Between Honor And Duty

“You tempt me, Janice.

“The way your lips curl into a smile, with your quiet confidence, your gentle way with your children. I have no right to give in to that temptation. No right at all.”

“And if I gave you that right?”

Unable to help himself, Logan touched her cheek with his fingertips. “That would be a gift I couldn’t accept no matter how much I might want to. Not now.”

“You mean because Ray hasn’t been dead long—”

“You’re vulnerable. I don’t want to take advantage of you.”

Janice exhaled a tiny sigh. “You seem to think I’ll do something rash, as if being widowed is to be let out of a bottle, sure I’ll do something foolish.”

“Would you?”

“With you? Very possibly.”

Dear Reader,

Every month Harlequin American Romance brings you four powerful men, and four admirable women who know what they want—and go all out to get it. Check out this month’s sparkling selection of love stories, which you won’t be able to resist.

First, our AMERICAN BABY promotion continues with Kara Lennox’s Baby by the Book. In this heartwarming story, a sexy bachelor comes to the rescue when a pretty single mother goes into labor. The more time he spends with mother and child, the more he finds himself wanting the role of dad….

Also available this month is Between Honor and Duty by Charlotte Maclay, the latest installment in her MEN OF STATION SIX series. Will a firefighter’s determination to care for his friend’s widow and adorable brood spark a vow to love, honor and cherish? Next, JUST FOR KIDS, Mary Anne Wilson’s miniseries continues with an office romance between The C.E.O. & the Secret Heiress. And in Born of the Bluegrass by Darlene Scalera, a woman is reunited with the man she never stopped loving—the father of her secret child.

Enjoy this month’s offerings, and be sure to return each and every month to Harlequin American Romance!

Wishing you happy reading,

Melissa Jeglinski

Associate Senior Editor

Harlequin American Romance

Between Honor and Duty

Charlotte Maclay

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Charlotte Maclay can’t resist a happy ending. That’s why she’s had such fun writing more than twenty titles for Harlequin American Romance and Harlequin Duets, plus several Silhouette Romance books, as well. Particularly well known for her volunteer efforts in her hometown of Torrance, California, Charlotte says her philosophy is that you should make a difference in your community. She and her husband have two married daughters and two grandchildren, whom they are occasionally allowed to baby-sit. She loves to hear from readers and can be reached at: P.O. Box 505, Torrance, CA 90501.

Books by Charlotte Maclay

HARLEQUIN AMERICAN ROMANCE

474—THE VILLAIN’S LADY

488—A GHOSTLY AFFAIR

503—ELUSIVE TREASURE

532—MICHAEL’S MAGIC

537—THE KIDNAPPED BRIDE

566—HOW TO MARRY A MILLIONAIRE

585—THE COWBOY & THE BELLY DANCER

620—THE BEWITCHING BACHELOR

643—WANTED: A DAD TO BRAG ABOUT

657—THE LITTLEST ANGEL

684—STEALING SAMANTHA

709—CATCHING A DADDY

728—A LITTLE BIT PREGNANT

743—THE HOG-TIED GROOM

766—DADDY’S LITTLE COWGIRL

788—DEPUTY DADDY

806—A DADDY FOR BECKY

821—THE RIGHT COWBOY’S BED*

825—IN A COWBOY’S EMBRACE*

886—BOLD AND BRAVE-HEARTED**

890—WITH VALOR AND DEVOTION**

894—BETWEEN HONOR AND DUTY**

WHO’S WHO AT FIRESTATION SIX

Logan Strong—This dedicated firefighter finds it takes more courage to follow his heart than to enter a burning building.

Janice Gainer—If she takes a second chance on love, will she betray the past?

Kevin Gainer—Since the death of his father, Janice’s nine-year-old son has become the man of the house…and he takes his job as “protector” very seriously.

Maddie Gainer—Kevin’s six-year-old sister considers her big brother to be a hero like her dad.

Harlan Gray—The dedicated fire chief will go to the wall for his men; the only thing he can’t do is escape a pursuing councilwoman.

Councilwoman Evie Anderson—Has her eye on the most eligible widower in town, Chief Gray.

Emma Jean Witowsky—The dispatcher has an uncanny way of predicting the future—especially when it comes to matters of the heart.

Tommy Tonka—An adolescent genius in all things mechanical, but he needs help from his firefighter friends when it comes to girls.

Mack Buttons—The station mascot, a five-year-old chocolate dalmatian who loves kids, people and the men of Station Six.

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

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter One

He couldn’t stay away any longer.

It had been a month since the warehouse fire that had cost Ray Gainer his life. Now Logan Strong was en route to his widow’s house in a tract of homes on the outskirts of Paseo del Real in central California. He’d never be able to tell her or her kids the truth about what had happened that day. He wasn’t going to destroy the heroic legacy Ray had left behind when death had claimed the city’s firefighter.

But Logan owed Janice Gainer something. And Ray’s kids, too. If he’d acted on his instincts that morning, Ray never would have died. Janice wouldn’t be a widow, the kids would have a father.

The truth twisted in Logan’s gut. He’d vowed to bury the knowledge of what had happened that morning six feet under the ground along with Ray’s remains. Being a firefighter meant you were part of a closed fraternity. You didn’t blow the whistle on a brother, particularly when your brother’s own stupidity had let the red devil claim his life.

Maybe, if he handled it right, Logan could help Janice’s transition from wife to widow with the least pain for all concerned. Despite what had happened, he owed Ray that much. It didn’t matter that Logan had trouble looking the men of Station Six in the eye these days, afraid he’d give the truth away.

He’d never forget that he shouldn’t have allowed Ray to go up on the warehouse roof in the first place, or forgive himself. That was his failing—not listening to his own instincts.

He parked his Mustang at the curb in front of a two-story stucco house with a Spanish tile, fire-resistant roof. Like most of the houses on the curving street, there was a three-car garage, a postage-stamp lawn and a wide entry.

In this case, there was also a woman on the porch wrestling with an oversize, metal-framed screen door.

Logan smiled to himself as he got out of the car. Janice was no shy, retiring female, but he hadn’t pictured her as a handyman, either. She did, however, look fit in a pair of shorts and a tank top, her skin a golden tan.

At mid afternoon, the late-August sun baked down on the neighborhood, drying out the lawns and softening the tar strip between the asphalt of the street and the concrete gutter. He walked up the driveway and onto the walkway to the house just as Janice swore under her breath.

“Could you use some help?” he asked mildly.

She whirled, still balancing the screen door with her shoulder. Both her smile and her surprise were genuine.

“Logan! Oh, my gosh! I didn’t hear you drive up.”

Firefighters and their families socialized frequently, although Janice wasn’t always part of the group. Logan was secretly pleased at her instant recognition and her warm smile.

He reached for the pre-fab screen door, which included hinges and a latch, and held it up. “Looks like you were otherwise occupied.”

“Tell me about it.” Using her forearm, she swiped at the sweat on her forehead. Her dark hair glistened with the same perspiration, the natural curl frizzing around her face in a sable outline that emphasized its heart shape. “I’ve been telling Ray for years we needed a screen door to let the west breeze in on hot days and to keep out the flies. He finally bought the door a year ago but he never—” She stopped abruptly, then shrugged. “I decided if I was going to get my screen door, I’d have to do it myself.”

Logan pulled the door away from her. It was fairly heavy since the bottom half was ionized metal, only the top half a screen. “I’ll do it.”

She studied him a moment, her ginger-brown eyes assessing him. He saw lines of fatigue around her eyes, a sense of being overwhelmed in their depths, and none of the sparkle that had drawn him in during their prior encounters, despite her marital status. The urge to restore her optimistic spirit rose with the speed of a flame racing up a gasoline-drenched wall, and he forced himself to remember she’d been recently widowed. And why.

Slowly, she shook her head. “I’m trying to learn to stand on my own two feet.”

“Great. Think of me as a hired hand. My price is a cool glass of lemonade or a beer, whatever you’ve got.”

Relinquishing her hold on the door, she stepped back. “I really hate it that I don’t know how to do certain chores around the house. Ray always said he’d take care of things, forget my honey-do list was about two miles long. He didn’t like the idea of me doing a man’s job.”

“So let me get this door installed and you can check off one of the honey-do’s.”

“Guess I shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”

“That’s what friends are for.” Resting the screen against the doorjamb, Logan examined the contents of the tool caddie on the porch. It looked as if Ray had amassed everything he needed. “Have you got the screws?”

“Oh, yes.” Janice pulled a packet of screws from her back pocket and handed it to Logan. He was a quiet, serious man, one of her favorite people to talk with at firefighter get-togethers. A gentle spirit in a powerful body, she’d always thought.

Today he was wearing faded beige Dockers and a cotton sport shirt that tugged across his wide shoulders and tucked in at a narrow waist. His sandy-brown hair was trimmed to a medium length and combed back, lying neatly on his well-shaped head. Unlike some of the firefighters Janice knew, Logan always looked pulled together, even on his days off.

She’d often wondered why such a tall, good-looking firefighter wasn’t married, but she’d never thought it was her business to ask. Certainly Ray wouldn’t have been pleased if she’d expressed any particular interest in another man.

She watched as Logan measured where the hinges would go and marked the screw holes with a pencil. He appeared comfortable in the role of carpenter, going about the task with a minimum of wasted effort. She’d always thought of him as unflappable, both personally and on the job. A good firefighter.

“So how’s it going?” he asked as he picked up a drill and slid in a bit, tightening it in place.

“Some days are better than others.” The first week after Ray’s death had been a total blur, her children distraught, relatives coming in from out of town, neighbors helping out, firefighters and their wives trying to lend a hand.

She still felt numb, not so much with grief, although that was part of it, but with the frightening array of decisions she’d had to make. Ray hadn’t been real good about keeping her in the loop.

“My biggest problem right now is getting the insurance money. Chief Gray says the state is always slow. Since Ray was only in the department six years, what little pension I get barely covers the grocery bill.”

Lowering the drill, Logan looked at her, his gaze both sympathetic and intense. His eyes were hazel with touches of green and gold, she mused, realizing this was the first time she’d noticed that detail.

“There’s a widows’ and orphans’ fund that can help out in an emergency.”

“We’ll be all right. I filed the papers a couple of weeks ago for the life insurance we’ve been paying for since Kevin was born. I had to wait for copies of the, ah—” she stumbled over the word and swallowed hard, still unable to totally accept the fact that Ray was dead “—death certificate before I could do that.”

To her amazement, he tenderly cupped her face with his hand, using his thumb to wipe away a tear she hadn’t known she’d shed. His gentleness nearly undid her. She was striving so hard to survive on her own, she didn’t dare let herself fall apart. She might never be able to pull herself together again.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured, a lump of determination lodging in her throat. “I didn’t use to spring leaks like that at the drop of a hat.”

“You were very brave at the funeral. Ray would have been proud of you.”

“You think so?”

“Yeah. I know I thought you were pretty terrific. The kids, too.”

She closed her hand around his wrist, holding on for a moment as though she could draw from his inner strength. “If I never hear bagpipes playing a funeral dirge again, it’ll be just fine with me.”

One side of his mouth lifted in a wry smile. “Someday I’ll play a Scottish jig for you on the pipes. That will lift your spirits.”

“You play that awful, squealing instrument?” she gasped.

He laughed out loud, a deep baritone that rumbled through his chest. “In my family, criticizing pipe playing is sacrilegious. My brother Derek and I are fourth-generation firefighters and about tenth-generation pipers. But I admit it’s probably an acquired taste.”

“I’ll agree with that.” She found herself smiling back at him, her first real smile in, well, a month. Having Logan around was like a dose of chin-up medicine. “I’ll go stir up some lemonade. The kids are down the block swimming in a neighbor’s pool, but they’ll be back soon and probably ready for something cool to drink.”

“Then I’d better get busy so I can earn my keep.”

Logan waited until she’d gone into the house, then slowly exhaled. What the hell had made him touch her? Her skin was so damn soft, so warm. He’d known it would be, which is why he shouldn’t have come within arm’s reach of Janice, the widow of a man whose life he might have saved if he’d acted more wisely.

His hand shook as he lifted the drill and drove the bit into the doorjamb. Wood shavings curled back around the quarter-inch hole. Thank goodness his pants were loose enough that the telltale bulge behind his zipper hadn’t been obvious. Talk about lousy timing. He didn’t dare let his feelings for Janice get out of hand. Right now, what she needed was a friend, not some lust-crazed firefighter with an overactive libido.

Within minutes, Janice reappeared, carrying a tray with a pitcher of lemonade and four plastic cups.

“My gracious! You’ve already got the door hung.”

He opened the door for her so she could carry the tray outside. “It wasn’t that hard. I’ve still got to hook up the spring, though, so the door will close by itself, and then install the latch plate.”

“You’re a miracle worker, Logan. That door’s been gathering dust in the garage ever since I coerced Ray into buying it.”

“Half the battle is getting started on a project. The rest is easy.”

Setting the tray on the top step, she poured a glass of lemonade and handed it to Logan. Ice cubes rattled as he took a big swallow.

“In Ray’s defense, he was working awfully hard on his second job. It took most of his free time, but he wanted to build up our nest egg for the kids’ college money. You know how expensive an education can be these days.”

Logan’s eyebrows lifted. “His second job?”

“You know, the sales thing he was doing. He had to do a lot of travelling.”

That was news to Logan. Except that…on the morning of the fatal fire, Ray had arrived at the station late, not for the first time in recent memory. He’d been hungover and had complained about lack of sleep plus a long drive from Las Vegas back to Paseo. Grousing around, he’d been in no shape to fight a wastebasket fire, much less a three-alarm blaze in an abandoned warehouse.

“I don’t think Ray mentioned his job to me,” Logan admitted. “He probably told the other guys, though.”

She poured herself some lemonade. “I don’t know. You fellows seem to spend all your time talking about your heroic deeds with a fire hose, like you’re trying to impress each other.”

“It’s called one up-manship. An old tradition among firefighters.”

“It goes along with playing bagpipes, I assume.”

“Only a guy who’s really tough can get away with wearing a kilt.”

Her smile reached her eyes, making them glisten with good humor. “You gotta be tough and have great legs.”

“I have it on good authority my knees are knobby.”

Her gaze skimmed down his legs, and to his amazement, Logan felt the heat of a blush creep up his neck.

“I don’t think so,” she said softly. “It seems to me at department picnics, the wives have rated your legs right up there with the best of ’em.”

“Terrific,” he groaned as the heat reached his cheeks. “I always wondered what you women were giggling about when we men were giving it our all on the baseball diamond.”

“Now you know.”

He already knew more than he wanted to—that Janice had a great sense of humor and that he was more attracted to her than he cared to admit, even to himself. While she was married, he hadn’t had any trouble keeping his distance. He ought to feel the same way about a newly widowed woman—she was off limits. But he was having trouble remembering that.

Fortunately, the arrival of the mail carrier saved him from making a fool of himself.

“Afternoon, Ms. Gainer. Another load of junk mail for your recycling pile.” The young black woman, wearing navy-blue uniform shorts and a light blue shirt, handed over a thick fold of mail. “Hope you all are doing okay these days.”

“We’re fine, Alice. Thanks for asking.”

“I’ve been praying for you and your children. Your husband was a hero, Ms. Gainer. The whole town says so. It’s an honor to know you.”

Nodding, Janice looked embarrassed by the young woman’s praise. She glanced down and began to sort through the mail as the carrier went striding back down the walkway.

“You okay?” Logan asked.

She shrugged. “Sometimes it’s hardest when people…she meant well enough, but a dead hero isn’t what I had in mind for a husband.”

Logan understood that. Worse, he was the one person who knew Ray hadn’t been a hero that day. He’d been an arrogant, hard-headed fool who hadn’t listened to Logan’s warning that the roof was about to collapse.

She lifted an envelope from the pile and ripped it open. “At last, the insurance company. This has got to be the check.” Unfolding a white sheet of stationery, she read it over, then sat down heavily on the top step of the porch. “This can’t be right,” she murmured. The color had fled her cheeks, and her trembling hand caused the letter to flutter. “It can’t be.”

Logan squatted down beside her. “What is it?”

“They say—” she shook her head “—they’re claiming the insurance policy lapsed more than a year ago because of lack of payment. But Ray—” She looked up at Logan with disbelief in her eyes. “Ray knew how important that money would be if something happened to him. I was supposed to pay off the mortgage with it. The children, me, that was our protection. Then the death benefit from the state would see us through for several years, till I could get a decent job. We’d talked about it. He knew we’d need the house paid off.”

Logan slipped the letter from her hand and read it quickly. “Maybe it’s a mistake. If you can find the canceled check, they’ll have to pay you the benefits. This is a reputable company. They’ll meet their obligations.”

“But what if Ray didn’t make the payments? What if he forgot? What will I do?” Her expression shifted, disbelief replaced by fear, deepening her eyes to a dark brown and sheening them with tears. “What in heaven’s name will I do? I’ve already got bills to pay. The funeral home. The fee for the plot. Dear God—”

“You’re not going to panic, that’s the first thing.” He rested his hand on her shoulder, stroking lightly. The funeral service had been huge, with every member of Paseo del Real’s fire department present while neighboring towns had covered in case an emergency occurred. Representatives from half the fire departments in the state and many from across the country had shown up. Police had been out in full force, so had many members of the community. Through it all, Janice had been a chin-up trouper. Her kids, too, considering their ages. Now she was falling apart. Logan was glad he was here to catch some of the pieces. “Then you’re going to go through your bank records. Chances are good you’ll find this is all a mistake. Meanwhile, the emergency fund will tide you over with whatever you and the kids need in order to get by.”

Her body shuddered beneath his hand. Vulnerable. Needing support. He tried not to think about how much he’d like to be the one she needed. Knowing what he did, he couldn’t be that man. Not for the long haul.

“I’ve been trying to sort through the records, but it’s like a maze. He had a half-dozen checking accounts. Some of them are closed, the others don’t show any balance at all. And I had no idea how many credit cards we had. It’s as though someone was handing them out like candy, and Ray accepted every offer that came his way.”

“Look, I don’t mean to butt in, but if you want me to, I’ll help you check through the records. Maybe together we can straighten this out.” Although he had the niggling feeling that whatever they found out wouldn’t be good news for Janice. Closed accounts and too many credit cards were a bad sign.

“I’ve been such a fool.” Her voice caught. “On all those talk shows, they warn you that a wife ought to know what’s going on financially. But Ray didn’t—” She fingered a grocery store flyer that had been delivered with the letter. “He didn’t think I was the smartest fish in the pond. He said he’d take care of everything.”

Resisting the urge to bunch his hands into fists, Logan wrapped his arm around her. Her hair smelled of a floral scent, like wild blossoms on a spring hillside. Fresh and invigorating. Elemental. So feminine it made him ache for her.

Damn it! She deserved better than to have been kept in the dark about the family finances. She deserved more than to be told she was dumb. She deserved somebody who would value her as the incredible woman that she was.

“Don’t throw in the towel yet, Jan. There’s still the state benefits, and the city provides something.”

She inhaled a shuddering breath. “I know. It’s just that—”

From across the street, two children came running, Janice’s son Kevin in the lead with five-year-old Maddie bringing up the rear.