Charlotte Douglas - Montana Secrets

He had a daughter!

He was a father. Catherine Erickson had borne his child.

Stunned by the knowledge, overwhelmed by a myriad of emotionsjoy, surprise, pridehe couldnt move, couldnt breathe.

You have to think like Trace Gallagher, damn you, or youll ruin everything!

His daughter. Damn, he couldnt keep the tears from his eyes.

Hot anger flooded him suddenly and seared the tears away, and he crushed the fate that kept him from acknowledging his identity to the woman he loved more than life and to the daughter he hadnt known existed.

Dear Harlequin Intrigue Reader,

The summer is here and weve got plenty of scorching suspense and smoldering romance for your reading pleasure. Starting with a couple of your favorite Harlequin Intrigue veterans

Patricia Rosemoor winds up the reprisal of THE MCKENNA LEGACY with Cowboy Protector. Yet another of Moira McKennas kin feels the force of what real love can do if youre open to it. And not to be outdone, Rebecca York celebrates a silver anniversary with the twenty-fifth title in her popular 43 LIGHT STREET series. From the Shadows is one more fabulous mystery coupled with a steamy romance. Prepare yourself for a super surprise ending with this one!

THE CARRADIGNES come to Harlequin Intrigue this month. The Dukes Covert Mission by Julie Miller is a souped-up Cinderella story that will leave you breathless for sure. This brawny duke doesnt pull up in a horse-drawn carriage. He relies on a nondescript sedan with unmarked plates instead. But I assure you hes got all the breeding of the most regal royalty when it counts.

Finally, Charlotte Douglas brings you Montana Secrets, an emotional secret-baby story set in the Big Sky state. I dare you not to fall head over heels in love with this hidden-identity hero.

So grab the sunblock and stuff all four titles into your beach bag.

Happy reading!

Sincerely,

Denise OSullivan

Associate Senior Editor

Harlequin Intrigue

Montana Secrets Charlotte Douglas

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Trace GallagherRyan Christophers alter egoand determined to protect the Eriksons at any cost.

Catherine

EricksonA pretty schoolteacher and the love of Ryans life.

Megan EricksonCatherines four-year-old daughter.

Gabriel EricksonCatherines father.

Marc EricksonCatherines brother, a marine whos Ryans best friend.

Colonel WentworthHead of counterterrorism at the Pentagon.

Snake LarsonTown bully and troublemaker. This time he may have committed a much more serious crime.

Derrick HuttonHead of the terrorist group Righteous Sword, and the man responsible for too many deaths.

Dear Reader,

Montana Secrets was completed in August 2001, one month before the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. While the story is total fiction, some elements of it are eerie predictors of what was to comeMiddle Eastern terrorists launching an attack against the United States.

In addition to those sinister elements, however, this story of U.S. Marine Lieutenant Ryan Christopher and his fiancée, Catherine Erickson, contains examples of all that is best in America. When their country is threatened, both Ryan and Catherine place the safety of the nation and the protection of its freedoms above their personal safety and desires. In the end, good triumphs over evil, and, in the best Harlequin tradition, Ryan and Catherine find happiness together.

Montana Secrets is dedicated to those who lost their lives on September 11, to those at home and abroad who deter and fight terrorists who attempt to cripple our nation and destroy our freedoms, and to the courage, tenacity and union of the American people.

Sincerely,

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

Epilogue

Prologue

Below him stretched Bahira, capital of the Middle Eastern Emirate of Tabari, white and sparkling beneath the merciless desert sun. Minarets of ancient buildings mixed with pleasant symmetry among the gleaming glass of modern skyscrapers, towering date palms and the colorful blossoms of oleander. Even in the scorching heat, the narrow cobbled streets of the bazaar teemed with traffic and pedestrians.

North of the city shimmered the endless desert, its monotonous, undulating sands dotted with oil wells that provided the tiny countrys immense wealth. To the south stretched the Arabian Sea, its surface presently as calm as a single-faceted aquamarine, exactly the rich blue hue of Catherine Ericksons eyes.

Ryan smiled at the memory of the devilish sparkle in those baby blues, a quality hed noted the first time hed met her six years ago. Marc, his college roommate and Catherines older brother, had invited twenty-year-old Ryan to spend the summer on their Montana ranch, and Cat, as her family called her, had been only sixteen. Like Marc, Ryan had considered the gangly teenager with a dusting of freckles across her nose and flyaway blond hair barely tamed by braids a major pest.