The Morning-After Proposal

The

Morning-

After

Proposal

Sheri Whitefeather

MILLS & BOON

Before you start reading, why not sign up?

Thank you for downloading this Mills & Boon book. If you want to hear about exclusive discounts, special offers and competitions, sign up to our email newsletter today!

SIGN ME UP!

Or simply visit

signup.millsandboon.co.uk

Mills & Boon emails are completely free to receive and you can unsubscribe at any time via the link in any email we send you.

To Diana Ventimiglia, my editor’s assistant.

Sometimes Diana seems like my assistant, too.

She helped me with the production schedule on this

series, one hectic day after the other. Thanks, Diana.

Contents

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

One

Dylan Trueno had finally found her. And he wasn’t letting her go.

Not this time.

Determined to make his point, he stared straight into her eyes, making her catch a stunned breath.

Instant recognition, he thought. The reoccurrence of a time-bomb attraction.

They stood face to face in the doorway of a cozy old house on the Rocking Horse Refuge. Dylan had been searching for her for eight months, and today he’d hit pay dirt.

He moved a little closer, and she took a step back. Just seconds ago, she’d answered the door to find him standing there, flinching at the sight of him.

She didn’t say anything and neither did he. He kept staring at her, piercing her with his gaze. She wore a floral-printed blouse and slim-fitting jeans with a frayed hemline. Her face was devoid of makeup and her jewelry consisted of a simple gold cross.

He thought she looked much too lean, as if she’d lost weight since the last time he’d seen her, as if she’d been to hell and back.

But he knew she had.

Trapped, she glanced away and fidgeted with the ends of her hair. It was blonde now, but she was still the same girl who’d purposely disappeared.

“Julia,” he finally said.

“My name is Janie Johnson,” she replied, using her alias, pretending to be someone else. “But my boss calls me JJ.”

Dylan assumed she worked for the old man who owned the refuge. “I spoke with Henry on the phone, and he’s expecting me.”

“He told me we were having company. A famous horse trainer. But I didn’t even think—”

“That it would be me?” He wanted to reach out, to hold her, to lift her into his arms like he’d done before. But he kept his hands to himself. “This isn’t a coincidence. I came here looking for you.”

“You’re mistaken. I’m not Julia.”

“Yes, you are. We both know you are.”

Silence stretched between them, and Dylan cursed beneath his breath. Finding her had become his relentless pursuit. And now that he’d located her, she denied being Julia.

Her stubbornness struck a frustrated chord. She wasn’t supposed to mess with his emotions. She wasn’t supposed to twist him out of shape, to contort every gut-clenching part of his life.

But she did.

Because he wanted her. He didn’t care if they were practically strangers. That wasn’t an issue for him. They’d shared a moment in time that went beyond logic.

The day they’d met, he thought. The day she’d cried in his arms. The day she’d almost kissed him.

“Why is Henry expecting you?” she asked suddenly.

“To discuss the fundraiser you’re having.”

“You lied to him? You offered to get involved?”

“I needed an excuse to look for you, to see if you were here. Would you have preferred that I told him the truth? Besides, you’re lying to him, too.” He challenged her, baiting her to admit who she was.

She did, in a disturbing way. “Henry knows me as JJ, and that’s who I want to be.”

“It’s too late for that.”

“Not if you go away.” She fussed with her hair again, making the ends flutter, like wheat in the wind. “Not if you leave.”

“I can’t do that.” He intended to take her home.

But first he had to tell her about her mother, to be the bearer of pain-packed news, something he would always despise himself for. “Come outside with me. I have to talk to you.”

Just then, a graveled voice sounded in the background. “JJ, is that our guest?”

She paused, got a panicked look in her eyes. Like a doe caught in the sites of a rifle, she went anxiety-ridden still, imploring Dylan to protect her identity.

For now, he agreed. “We’ll talk later.” The last thing he wanted was for her to get the urge to bolt, to run away.

She nodded, and within seconds, Henry appeared. He was a kind, crusty cowboy, with a bent body and a craggy-lined face.

He greeted Dylan, shaking his hand a bit too vigorously. The old man seemed excited to meet him. Of course Dylan had acquired a level of fame. He traveled extensively in his line of work, and western riders from all over the country paid top dollar to attend his clinics and demonstrations.

Henry invited him inside, escorting him to a small, homespun parlor. Dylan took the chair closest to Julia and focused his attention on her, determined to stay by her side.

To not lose her again.

JJ’s mind whirred like a tornado. Could she do this? Could she sit across from Dylan and pretend that he didn’t affect her?

He looked exactly the way she remembered him. He was dressed in a denim jacket, Wrangler jeans and a silver-and-turquoise belt buckle that glimmered at his waist. He wore his rain-straight onyx-colored hair to his shoulders, and a western hat rested on his head.

A cowboy, she thought. An Indian. A man who’d invaded her dreams. A man she’d clung to a little too deeply.

He lifted the brim of his hat, revealing an even deeper, more intense expression.

A connection to Julia. To the woman she used to be.

“JJ is my Girl Friday,” Henry said, interrupting her thoughts. “She’s my part-time housekeeper, personal assistant and events planner. She helps with the horses, too.”

“I’m impressed,” Dylan responded.

“Thank you.” JJ fought to keep her voice steady, to fake her way through this.

Dylan held her gaze, and the next bout of silence was deafening.

Like a chemistry project that was about to explode.

JJ released a shaky breath, and Henry became aware of the tension. He watched her and Dylan, closely, scooting to the edge of the sofa.

Not that Henry was clueless. He’d agreed to pay her wages in cash, suspecting that she was running from her past, even if he never probed her about it. JJ wasn’t the only drifter at the Rocking Horse Refuge. Henry didn’t just take in abused and abandoned horses. He catered to troubled people, as well, letting his employees keep their secrets.

Until now.

Henry kept watching them, and JJ counted the seconds in her mind. One. Two. Three. Henry wouldn’t remain quiet for long.

“What’s going on?” he blurted. “Are you two sweet on each other? Did you know each other before?”

Dylan glanced at JJ, and her heart trembled. Henry thought she and Dylan were former lovers. That he was the reason she’d run away.

The famous horse trainer kept silent, neither affirming nor denying the romantic allegation.

Nervous, she turned to her boss. She wasn’t about to admit that on the day Dylan had swept her into his arms, on the day he’d rescued her from a kidnapping, she’d almost kissed him, almost let the tenderness erupt into passion.

“This isn’t what you think, Henry.” She paused and chewed her bottom lip, tasting the waxy balm she wore.

“You sure about that?” he queried.

“Yes.”

The old man frowned, furrowing his thin gray brows. He wasn’t buying it. But neither was she. She remembered everything about Dylan: the breadth of his shoulders, the silkiness of his hair, the scent of hay and horses mingling with the faded note of his aftershave.

Dylan finally spoke. “It’s time to talk,” he told JJ. And to Henry, he added, “I’d like to be alone with her. It’s important.”

Her boss kept frowning. “I can see that it is.”

JJ gave into the inevitable, agreeing to have a private conversation with Dylan. As she headed for the front door, Henry sent her a reassuring nod. He would be waiting.

Dylan followed her, and their footsteps echoed on wooden planks. The weather-beaten porch wrapped around the house like a rugged embrace. The Rocking Horse Refuge was located at the foot of a mountainous Nevada region, a place with grassy valleys and forested slopes. In the distance, the highest peak whitened the horizon with snow.

She glanced at the graveled driveway and foliage-draped yard. A snakelike chill coiled in the breeze, creating leaf-laden dust devils.

Dylan removed his jacket and handed it to her. “You forgot your coat.”

She accepted his jacket, wishing that she didn’t long to feel the roughhewn fabric against her skin, to inhale his scent.

“I’ve been searching for you since you ran away. My brother and my cousin are P.I.s, and I hired them to investigate your case and consult with the FBI. I know all about your phony ID.” He watched her slip her arms into the denim sleeves. “But you don’t have to keep hiding, to keep pretending to be JJ.”

“Why? Because you found me?”

“Because the loan sharks who kidnapped you won’t be able to hurt you again. They’ve been caught.” His tone turned even more serious. “There was a hit man who was arrested, too.”

Her knees nearly buckled. “What are you talking about? I was kidnapped to scare my mom into paying her gambling debt.”

“I know. But after you and your mom took off, they put a contract on both of you.”

Oh, God. She reached back, feeling for a chair, for a place to sit. Once she found it, she lowered herself onto the rickety wood. “Mom and I had a fight. We parted ways two months ago.” She searched Dylan’s gaze and saw an uneasy condolence in his eyes. “My mother is dead, isn’t she?”

He sat next to her, taking an equally rickety chair. It creaked from his weight. “Yes, Miriam is gone. I’m so sorry, Julia.”

Dizzy, confused, lost in sudden grief, she corrected him. “JJ. I’m still JJ.”

“Not to me.”

“I’m no one to you, Dylan. We met by accident.”

His voice turned rough. “I buried your mother. I had a service for her.”

Guilt assaulted her hard and fast, and she hugged his jacket, pulling it tighter around her body. “I shouldn’t have argued with Mom. I shouldn’t have left her.” She rocked in her chair, feeling sick inside. “Was she shot? Is that how she died?”

“Yes.”

The sickness remained. “Thank you for taking responsibility for her. You weren’t obligated to do that.”

“I convinced the FBI that I was. That Miriam needed me.”

Because there was no one else, she thought. Besides JJ, her mother didn’t have any family.

She didn’t want to picture the woman who’d raised her being struck by a bullet, but the crimson-stained image presented itself, ripping into her mind, tearing at her conscience. “Where did you bury her?”

He shifted his feet, and his boots made a scraping sound. “Arizona.”

“Where you live. Where I used to live.” She caught a glimpse of untamed emotion in his eyes, and the look made him seem dangerous.

She didn’t understand why he affected her that way. He’d done nothing wrong. On the contrary, he’d done everything right. He’d rescued her from a kidnapping; he’d given her wayward mother a resting place.

Then why did his soul seem so dark? Why did his eyes betray him?

“Come home with me, Julia.”

“JJ.” Unable to control her reaction, she snapped at him.

“Julia.” He snapped at her, too.

And then they stared at each other, a hard-edged, pulse-hammering, uncomfortably possessive moment passing between them.

This man, the handsome cowboy who’d done everything right, wanted to steal the identity she’d created. To force Julia to bury JJ—the way he’d buried her mother.

“Come home with me,” he said again.

She shook her head, imagined herself in his arms. “No.”

“You need to visit Miriam,” he pressed. “To say goodbye to her.”

Heaven help her. She didn’t want to return to Arizona, to kneel beside Dylan at her mother’s gravesite. To trace the headstone he’d chosen. To let him see her cry.

She’d already cried on the day he’d rescued her from the mess her mother had gotten her into. She’d already wept in his arms when he’d carried her out of that dirty, dingy trailer and into the desert sun.

How much more reliant on him could she be? And how much more pain could she bear from her mother’s passing? From being safe at the Rocking Horse Refuge while her only parent lay dying?

“I loved my mom,” she said. “But things were never right with us. Not even when I was a little girl.”

“I know.”

“Yes, of course you do.” She frowned, realizing she was still wrapped in his jacket, in the scratchy warmth he’d provided. “You hired P.I.s to investigate me. You uncovered my secrets.”

“Maybe,” he said. “Or maybe I just touched the surface.”

No, she thought. He’d touched more than that. So much more. She removed his jacket and handed it to him. “I need to talk to Henry. To tell him what’s going on.”

“That’s fine.” The wind whipped Dylan’s hair, blowing a loose strand across his face, creating a dark slash against granite-cut cheekbones. “But I’m not leaving this refuge without you.”

When she walked to the front door and turned to look back at him, he looked directly at her, too.

Like a warrior who’d just raided a woman’s heart.

JJ went inside and approached Henry. She knew the parlor, with its cherry wood curio cabinet and doily-covered end tables, was his favorite room in the house. But only because his wife had crocheted the doilies and had packed the curio with things that were special to her, including a faded photograph from their wedding day.

JJ glanced at the picture and tears sprung to her eyes. She didn’t have any photographs of her mother. They’d run off in the middle of the night, leaving nearly everything behind. No keepsake items. No tangible memories.

“What happened?” Henry asked, when he saw her expression. “What did that boy say to you?”

“He told me that my mother was murdered.” She gripped the edge of the sofa. “But he told me that he buried her, too.”

Henry came forward and gave her a gruff yet tender hug. “I’m so sorry about your mama.”

“Me, too.” She knew the old cowboy understood grief. He’d been rattling around without his wife for the past five years. She gulped some air into her lungs and stepped back, afraid she would cry and not be able to stop. “I don’t know what to say. How to explain all of this.”

“Just start from the beginning, honey. Tell me who you are, and who Dylan is to you.”

“My real name is Julia Joyce Alcott, and eight months ago Dylan rescued me from a kidnapping. He stumbled upon me by accident. Afterward, my mother and I left town, and Dylan started searching for us because he learned there was a hit man on our trail.”

She kept talking, repeating everything Dylan had told her. Summoning personal details, she admitted that her mother was a compulsive gambler who’d borrowed an excessive amount of money from loan sharks and couldn’t pay it back. “I didn’t know who the kidnappers were until my mother told me what kind of trouble she was in. Then she begged me not to say anything. She said they would come after me again if we gave them up. But if we ran away, if we got new identities, we would be free. But once we were on the run, she started gambling again.”

“So you and your mama had a falling out?” Henry asked, filling in the blanks.

“Yes. And that’s how I ended up here and she ended up dead.”

“That hit man could have gotten you, too.” The old man shivered. “But you’re safe now, JJ. And you’ll always have a home here. You’ll always be part of the refuge, even if we’re struggling to make ends meet.”

She glanced at a blue and white doily, where the pattern frilled into a scalloped edge. “Thank you, Henry.”

They sat in silence for a moment. They both knew the refuge gave him purpose. He’d always been a cowboy, breeding cutting horses, but he’d started saving abused and abandoned animals after he’d lost his wife.

“So are you and Dylan sweet on each other?” he asked suddenly.

She shook her head, keeping her feelings, the heat Dylan evoked, to herself. “He keeps calling me Julia.”

“’Cause that’s the name he knows you by. Do you want me to call you Julia, too?”

“No. I want to be JJ.”

“It still fits, you know. Didn’t you say you’re real name was Julia Joyce?” He sent her a small smile. “You can still be JJ.”

She smiled, too. “Dylan wants me to go to Arizona with him to visit my mother’s grave.” Her smile fell. “But I don’t know if I can.”

“You have to, honey. You’ll suffer inside if you don’t make peace with her.”

“But it’s over now.”

“No, it isn’t. You haven’t even begun to mourn. You’re still in shock, still trying to wrap your mind around all of this. When it hits you, it’s gonna tear you apart. And if you don’t say a proper goodbye to your mama, it’ll only get worse.”

“Is that what happened to you when your wife died?”

He nodded. “I was angry at her passing on and leaving me alone. So for a while, I avoided saying goodbye. But that didn’t do anything but mess me up even more.”

JJ protested, defending her jumbled emotions. “I’m not angry at my mom for dying.”

“No, but you’re mad about the hell she put you through. And for that, you need to forgive her. So let Dylan take you back to Arizona to see her grave. Let him help you through this.”

She fidgeted, folding her hands, unfolding them. “He told me that he wasn’t leaving this place without me.”

“He seems like a good one, honey. Someone you can count on.”

Yes, she thought. But Dylan’s valor didn’t ease her mind. Because she feared that by going home with him, she was being kidnapped all over again.

And this time the man who’d rescued her, the man who’d carried her to safety, was her captor.

Two

Dylan waited for Julia to return to the porch, frowning at the landscape, thinking about the uncharacteristic way in which she consumed him.

He’d never been a possessive man, not until he’d stumbled upon her, bound and gagged with barbed wire cuts stinging her skin. Not until he’d freed her from her bonds and she’d reached for him, needing him like no one had ever needed him before.

Dylan would always remember the way she’d grazed his cheek, the way she’d moved her mouth closer to his, the way she’d almost kissed him.

Soft, he thought. Sweetly sensual.

He refused to feel guilty for wanting her, for being affected by her touch. He had something else to feel guilty about, something that was ripping a grenade-size hole in his chest.

Her mother’s murder.

Dylan hadn’t fired the gun, but he’d done something that had triggered the hit. He’d killed Miriam just the same.

But he couldn’t tell Julia. Not now. Not this soon. The truth wouldn’t bring Miriam back. It would only destroy what he intended to salvage with her daughter. The harshly tender, perilously intense connection.

He’d been living with the twisted need to protect Julia, to become part of her, even before her mother had died.

When the screen door creaked, his pulse jerked. Julia came outside and he stood up to look at her.

She inched forward. She’d put on a suede coat, but she still looked chilled.

And vulnerable.

The roots of her hair were coming in dark, defying the bleach she’d used. He knew she was an outdoorsy girl, but today she seemed lost, the power of the earth, of the trees, of the snow-capped mountains nearly swallowing her whole.

“Henry told me that I should go to Arizona with you,” she said. “So I’m going.”

Would he be able to purge his sin by taking Julia to her mother’s grave? Would kneeing beside her in the aftermath of murder free him? “I’m glad Henry sees things my way.”

“I have a feeling people always see things your way.”

He frowned. “You don’t.”

“I never expected to run into you again. And certainly not like this.” She slipped her hands into her pockets, burrowing into the lining of her coat.

He held her gaze. “So you tried to forget about me?”

“I tried to forget everything that happened.”

“But you couldn’t, could you, Julia?”

“No. Not completely. And please stop calling me that. I’m JJ, whether you like it or not.”

He didn’t like it, not one bit. She was pulling away from him already, not giving him a chance. “You’re attracted to me,” he said, refusing to let her deny the heat between them. “The way I’m into you.”

Rattled, she glanced away, fighting whatever she was feeling. He could see the struggle.

“You saved me from a dangerous situation,” she said, her voice cracking a little. “We both got caught up in that.”

He had another theory. “If we’d met under different circumstances, we’d still be attracted to each other. It would still be there.”

“Like some sort of cosmic energy?” She shook her head. “I don’t believe in fate. I think people create their own destiny.”

Dylan wanted to disagree, but he couldn’t. He’d gotten her mother killed. He’d created a tragedy that shouldn’t have happened.

“We should try to get a plane out of here tomorrow,” he said, changing the subject. “I’ll book the flight.”

She took a step back. “Why do we have to leave so soon?”

“What point is there in waiting? We both need to face this.”

“Both?” She made a curious expression. “What do you need to face?”

He fought the guilt. “Nothing.”

“Where am I supposed to stay when I’m in Arizona?” she asked.

“I have a guest room at my house. You can stay there.”

She wet her lips, as though her mouth had gone dry. “I keep telling myself that I’m supposed to trust you. That there’s nothing to worry about.”

“I would never hurt you.” He thought about Miriam’s murder and felt his lungs constrict. “Not purposely.”

“I know.” She inhaled a deep breath, her chest rising and falling. Then she shivered, rubbing her arms, even though they were covered in suede. “You let me cry in your arms.”

“We should go inside,” he said, the twisted need to protect her coming back. “You should get warmed up.”

She didn’t respond. He didn’t speak again, either.

He opened the screen door for her, and they entered the house.

Their silence bedeviling the air.

JJ fixed lunch. After being alone with Dylan, she needed something to do, something to keep her mind off of their intimate conversation.

While French onion soup simmered, she set the table, an old chrome and Formica booth that Henry and his wife had purchased from a bankrupt diner and reupholstered in a pretty fabric.

As she reached for the everyday china, white with tiny blue flowers, she thought about Henry’s widow. Her name was Lois and her recipe box was still on the counter. JJ used it regularly. In some odd way she felt closer to Lois, a woman she’d never even met, than she did her own mother. The thought made her teary-eyed. At this point, she would do anything to have her mom back, to start their relationship over.