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      Dear Reader,

      Step into warm and wonderful July with six emotional stories from Silhouette Special Edition. This month is full of heart-thumping drama, healing love and plenty of babies!

      I’m thrilled to feature our READERS’ RING selection, Balancing Act (SE#1552), by veteran Mills & Boon and Silhouette Romance author Lilian Darcy. This talented Australian writer delights us with a complex tale of a couple marrying for the sake of their twin daughters, who were separated at birth. The twins and parents are newly reunited in this tender and thought-provoking read. Don’t miss it!

      Sherryl Woods hooks readers with this next romance from her miniseries, THE DEVANEYS. In Patrick’s Destiny (SE#1549), an embittered hero falls in love with a gentle woman who helps him heal a rift with his family. Return to the latest branch of popular miniseries, MONTANA MAVERICKS: THE KINGSLEYS, with Moon Over Montana (SE#1550) by Jackie Merritt. Here, an art teacher can’t help but moon over a rugged carpenter who renovates her apartment—and happens to be good with his hands!

      We are happy to introduce a multiple-baby-focused series, MANHATTAN MULTIPLES, launched by Marie Ferrarella with And Babies Make Four (SE#1551), which relates how a hardheaded businessman and a sweet-natured assistant, who loved each other in high school, reunite many years later and dive into parenthood. His Brother’s Baby (SE#1553) by Laurie Campbell is the dramatic tale of a woman determined to take care of herself and her baby girl, but what happens when her baby’s handsome uncle falls onto her path? In She’s Expecting (SE#1554) by Barbara McMahon, an ambitious hero is wildly attracted to his new secretary—his new pregnant secretary—but steels himself from mixing business with pleasure.

      As you can see, we have a lively batch of stories, delivering the very best in page-turning romance. Happy reading!

      Sincerely,

      Karen Taylor Richman

      Senior Editor

      About the Author

      Laurie Campbell grew up playing paper dolls with her sister, but spent far less time selecting their clothes than creating situations for the characters to act out. By the time they outgrew paper dolls, the characters were so real that Laurie started writing a book about six beautiful sisters who lived next door to six dashing brothers.

      She swears she’ll finish that novel someday. But meanwhile, she enjoys writing about ordinary people in extraordinary situations that could happen to anyone who want the best for those they love.

      Laurie spends her weekends writing romance, and her weekdays producing TV commercials for a Phoenix advertising agency.

      She also works as a marriage counselor, teaches a catechism class, speaks to writing groups on psychology for creating characters, coaches newly diagnosed diabetics, and spends any free time playing with her husband and teenage son (who helps her solve plot problems).

      For getaway weekends, they travel to Arizona’s red-rock country of Sedona…which was named for Laurie’s great-grandmother, Sedona Schnebly.

      Contents

      Prologue

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

      Chapter Eight

      Chapter Nine

      Chapter Ten

      Chapter Eleven

      Chapter Twelve

      Prologue

      March 12

      Not even Kenny could be late to his own wedding.

      Could he?

      Lucy Velardi dropped her last two quarters into the courthouse pay phone and punched in the number they’d shared for the past five weeks. It was silly to be nervous when he’d probably just missed his flight back to Scottsdale. If she hadn’t left the house early to pick up her dress—a dress that revealed no sign of the reason for this marriage—he would have called to let her know.

      Wouldn’t he?

      Sure enough, the answering machine held a message in his familiar, lazy voice. “Hey, babe, it’s me. Look, I’m really sorry, but I, uh, I won’t be coming back. I got this chance to play on the Asian tour, and…well, I just don’t think us getting married would be such a good idea after all.”

      What?! Lucy almost cried out before realizing the message wasn’t finished yet.

      “I mean, I’m really not ready for a baby, you know?” he explained. As if she was ready—but they had until October to prepare. “And once you think it over, I bet you’ll feel the same way…because a baby just wouldn’t work out right now.”

      She would never feel that way, no matter how badly this unexpected pregnancy had complicated her life. How could anyone dismiss a baby so casually, so—

      “But don’t worry,” Kenny continued, “I’m putting a check in the mail you can use for, uh, taking care of things. Call it a house-sitting payment, okay? Because, listen, you’re welcome to stay in the house until next January.”

      He sounded relieved, she realized numbly, as if that offer made everything right. As if all she cared about was his money and his house.

      “Nobody ever uses it except for a few weeks after New Year’s,” came his blithe assurance, “so it’s all yours until then. I know you gave up your apartment, but the family really needs a house-sitter, and I bet you’ll do a great job.”

      At least she’d have a place to stay until after the baby was born, but what she’d wanted was a family for her baby. For little Matthew, or little Emma—names she’d already begun using in her imagination, because they sounded so good with Tarkington. But now neither she, nor the baby, would share Kenny’s name.

      “Anyway,” he concluded, sounding as cheerful as if he’d suddenly finished a difficult task, “I’m really glad I got to know you—we had some great times, huh? Well, take care of yourself…. Bye.”

      And that was that.

      Lucy held on to the phone receiver, staring blindly at the lobby beyond her. At the flat white wall, the fluorescent light, the cluster of people in line near the door…until a shrill beep in her ear made her realize the message had ended long ago, and her fingers were starting to cramp.

      She couldn’t quite draw a full breath, she discovered while hanging up the phone. Couldn’t quite shake the chill from her hands, her lips, her face. Couldn’t quite make herself think, or cry, or even move—although she would have to move, because she couldn’t spend the rest of her life standing here in the courthouse lobby.

      But she couldn’t do anything right now except breathe. In short, unsteady gasps. She felt as if she might burst into tears at any moment—which would be a good thing, because tears could be spilled and then forgotten—but right now she was too stunned even to cry. She had never experienced anything too intense for tears before, Lucy realized, anything like this mixture of disbelief and anguish and desperation and—

      And, in a way, relief.

      Which didn’t make sense, but she needed to hang on to any comfort she could get. Any comfort that would give her the strength to head back to the bus stop for the dismal trip home.

      Alone.

      No,