License to Thrill

“This is about that damned wedding again, isn’t it?”

Marc strode toward her, until he was so close Melanie could smell his aftershave. “And you want me to believe that in three months you found someone who could replace what took us three years to build?” he continued. “Tell me something, Mel. Does he make you pant the way I did?”

The brush of his palm against her right nipple caused a massive shudder to travel the length of her body. She knew she should move away from him, protesting the familiar intimate touch, but she could only stand transfixed, wanting him to touch her…and more. “He makes me happy,” Melanie said.

Marc frowned. “Outside of the bedroom. How’s he going to make you feel inside?” He cupped her breast, very obviously avoiding contact with the straining tip.

She stifled a moan and tried to stop herself from leaning into his touch. “I don’t think this…is a good idea, Marc. We should, um—” Melanie licked her lips, her gaze fixed on his mouth. “We should be discussing how we’re going to catch the guy who’s after me.”

Marc slowly shook his head. “Sweetheart, the only thing I’m interested in catching right now is you.”

As his mouth came down on hers, Melanie knew he already had.

Dear Reader,

Who can resist a sexy, rough-around-the-edges hero with a heart of gold? If you’ve read our first Temptation novel, Constant Craving, you know we can’t. So we decided to try it again. And this time, not only is our hero, secret agent Marc McCoy, totally irresistible…he’s got four dangerously attractive brothers cut from the same cloth. Is it any wonder we’re calling them THE MAGNIFICENT MCCOY MEN?

In License to Thrill, our intrepid hero, Marc McCoy is up against his ex-partner and former lover, Melanie Weber. Not only has she got another fiancé and a substantial secret that’s bound to show up in say, seven months—she’s also got a madman after her. But the story doesn’t begin and end there. Oh, no.

We hope you enjoy Marc and Mel’s adventurous journey to the altar. We’d love to hear what you think. Write to us at P.O. Box 12271, Toledo, OH 43612, or visit us at the web site we share with other Temptation authors at Temptationauthors.com. And be sure to watch for upcoming books featuring those oh-so-tempting McCoys….

Here’s wishing you love, romance and happy endings.

Lori & Tony Karayianni

a.k.a. Tori Carrington

License to Thrill

Tori Carrington

www.millsandboon.co.uk

This one is for our remarkable editor, Brenda Chin, who led us to the cliff’s edge, then encouraged us to fly. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

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 15

1

JUST THINKING about Marc McCoy made Melanie Weber tingle with need. Even now. Especially now.

She slid her palms over the thick silk of the traditional wedding dress she was being fitted for. It was ironic, really. She had never thought of her relationship with Marc in the traditional sense. Still, she had expected they’d always be together. Always be partners. Always be lovers.

But that was three months ago. Before she realized Marc could never love her. Before she was injured in the line of duty. Before she found out she was pregnant.

Melanie reluctantly opened her eyes, then tugged her hands away from the wedding dress. A pinpoint of guilt started in her stomach and slowly spread through the rest of her body. The last person she should be thinking about was Marc McCoy. She’d carefully tucked him in the past the day Craig had generously offered to solve both their problems by proposing to her. She owed it to Craig to keep focused on their plans for the future. She owed it to herself to keep her thoughts away from the past and all that could never be.

Still she recognized the churning signs of panic that had been swirling in her since she and Craig had picked up their marriage license that morning. She’d felt the same way the day she had faced her mother to tell her that she wasn’t majoring in business, as her mother so wanted. Only now she suspected hormones were more to blame for her anxiety—she hoped.

She turned slightly to view her profile. Funny, her jumbled thoughts didn’t keep her from longing to wear a dress with an open décolletage neckline. But that was impossible. The fresh scar just below her left collarbone was difficult to look at, even for her. She could imagine what would happen if she flashed her gunshot wound to one hundred of Bedford, Maryland’s, prominent citizens, much less her own mother. She shook her head. The seed-pearl-studded mock turtleneck that covered nearly every inch of her skin would have to do.

Melanie sucked in her stomach. If she didn’t have the dress let out just a tad, she would split a seam in front of Craig Gaffney, God and everyone halfway down the aisle two days from now.

“Wouldn’t that fuel Bedford’s gossip hot line for at least a month?” she whispered to her reflection. As it was, she’d already given them enough to talk about. Scary, since they didn’t even know the half of it.

“Joanie? Can you come here for a minute?” she called.

Her younger sister, Joanie, owned the Once Upon a Time Bridal Shoppe. It was just before closing, and with June looming but a few days away, Melanie’s dress wasn’t the only thing bursting at the seams. The shop was filled with stressed-out brides and overbearing mothers. She stuck her head into the hall. In the room opposite hers, Joanie slid a stray pin from the fabric peach forever around her wrist, then blew her hair from her eyes.

“Be with you in a minute, Melanie.”

“Hey, be careful!” complained the bride whose dress Joanie skillfully worked on. “If you get so much as one drop of blood on this dress, I won’t hesitate to sue.”

Melanie ducked into her dressing room. Her sister could probably make a good chunk of change by videotaping some of the more interesting fittings and selling the footage to their grooms. But something like that would never occur to Joanie. Her sister’s generous spirit and endless patience were the main reasons her business had grown so successful. They were also the reason she radiated happiness like a sweet perfume.

Melanie glimpsed her own rare smile in the mirror, then eyed the chair behind her. But no matter how much she wanted to rest her swollen feet, she didn’t dare sit down. Not unless she decided to let out the dress herself in a way that would guarantee she couldn’t wear it two days from now.

Saturday. Her wedding.

Her throat tightened, choking off her airway. She closed her eyes to ward off the unwanted reaction. Cold feet, that’s all it was. A major case of cold feet. What more could it be?

“You can handle this, Mellie. I don’t think I’ve met a braver woman than you. Aside from my Mary, of course.”

The words conjured up the image of Sean’s kind, time-marked face and sober green eyes.

Sean. Just Sean. She didn’t know his last name. But his presence had been the only thing that had kept her sane during that long week in the hospital. Odd, she thought, because he had been little more than a stranger. A visitor, there for another patient, who had entered the wrong room and found her alone and crying. It was the only time she’d been left alone by her mother, Joanie and Craig, who had all meant well but hadn’t a clue how to handle an injured secret service agent whose heart was breaking for the only person who hadn’t visited.

Sean hadn’t pried. He hadn’t tried to comfort her. He’d simply handed her a tissue and sat next to her bed as if it had been her he had come to visit all along.

Picking up a bouquet sample, Melanie listlessly straightened a silk lily of the valley in the all-white waterfall bouquet. She hadn’t seen Sean since she had been discharged, and hadn’t expected to. But thinking about him made her realize how much she missed her father. Made her selfishly yearn to have him there if only for an hour or so. If only to walk her down the aisle.

Blinking back unexpected tears, she refocused on the bouquet. Merely looking at the fake flowers made her feel like a fake herself. She turned away, not sure she wanted to see the woman reflected in the smooth glass. Three months ago…

“Three months ago you were a fool in love with your career. And an even bigger fool in lust with Marc McCoy,” she said softly.

She tossed the bouquet to the velvet chair and reached back to undo her dress, but she could barely move her arms. Joanie had trussed her in. It looked as if Joanie would have to let her out.

She sighed. “Just peachy.”

Joanie poked her head around the corner. “Whatcha need?”

Melanie sighed with relief then tried to pinch the tiniest bit of fabric away from her waist. “You were right. It needs letting out.”

“I was afraid of that.” Joanie came to stand behind her, assessing the damage. “I really hate to tell you I told you so, but—”

“You told me so.” Melanie watched her sister slide into her role as seamstress. While she may have spent the past eight years bucking tradition, Joanie had always been content with her life. More than that, she seemed to cherish the role she’d created for herself as everyone’s best friend.

It struck Melanie as odd that she should be the one getting married when her sister was still inexplicably single.

Joanie sighed wistfully. “I really do love this dress.” She smoothed the puckered seam. “I think it’s the one I would pick, you know, if I was in your place.” A shadow briefly moved over her pretty, freckled face. “You’re lucky, you know? I don’t think there’s a time in my life when I can’t remember Craig being around. And he’s always had such a crush on you.” She brushed a strand of red hair from her cheek. “You couldn’t ask for a better man….”

Her soft words drifted off. Melanie watched her sister, wondering if she was going to mention that the most she and Craig had ever been were friends. The best of friends, but just friends. But her sister appeared to be thinking of something else entirely.

“Joanie?”

Her sister blinked then stared at Melanie in the mirror. “Sorry, must have drifted off there. I haven’t had more than a couple hours sleep in the past two days.”

Melanie looked at her a little more closely. “Are you sure that’s all it is?”

“Sure? Of course I’m sure.” She tried to pinch the back of the dress. “Wow, exactly how much weight have you put on since last month?”

She gently batted Joanie away from where she poked at her stomach. “Not all that much.”

“Is it that time of the month?”

“No.” Melanie wished it were that simple. If only she could tell Joanie why, exactly, she had grown out of her dress. But doing so would undermine Craig’s generosity and would open up a whole different can of worms.

Two more days. Two more days and she could tell her sister and her mother.

Joanie pulled back. “No doubt about it. The seams need to be let out at least a half inch.”

Melanie swallowed hard. The formal rehearsal dinner her mother had insisted on was only… She glanced at her watch. “Oh, God, I’ve only got a half hour to get to Bedford Inn.”

Just then, an electronic bell rang, followed by a too-innocent, “Yoo-hoo!”

Joanie caught Melanie’s gaze in the mirror.

“Mother,” they said in unison.

“I’ll take care of her,” Melanie said, a heartbeat later. “You go finish up whatever you have to, so you can help me out at this dinner.”

“Hmm. I don’t know. A choice between dinner with Mother and your soon-to-be in-laws or playing voodoo doll with the bride next door? Tough call.”

Melanie latched onto Joanie’s arm. “Please don’t make me go through this alone.”

Her sister’s green eyes widened in mild surprise. “Melanie, you’re not facing a firing squad. Even if you were, you would be the one person I know who could handle it.” She covered Melanie’s hand with her own. “Okay, I’ll be there.” She laughed quietly. “But I have to say, you’re on your own for the honeymoon.”

Honeymoon. Melanie’s stomach tightened to the point of pain.

She gathered fistfuls of her full skirt in her hands and led the way from the room. She’d like to say she was surprised by her mother’s impromptu visit, but really couldn’t. Her mother had always been good at reading her. She didn’t doubt Wilhemenia Weber had picked up on the emotional turmoil she’d been going through for the past few months. And if she knew her mother, Wilhemenia wouldn’t stop until she found out what was going on.

IN HIS JEEP outside the bridal shop, Marc McCoy absently rubbed the back of his neck, then flicked the air-conditioning on. He didn’t know if it was the heat or his anxiety about what he was planning to do that made the temperature in the all-terrain vehicle intolerable, but if Mel took much longer, he was going to stalk in there after her. He grimaced. Who was he kidding? He wasn’t going anywhere. He’d sit here and wait just as he had for the past forty-five minutes. All because he’d been too wrapped up in his thoughts when she’d gone in to see his plan through. Eight solid hours of planning, and he’d been knocked out of commission just at the thought of coming face-to-face with her for the first time in three months.

He directed the cool air vent toward his face, then let his gaze drift to the two glossy magazines on the passenger seat. He resisted the urge to grab the first one to find out exactly “what a woman looks for in a man.” It wasn’t long ago he wouldn’t have been caught dead reading this stuff. But Mel’s absence in his life had left him with a gaping hole and long, endless nights that he tried to fill with reason.

He grabbed the magazines and shoved them under his seat.

He looked at his watch, then returned his attention to the shop.

He didn’t know why, exactly, he had hesitated when he first spotted Melanie leaving her mother’s house. For Pete’s sake, he didn’t even know why he hadn’t marched right into the house the moment he got into town.

Frustrated with his hesitation, he shut off the car engine, then reached for the door handle. His hand froze on the sun-warmed metal. Melanie’s mother was walking down the street looking like a woman on a mission.

“Uh-oh.”

Instantly, he was reminded why he hadn’t gone into the small house on Cherry Blossom Road. Because of Mel’s mother.

What was she doing here? In order to do what he had to, Mel had to be alone. She’d gone into the shop alone, and he’d expected her to come out the same way. What he hadn’t banked on was Wilhemenia Weber, who looked as though she’d come fresh from sucking on a dozen lemons, deciding to pay a visit.

She could be here to see Joanie, Marc thought. I hope she’s here to visit Joanie.

Five minutes later, the late afternoon sun reflected off the bridal shop door, and he sat up straighter.

“Show time.” Mel stepped onto the brick sidewalk. At least it looked like Mel. Grimacing, he slid down his sunglasses and squinted at the woman leaving. Yep, it was her all right. Minus the jeans, T-shirt and blue blazer she’d been wearing when she went in. Now she was decked out in one very short dress. But it was definitely her. It’s about time. What did she do? Decide to wear her purchase home? He reached for the door handle again. If he lived to be two hundred, he’d never understand what it was with women and clothes. He still had at least eight pairs of Mel’s shoes cluttering the closet in his town house. Keeping his gaze focused on Mel, he began to climb out…then froze.

There weren’t very many things Marc McCoy, Secret Service Agent, third of five proudly macho male siblings, was afraid of. But he was man enough to admit that Wilhemenia Weber was one of them. And when she followed Mel out of the shop, she threw a wrench the size of a semi truck into his plans.

“Damn.”

Marc fought the urge to sink down in his seat. Not only to keep Mel from spotting him, but to prevent her mother from focusing her fault-finding gaze on him. Oh, yeah, he’d met her once. And that one time was enough to know the woman would never like him. He grimaced, finding it difficult to believe it was just over three months ago, before that stupid discussion about love and before Mel’s injury, that she’d talked him into going home for Sunday dinner.

Mrs. Weber’s disapproving stare had started when he sat on the couch, causing the thick plastic furniture cover to crackle in a way that had made him flinch even as Mel laughed. The Stare had followed him throughout dinner, where Wilhemenia had jerked his soup bowl out from under his nose—apparently because he wasn’t convincing enough while trying to choke back the thick, cold green stuff—and ending when she’d practically slammed the door on him when he’d only been halfway out.

The only saving grace was that Mel had taken a perverse sort of pleasure in the whole ordeal. But he absolutely drew the line at returning to that woman’s home. Unless she took that stupid plastic off her furniture and ordered in for pizza and beer.

He sobered, realizing that would never happen. Not until Mel invited him back into her life.

His gaze followed mother and daughter down the sidewalk of the quaint little town of Bedford. What was more than a little unsettling was that he still wished Mrs. Weber had liked him…at least a little.

The risk of being spotted gone, Marc scanned the street before he slowly switched his attention to Mel. And found it suddenly difficult to breathe.

He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but she looked different somehow. Her blond hair was slightly longer, brushing the top of her shoulders in a curly way that caught the rays of the early evening sun. But that wasn’t it. Then it dawned on him. It was the dress. Well, not the dress, exactly, but the fact that she was wearing it. In muted pink with shiny flowery things stamped on the fabric, it was exactly the type of thing Mel wouldn’t have been caught dead in before. He appreciated the sway of her bottom, thinking he’d have been okay with her wearing feminine attire if she’d asked him. But she hadn’t. In fact, aside from the brief meeting when they’d first been assigned to work together, he’d never seen her in a dress. And then she’d been wearing a knee-length black skirt. This thing…this thing barely brushed the middle of her thighs.

Then there were those heels.

Growing more than a little hot and bothered, Marc tugged at the neck of his T-shirt. The shoes added a good three inches to her five feet seven inches. That would bring the top of her head to his nose rather than his chin when they came face-to-face.

Mrs. Weber turned her head in his direction. Marc slumped in his seat, jamming his knees against the dashboard in the process. He cursed. But the words barely exited his mouth when Mel nearly toppled right off those high, sexy heels. He grinned, forgetting the pain shooting up his knees for a second. Now that was more like the Mel he knew and—

He bit back the word, an audible gulp filling the interior of the Jeep. What did he know about love? Hadn’t Mel told him during their first and only argument that he didn’t know diddly about love?

No, he didn’t, couldn’t love her. He just liked Mel’s sexy backside enough to think it worth protecting from the guy who’d already shot her once.

“Oh, yeah? Then tell me something, McCoy. Why is that damn engagement ring you’ve been carrying around for three months burning a hole in your pocket?”

ADVENTURE, FREEDOM and hot sex are overrated. Melanie squeezed her eyes shut and repeated the sentence slowly.

“Melanie, dear, there are guests present.”

She cracked her eyelids open to take in a generous view of Wilhemenia, who sat across from her in the dining area of the Bedford Inn. She wasn’t sure why, but lately everything her mother said, no matter how innocuous, got under her skin. She offered a patient smile. “Of course there are guests present. It’s my rehearsal dinner. I invited them, remember?”

She took in the gilded antique chairs, the crisp white damask tablecloths and the pretty flowered wallpaper, wondering exactly why the traditional event was called a rehearsal. It wasn’t as though she or Craig needed pointers on how to walk down the aisle. That was a no-brainer. She smiled at Craig’s father, who sat adjacent to her, and suppressed the urge to fidget, sure the unladylike move would elicit another public reprimand from her mother. Then realization settled in. The rehearsal part of it didn’t have so much to do with her and Craig. Rather it was a preview of what holidays would look like from here on out.

The tickle of panic that had been with her all day grew to a pang.

Melanie tried to shake the images that crowded her mind. But like an unwelcome visit from the ghost of Christmas future, she envisioned her mother perched on the edge of a couch making comments that always somehow seemed like criticisms about the Christmas tree and covertly trying to get at the nonexistent dust bunnies under the coffee table with her ever-present embroidered handkerchief.

And Craig’s parents? Melanie watched them as she chewed a bite of cold roast beef. Okay, so his father was a bit…overbearing. Suspicious almost. Which was only fair given the suddenness of the upcoming nuptials. Melanie’s cheeks heated. Craig’s mother, on the other hand, was almost effusively nice. Likely a result of spending the past forty years trying to compensate for her husband’s bad manners. And her desire for grandchildren from her only child. The roast beef stuck in Melanie’s throat. Doris was going to get one of those sooner than she expected.

Guilt ballooned to challenge the panic.

Craig’s mother smiled at her brightly. Melanie smiled back, the tongs of her fork screeching against china.

She purposely avoided looking at Wilhemenia.

“Scary, isn’t it?”

“Hmm?” She glanced at Craig, who sat next to her.

He leaned a little closer and lowered his voice so only she could hear. “The thought of these guys being in the same room for more than five minutes at a stretch.” He cleared his throat. “Just getting my own parents to spend that much time together is asking for trouble.”

His familiar grin eased her discomfort as he unwittingly fit his own welcome image in with the others stamped in her mind. It didn’t surprise her that he’d been thinking the same thing she had. Throughout their nearly lifelong friendship, Craig and she had always understood each other.

She watched as the grin vanished from his face. He tugged at his tie. She thought he must be feeling as awkward as she was. He leaned in her direction again. “When this infernal thing is over, we need to talk.”

“Sure, we can do that.” Melanie was almost relieved to focus on someone else. She had been so wrapped up in her own thoughts, she hadn’t considered that Craig might be as nervous about all this as she was. But the fact that his request was so very serious scared her. Was he having second thoughts?

She glanced up to find the table had gone suspiciously silent. “How about this heat wave?” she said, not comfortable with the way her mother was watching her.

Doris made some comparison between the heat and a tin roof that Melanie missed, but Craig’s burst of laughter made her sigh.

Why can’t you be more like Marc?

She jerked involuntarily at the unwelcome thought, sending her fork sailing through the air. She watched in horror as it spiraled above the table, prongs over stem, prongs over stem…. Finally it landed neatly in the middle of her mother’s plate, spearing her roasted potatoes.