The Favor

“Would you like me to go deeper?”

“Yes.” She could almost feel the pressure of his fingers—right where tension was coiled tightest at the center of her body. She wanted—no, she needed—to be touched right there, at the farthest point.

“I’m going deeper, Sierra.”

Ryder’s voice was so low, and in response to the words every muscle in her body strained toward the climax, which built and built until the release shot through her in one long, widening wave of pleasure that went on and on.

Reality trickled back in bits and pieces. Her breath was coming in short gasps, and she was still standing, thanks to the solid door at her back. She felt…weak, but…wonderful.

Then Sierra became aware of her surroundings. She was standing in the doorway of a shop in the middle of Georgetown and she’d just…

“Sierra?”

She’d just…he’d just… Some of the heat in her body flooded her cheeks. My God, she’d just had phone sex! And it was the best sex she’d ever had….

Dear Reader,

I love to write stories about strong women who find the courage to take risks. And creating the RISKING IT ALL miniseries for Harlequin Blaze has allowed me to do just that—three times.

Psychologist Sierra Gibbs, the youngest of triplet sisters, has lived all of her life on the sidelines. Up until now, romance and adventure were things she experienced only vicariously in books and films. As for great sex—well, so far she’s been researching that instead of getting any.

However, all that is about to change! Sierra is about to change. Inspired by her own curiosity and her sisters’ recent experiences, she’s determined to break out of the cocoon of academic life and embark on a sexual adventure of her own. How hard can it be? Using the same technique that has earned her two Ph.D.s, Sierra makes a list—a five-step plan to initiate a sexual adventure with a man.

But before she can even implement step one, she runs into a sexy, rugged stranger in a bar who kisses her senseless. Then she shocks herself by kissing him right back. Even more shocking, she’s tempted to toss out her list and cut straight to step five! That isn’t like her at all.

Can one kiss have the power to change a person? Sierra’s pretty sure that kind of transformation happens only in fairy tales. Still…the only way to really find out would be to kiss that stranger again…and again.

I hope you get a kick out of reading Sierra and Ryder’s story—and that you’ll want to read Natalie’s story (The Proposition—May) and Rory’s story (The Dare—June). For excerpts from these stories, contests and news of upcoming books, be sure to visit my Web site, www.carasummers.com.

Happy reading,

Cara Summers

The Favor

Cara Summers

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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To my editor Brenda Chin.

This is the seventeenth book we’ve worked on together.

You make me a better writer. Thanks for everything!

To my sister Janet. I can’t imagine my life without you.

And to sisters everywhere.

Contents

Prologue

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 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Epilogue

Prologue

Summer 1999

STEALING THE O’Malley necklace was going to be a challenge that would require all of the skills Harry Gibbs had honed to perfection over a long and successful career. The way Harry saw it, the risk itself was almost more important than whether or not he’d pull off the heist of what many in Ireland believed to be a national treasure.

Harry had done extensive research on both the family and Arden Castle, their ancestral home. The O’Malleys claimed they could trace their roots back to the Celts. The castle didn’t date back quite that far, but it was built like a fortress with high stone walls on three sides and a drop to the sea on the fourth. Harry planned to gain access by climbing up that cliff. He smiled at the thought.

When his horse shifted nervously beneath him, Harry lowered his binoculars and patted the animal’s neck, “Easy, Dracula.”

“That’s a nice horse.”

Startled, Harry turned to see a young woman with the greenest eyes he’d ever seen studying him through large, wire-framed glasses. She was slim, with a boyish build, and her long, straight hair was the rich shade of red that had been captured in all of the portraits Harry had found of the O’Malleys. He guessed her age at fourteen or fifteen, which meant she was probably Bridget, the youngest daughter of the current residents of the castle. And she’d sneaked up on him like a master thief. He couldn’t help but admire her for it.

“Dracula is a very nice horse,” Harry agreed with a smile. “Do you ride?”

The hand that she’d raised to pat the horse dropped without making contact. “No. I have asthma. I’m not even supposed to be out here on the hill. Too many allergens in the air.”

“Ah.” Harry nodded in understanding. “You’ve gone AWOL.”

“Yes.” She sent him the barest hint of a smile. “I do it quite a bit. You’re not supposed to be here, you know. The land is posted.”

Harry had thought that they’d get to that sooner or later. The sharpness and directness of the girl’s gaze reminded him a bit of his youngest daughter’s. Of course, Sierra was taller and her hair was Alice-in-Wonderland blond, but Sierra too had suffered from asthma, and her approach to life was as serious as this young woman’s seemed to be.

He tried his most charming smile. “I’m Harry Gibbs.”

She studied him for a moment and then moved closer to take his outstretched hand. “Bridget O’Malley.”

Harry lifted his brows. “One of the owners. I hope you aren’t going to report me to the authorities. There was a fence a ways back. Dracula and I were both irresistibly tempted.”

She met his gaze steadily. “I won’t tell. If I did, I’d have to admit I was here, wouldn’t I?” The small smile appeared again. “And if I could ride, I probably would have done the same.”

Harry tapped one finger to his riding hat. “Thank you, Bridget O’Malley. It’s been a pleasure meeting you.”

Her smile blossomed slowly, beautifully. “One favor.”

“Name it.”

“When you take that fence this time, think of me.”

“That I will.”

HARRY WAS still thinking of Bridget O’Malley that evening. He told himself that she’d stayed in his mind because she’d reminded him so forcibly of Sierra, and his youngest daughter had been weighing on his mind lately. He raised his snifter of cognac and took a sip, staring into the flames of the fire that he’d built. The cottage outside of Dublin was one of three places he kept, but it was the one he thought Sierra would like the most.

She was the youngest of his triplet daughters and the one he worried about the most. Spread around him on the floor were his plans for the O’Malley heist. To his right were the architect’s drawings of the latest renovations to the castle. They revealed the exact location of the safe. To his left were photos and sketches of the wall he’d have to scale, and in front of him was the plan, with the steps neatly listed on blue note cards. Since he suffered from color blindness, he’d always used blue so that his plan would stand out from the other papers.

The cards made him think of Sierra too. As a child, she’d imitated his habit of jotting things down on blue cards, and as he thought of her, his heart twisted a little. Each of his daughters had inherited something from him. Natalie, the oldest of the triplets, had inherited his gift for opening safes and his talent for disguise. Rory, his middle daughter, had inherited his love of risk-taking—for better or for worse. And Sierra—well, his wife claimed she’d inherited her father’s curiosity and analytical brain, and Sierra had definitely inherited his love of making lists.

Harry took another sip of his cognac. Lately, he’d been missing his family more and more, and he’d been feeling an urgent need to talk to them. But contacting them in any way would violate the promise he’d made to his wife, Amanda.

The girls had been ten when he and Amanda had separated. She’d wanted a normal life for the girls, and he’d agreed. When they’d been born, he’d retired from his profession and tried his best to provide his family with as normal a life as possible in the suburbs of DC. But it hadn’t worked out. He’d missed the risks, the adventure, the thrill of pulling off the perfect heist.

His wife had refused to go back to that life. The girls already idolized him, and she didn’t want them following in his footsteps. Neither did he. So they’d agreed that he wouldn’t contact them in any way until their twenty-sixth birthdays.

They were twenty now, and Harry was beginning to think that he wouldn’t be able to wait six more years. That was why he’d decided to write to them. He’d already written to Natalie and Rory. His attorney would deliver the letters to them if he couldn’t be there himself.

He glanced over at the photos he’d taken of the wall he’d have to scale to gain access to the O’Malley castle. Could be he wouldn’t have six more years. One misstep while climbing that wall would end his life.

Of course, that was part of what had drawn him to the caper—the risk. Natalie and Rory would understand that, but he wasn’t sure that Sierra would. Of his three daughters, he figured she was the one who would judge him the most harshly for the decision he’d made to leave them behind. That was why he’d put off writing her letter.

Rising, he took his cognac with him to the desk where he kept his collection of photos. Earlier, he’d taken out his three favorites of Sierra. Although she’d been unaware of his presence, he’d taken them himself. His promise not to contact his daughters in any way hadn’t prevented him from secretly being there at the important events in their lives.

In the first picture, she was giving the valedictory speech at her high-school graduation. What he hadn’t captured in the photo was the fact that beneath the podium, she’d held blue note cards in her hand—just in case she forgot her speech. In spite of her academic achievements, she’d never had the kind of confidence she should.

In the second picture, he’d captured her poring over books in her college library. From the time she’d been tiny, she’d loved books, and he’d read to her often.

The third one had him frowning. He’d taken it less than a month ago, and he’d very nearly broken his promise when he’d snapped it. She was sitting on a bench in Rock Creek Park watching the never-ending flow of runners, bikers and in-line skaters along a jogging path. The longing on her face had tightened a band of pain around his heart. It was the same expression that he’d seen on Bridget O’Malley’s face that morning when she’d looked at Dracula.

If there was one piece of advice he most needed to give to Sierra it was that she had to stop hiding away in her books and studies and take the risk of really participating in life.

Pulling a piece of blue paper out of his desk, he sat down and began: Dearest Sierra, my beautiful dreamer…

1

WHY DID SHE always have to be such a coward?

As she threaded her way through the other pedestrians on a busy Georgetown street, Sierra Gibbs pondered the question that was currently number one in her mind.

Of course, when it came to questions, there were bigger, more important ones. She supposed that Hamlet’s “To be or not to be?” had been more fundamental, hitting as it did on the issue of existence. But the Danish prince had also worried about personal cowardice and he’d certainly suffered from acute paralysis when it came to taking action.

Realizing the direction her thoughts had taken, Sierra let out a disgusted sigh. Since today was the day she was going to change her life, Hamlet was a lousy role model.

On the street horns blared, pedestrians flowed around her, but Sierra didn’t let her focus waver as she continued on her way down the sidewalk. During the past month, ever since her sisters had opened their birthday letters from their father, she’d become more and more dissatisfied with her life. Not her professional life. That was humming along quite smoothly. She’d recently been appointed to a tenure-track position at Georgetown, and she’d also signed a book contract for her research on the sexual habits of single urban dwellers.

Sierra paused in front of a traffic light. The cars moved at a determined pace through the intersection. She ignored them.

It was her pathetic personal life that was the problem, and that point was driven home to her each and every time she met with her sisters and saw the contented expressions on their faces.

In the process of following their father’s advice, Natalie and Rory had both become involved in very satisfying sexual relationships with men.

Sierra’s own personal life, and indeed her sex life, hadn’t changed much since she was a child. As she had back then, she spent most of her waking hours reading books or watching movies. As an adult, in addition to that, she buried herself in her academic work. Bottom line—she researched sex instead of having any.

As a child, she’d had some excuse for letting life pass her by. She’d suffered from severe asthma, and she’d constantly battled high fevers and sinus infections. But at twenty-six, her only excuse was that she was a coward. If you remained on the sidelines, you never had to risk a thing. Or lose anyone.

Well, she was sick and tired of being Jane Eyre, the mousy little governess, content to observe life and never participate in it.

Jane, along with Hamlet, was another lousy role model. Closing her eyes, Sierra banished all pImages** of each of them from her mind. She needed to be imagining herself as someone much more assertive, someone like…like Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The TV series had become one of her favorites. Now there was a woman to be reckoned with. Sierra pictured the feisty blonde with her kickass attitude. And Buffy probably always had great sex, too.

And Buffy’s nerve would come in handy, too, if Sierra was going to ride over the objections her sisters were sure to make when they heard her plan. Even though she was only fifteen minutes younger than Natalie and a mere seven and a half minutes younger than Rory, her family had always treated her as the baby. And despite that she was an adult now, her sisters still felt it was their duty to protect her.

Opening her eyes, Sierra let out another disgusted sigh when she saw that the little white man on the pedestrian traffic signal had changed to a blinking red hand. Not even Hamlet would have hesitated at crossing a street. And Buffy would have been at the Blue Pepper by now. She hurriedly stepped off the curb, but halfway across the street, paused and drew a blue note card from her canvas bag. Then she reread the heading. Five steps for initiating a sexual relationship with a man. For the first step in becoming a full-fledged participant in life, she’d decided that she wanted to learn more about her own sexual side. Her curiosity about that no doubt had grown out of her current research into the sexual practices of modern single urban dwellers.

Her decision to kick off her plan with a sexual adventure would not only satisfy her curiosity, but it was also very practical. After all, her research so far had provided her with some expertise—even if it was totally vicarious.

She’d collected hundreds of case studies, and completed nearly as many interviews. Plus, she had a five-step plan. If there was one thing that she could do in her professional life it was to stick to a plan once she’d mapped it out.

The sharp blast of a horn made her jump, and a quick glance around informed her that five cars were waiting for her to get out of the pedestrian walkway.

“Lady, could you hurry it up?”

Rush hour in Georgetown was not the best time to dawdle. Stuffing the blue card back into her bag, Sierra waved apologetically to the man in the silver convertible. The black sedan next to it revved its motor. She dashed to the curb.

Once she was safely on the sidewalk, she dug in her canvas bag for her inhaler. After using it, she dropped it back in her bag, then drew in a deep breath and continued up the street.

The Blue Pepper was only a block away, and her sisters had agreed on very short notice to meet her for the grand opening of Harry’s letter to her. She rubbed the heel of her hand against the little ache that always settled around her heart when she thought of her father.

She and her sisters had lost Harry Gibbs twice—once when they’d been ten and Harry had decided to follow the call to adventure and resume his career as a master jewel thief. That was when they’d made a pact to call him Harry. Then when they were twenty, he’d died in a climbing accident, and they’d lost him permanently.

Sierra had always blamed herself for the fact that Harry had left them behind. If she hadn’t been so prone to illness, her mother surely wouldn’t have been too worried about her youngest to go with him. Amanda Gibbs had loved her husband deeply, and she’d passed away within months of Harry’s death.

Then suddenly, on the day that they’d turned twenty-six, the letters from Harry had arrived. Of course, Natalie had read hers the night she’d received it. If there was a gene for courage, Natalie had inherited it. Her job on a special task force with the DC Police Department testified to that.

Rory who always met life head-on had only needed an extra two weeks to open hers. Then she’d been off and running, putting their father’s advice right into practice. If there was a daredevil gene, Rory had gotten it in spades.

The way Sierra figured it, she’d inherited nothing from her father. The one thing Harry Gibbs had never been was a coward, and she’d postponed reading his letter for almost a month because she was a chicken. She was sure that his advice to her would be different. Harry had always treated her differently than he’d treated her sisters.

Sierra stopped short when she realized that she’d walked half a block past the Blue Pepper. Nerves bubbled in her stomach. After reaching for her inhaler, she used it again and drew in several steadying breaths before she turned and walked back to the restaurant. Then she pulled out her blue card once more and began to pace. Five steps—she could do this. When she finally glanced up and caught her reflection in the glass door, her confidence wavered. The woman looking back at her had her hair twisted into a bun and wore a loose-fitting, drab-colored jacket and skirt. And sensible shoes. Sierra Gibbs—academic nerd.

Think Buffy, she reminded herself.

The moment the image of the vampire slayer was clear in her mind, she squared her shoulders. “I can do this.”

Sierra Gibbs was sick and tired of being a coward. If she had to imagine herself as someone else to find some courage, so be it. Striding forward, she pushed through the door of the Blue Pepper.

IN RYDER KANE’S mind, the Blue Pepper was a yuppie haven. And the kick of it was he fit right in. Fifteen years ago when he’d been fighting for survival on the streets of Baltimore, he’d never have imagined ending up in a trendy Georgetown bistro drinking a designer label beer and wearing the kind of finely cut clothes that allowed him to blend in perfectly with the other well-heeled clientele.

If his Aunt Jennie could have seen him now, she would have been proud. And if his mother could have pictured this kind of a future for her son, she might have thought twice about abandoning him when he was twelve.

With a wry smile, he lifted his beer and toasted his high-tech security business, Kane Management; it had played a major role in his transformation. And thank God that computer security wasn’t the only business that he dabbled in. While it had put a great deal of money in his pocket, it was his other business, Favors for a Fee, that was his real love. It provided the kind of adventure and excitement that was lacking in a lot of the security work he did. Not to mention that doing “favors” for a select clientele allowed him to use some of the skills he’d picked up when he’d served for two years in a Special Forces unit.

But tonight wasn’t about work. Ryder was meeting up with Mark Anderson, an up-and-coming investigative reporter for The Washington Post. He was looking forward to seeing Mark. His friendship with Mark went back to his early days in Baltimore. They’d been fifteen or so. Of course, neither of them had worked in legitimate professions then. They’d both had close brushes with the law and survived mostly on street smarts. But they’d been friends. In addition to that, the cryptic message Mark had left on his voice mail had intrigued him: “I’ve got something hot and political that I need your perspective on. Meet me at the Blue Pepper at five.”

Turning slightly on the bar stool, Ryder scanned the entrance area and the upper dining level. Then he checked the crowd in the bar again. In the half hour that he’d been waiting, the area had filled so that patrons were standing three-deep, and conversation, thanks for the most part to a group at the far end of the bar, now drowned out the TV set that was carrying the final inning of an Orioles game.

“Hey!” a large man waved a hand at the bartender. “Another round over here.”

It was the third round the rather obnoxious man had ordered since he’d taken his seat. Ryder glanced at his watch. There was no sign of Mark Anderson, and it was nearly five-thirty.

He was lifting his glass for another sip of beer when he spotted the tall blonde through the glass entrance door. She wore her pale, straw-colored hair fastened into bun, and even though she wore a loose-fitting jacket and long skirt, he could see that she had that slender, Audrey Hepburn/Nicole Kidman kind of body. Sexy.

Tall women with mile-long legs were one of his weaknesses. Twisting his chair a little further, he watched as she used an inhaler and then paced back and forth in front of the restaurant while she studied a blue paper. A true nervous Nelly, he decided. Finally, she paused, stuffed the paper into her bag, squared her shoulders and approached the door.

His curiosity piqued, Ryder narrowed his eyes. She looked as if she were preparing to face a firing squad instead of joining friends for a drink in one of Georgetown’s most popular watering holes. Was she meeting a man? If so, she surely didn’t look as though she were looking forward to it. The thought had him frowning.

She crossed the entrance area and climbed the short flight of stairs to the bar. As she drew closer, he could see a shadow of a frown marring what appeared to be a perfect face. His own frown deepened when he saw that one of her hands gripped the large canvas bag she wore slung over her shoulder as if it were a lifeline.