station had originally been designed to house two rangers, with living quarters for each—one built into the stone base of the tower and another one above a detached garage about thirty yards across a small compound—but lean budget times allowed for only one ranger to be assigned. Jake had chosen to live in the apartment within the tower. While the actual living area was no larger than the quarters above the garage, the tower housed the main kitchen, laundry facility and a fireplace. Besides, it had just made sense that he be close to the station’s elaborate communications systems, located in the tower, in the event of an emergency.

Setting the glass in the sink, he headed for the bedroom, feeling as though he could sleep for twelve hours straight. But despite his fatigue, sleep eluded him.

Maybe it was a good thing he would be leaving the mountain. Maybe he needed to test the waters a bit, see what it was like to be back in civilization again, to be among friends, eat a little junk food and maybe even drink a little too much—at least for a little while. While leaving wasn’t exactly something he was looking forward to, he should try to make the best of it. Besides, he hadn’t been able to say no to Ted.

Los Angeles police detective Lieutenant Ted Reed was like a brother to him and if it hadn’t been for Ted, Jake wasn’t sure he would have made it through those terrible months after Ricky’s death and the divorce from Valerie. The two of them had grown up in a neighborhood in Los Angeles where it paid to know who your friends were and who you could trust to watch your back—and Ted had protected his on more than one occasion. Somehow the two of them had managed to survive the poverty and the violence, the dysfunction and the disadvantages, even though it hadn’t been easy. They’d made the decision to enter the police academy together and had supported each other throughout the ten years they’d served on the force. The hard times had forged a permanent bond between them. It made them survivors.

It had been almost awkward when Ted asked him to serve as best man at his wedding. But he understood. As men and as cops they had learned to play their cards close to the vest and keep emotions to themselves. Ted hadn’t told him much about the woman he was marrying but Jake could hear the emotion in his friend’s voice. The feelings were there—powerful and deep—and it wasn’t necessary for them to go through the uncomfortable ritual of talking about them.

The wedding was in a couple of days and Jake planned on heading down the mountain in the morning after he got back from checking the trailhead. While Eagle’s Eye was remote, he was never really alone. The area wasn’t without inhabitants. There was Claybe Fowler, his nearest neighbor in the Forest Service, who manned the Cedar Canyon Ranger Station located eight thousand feet below at the base of the mountain. And during Jake’s regular trips to Vega Flats, its motley crew of residents had all become his friends. Of course, during the summer months there were hikers and mountain bikers, campers and even a handful of hunters and fishermen about, and with the help of the tower’s state-of-the-art communications and computer system, he also managed to keep in touch with the outside world. He talked to Ted, his co-workers, his mom and his sister on a regular basis via his ham radio and his cell phone, when he could catch a signal. The satellite dish gave him more television channels than he could count and, of course, there was the radio and Jane—Dear Jane.

So, while isolated, he hadn’t exactly been alone the last three years. And while he didn’t relish the thought of going back to L.A., he owed it to Ted.

“Go to sleep,” he ordered himself, rolling onto his side and pulling the comforter around him close.

He let his mind drift, thinking back over the stories he’d listened to tonight on the radio. He wondered just how many of them were real and how many were made up just to get on the air.

He thought of Dear Jane’s soft purring voice. Would he make up something just to get on the air with her? Or would he need to? If he were to tell her about Valerie, about Ricky and how responsible he felt for his death, what would her advice to him be?

“I know you’re there Jane, I can hear you breathing. Oh Jane, dear Jane, it’s okay, you don’t have to say anything—you got plenty said on the radio tonight. It’s my turn now. You can listen to me for a change.

“Did you get my letter? If you read it you will know it won’t be long now. I’ll find you. I’ll find you and the—”

Her hand shook as she flipped the call button, cutting off the caller. The ringing in her ears was almost deafening and her heart beat so fast in her chest it was almost painful.

“Hey, you okay?”

“Hmm…wh-what?” She looked up into Dale’s kind, round face. “Y-yes, I’m fine. Why?”

“I don’t know, you look a little pale.” Her producer regarded her for a moment, his gaze narrowing. “That was him, wasn’t it? It was that psycho again. He used the call-in line, the son of a—”

“He just wanted to let me know he’d been listening.”

Dale reached for the telephone receiver.