Ladies Prefer Rogues: Four Novellas of Time-Travel Passion
Page 1
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Man from the Moon
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Tomorrow Is Another Day
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
The Drowning Sea
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Epilogue
Sixteen Decades
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Teaser chapter
Praise for New York Times bestselling author
Janet Chapman
“Janet Chapman is a keeper.”
—New York Times bestselling author Linda Howard
“Chapman is unmatched and unforgettable.”
—Romantic Times
Praise for New York Times bestselling author
Sandra Hill
“Hill writes stories that tickle the funny bone and touch the heart.”
—New York Times bestselling author Susan Wiggs
“Sandra Hill always delivers.”
—New York Times bestselling author Christine Feehan
Praise for national bestselling author
Veronica Wolff
“A fresh, exciting voice in Scottish time-travel romance.”
—bestselling author Penelope Williamson
“Extraordinary! . . . A must-read page-turner . . . Powerful, riveting, and vibrant.”
—USA Today bestselling author Sue-Ellen Welfonder
Praise for USA Today bestselling author
Trish Jensen
“One of the best writers of contemporary comedy around.”
—All About Romance
“[Jensen’s] got a great comic touch.”
—The Romance Reader
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
LADIES PREFER ROGUES
A Berkley Sensation Book / published by arrangement with the authors
PRINTING HISTORY
Berkley Sensation mass-market edition / February 2010
Copyright © 2010 by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
“Man from the Moon” by Janet Chapman copyright © 2010 by Janet Chapman.
“Tomorrow Is Another Day” by Sandra Hill copyright © 2010 by Sandra Hill.
“The Drowning Sea” by Veronica Wolff copyright © 2010 by Veronica Wolff.
“Sixteen Decades” by Trish Jensen copyright © 2010 by Trish Jensen.
Excerpt from Even Vikings Get the Blues by Sandra Hill copyright © by Sandra Hill.
Excerpt from Devil’s Highlander by Veronica Wolff copyright © by Veronica Wolff.
All rights reserved.
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eISBN : 978-1-101-18500-1
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Man from the Moon
Janet Chapman
For all of you who have ever looked up
at that big, bright full moon and wondered,
what if?
One
Isobel plunked her purchases down on the counter, causing the store clerk to look up from her magazine with a smile. “Hi, Doc,” the gum-snapping teenager chirped. She suddenly recoiled, pointing at Isobel’s chest. “Eww, that’s not guts, is it?”
Isobel looked down and brushed at her work coat. “Nah, it’s just cow snot.”
The young clerk leaned on the counter, her smile back in place. “I heard you finally gave Whiny Wayne his walking papers,” she said in a conspirator’s whisper, darting a glance at the man in the snack aisle before arching her pencil-thin eyebrows at Isobel. “That’s a record for you, isn’t it? You dated him what . . . a whole month?”
“Whiny Wayne?”
The girl straightened with a shrug. “Everyone knows that ever since Wayne Thompson’s mama kicked him out, he’s been looking for a new place to plug in his umbilical cord.” She pointed the scanner at the pint of ice cream, then aimed it at the six pack of soda. “You gotta stop being such a push-over, Doc. I mean, really, a guy just has to look at you with sad old puppy-dog eyes, and you practically trip over yourself running to his rescue.”
“I do not.”
“No? What about Fred Baker? It’s no secret you checked him into the rehab center in Ellsworth, but that he started dating Lacey Briggs the day he came out.” She hit some buttons on the register, then leaned over the counter and lowered her voice again. “And everyone knows you had to get a restraining order against Clive Jenkins, when he camped out on your lawn because you wouldn’t go on another date with him.”
Isobel swiped her debit card through the machine somewhat forcefully and punched in her password. “You make me sound pathetic.”
“No, you’re not pathetic! The guys you date are,” the girl said, instantly contrite. She snapped open a paper bag with
a dramatic sigh. “You’re too softhearted for your own good, Doc. I swear it’s like you go around wearing a sign that says ‘I Date Losers.’ ” She packed Isobel’s purchases but didn’t hand them over. “There’s a bean supper at the church tonight. Maybe you’d have better luck finding a boyfriend there.”
Isobel gaped at the audacious twit, then grabbed the bag out of her hands and strode to the door. “I have a date with some maple fudge ice cream tonight.”
“You know what they say, Doc,” the girl called after her. “The best way to get over one man is to get under another one!”
Utterly mortified, Isobel began searching through her purse when the man who’d been in the snack aisle reached past her and opened the door, allowing her to precede him out. “Thank you,” she muttered, juggling her ice cream and soda as she continued searching for her keys. She couldn’t bring herself to look up to see if she knew the man, especially since she’d heard him chuckling.
Dammit, she didn’t date losers!
At least not once she found out they were losers.
Isobel got in her truck and continued searching for her keys. She finally found them in her coat pocket and was trying to cram the key in the ignition when her passenger door opened and a man slid in beside her. She didn’t immediately panic, since there was a good chance it was someone she knew who needed a ride.
But she did yelp in surprise. “Hey, you startled me!”
“Don’t scream,” he said, his hand snaking around her head to cover her mouth.
Okay, now she panicked. She didn’t know this creep!
His other hand moved in a blur, catching her fist when she tried to drive her key into his thigh as she groped at her door handle. His fingers dug into her jaw when she tried to buck him off, and he jerked her back toward him.
“Don’t fight me; I don’t want to hurt you,” he said, guiding her hand to slide the key in the ignition. He started the truck. “Drive east. Slowly,” he ordered, his fingers wrapping around her neck like a manacle.
Isobel tried to look toward the store, but he held her facing forward, his thumb pressing into her pulse. “Drive, Doctor. Do as I tell you, and you won’t be hurt.”
Yeah, like she believed that!
“Now!” he snapped.
Her heart pounding violently and her hands shaking uncontrollably, Isobel put the truck in gear as she tried to come up with a plan. Hadn’t she heard that letting an assailant take her to another location was the worst thing she could do?
Maybe she should crash into the light pole.
“Don’t try anything,” he said, as if he’d read her mind. His hand on her neck tightened. “Just do as I tell you, and we’ll be gone by morning.”
We? Oh God, he had buddies!
Isobel’s foot jerked on the accelerator and the truck lurched forward. She immediately stomped on the brake when he squeezed her throat so tightly that she started gagging.
“You need to stay calm.” He adjusted his grip, settling his thumb on her carotid artery. “You’ll be released unharmed if you do as you’re told. Now, slowly, pull onto the road and head east.”
Isobel took a shuddering breath, which caused her to inhale his scent. He smelled . . . pleasant, actually. Like the ocean. And spruce trees.
For some unexplainable reason, that calmed her more than his assurance that he wouldn’t harm her. She took another steadying breath, slowly eased out of the parking lot, and turned east onto Route One.
They’d traveled less than half a mile when he said, “Pull over here, but don’t shut off the engine.”
No sooner had she lifted the shifting lever into park when the passenger door opened and a man leaned in. Isobel inched her hand toward her door handle, prepared to make a run for it the moment he relaxed his grip.
“Bring Daniel,” he said to the new man. “She’s a doctor.”
Isobel stilled. He’d kidnapped her because he thought she was a doctor?
“No, wait,” she said, twisting to see when the rear passenger door opened and two more men appeared. “I’m not a—”
His thumb pressed into her pulse, cutting her off. “How far to your office?” he asked, releasing the pressure slightly.
“T-three miles. But I’m not—”
She snapped her mouth shut when his fingers tightened again. There was a commotion in the backseat, and somebody groaned as the truck rocked slightly. The back door shut and one of the men climbed in the front seat beside her assailant.
“She’s a doctor?” the new man asked.
“No,” Isobel rasped, clawing at the fingers around her neck. “I’m a veterinarian!”
The hand on her throat slackened. “A what?”
“I’m an animal doctor. If you’d looked at the door of my truck, you would have seen the DVM at the end of my name. As in Doctor of Veterinary Medicine.”
“Damn,” he muttered under his breath.
A much more colorful curse came from the backseat, accompanied by a pained moan. She glanced over her shoulder and saw a man sprawled across the seat, resting up against another man.
“It’s bad enough we have to rely on their crude medicine,” the guy beside her assailant hissed. “We can’t let an animal doctor work on Daniel.”
“It’s her or nothing, if you don’t want him to bleed out.”
“I have an idea,” Isobel offered. “I can drive you to the hospital in Ellsworth.”
“How far?”
“Sixty miles. But it’s Saturday night, so traffic’s light. It shouldn’t take us more than an hour to get there.” She glanced over her shoulder again. “But if he’s bleeding, I need to put a pressure bandage on him first.”
“We already have,” the man in the backseat said.
“We’ll go to your office,” her assailant said, forcing her to face forward. “Drive.”
“But—”
“Now!”
Isobel pulled back out onto the road. The only reason she could think of as to why they wouldn’t let her take their buddy to the hospital was because he’d been shot. Gunshot wounds had to be reported, and apparently letting their friend bleed to death was preferable to alerting the authorities.
Oh, God. What if she killed him?
Isobel tried to think back to the last gunshot wound she’d treated. “Do you know if the bullet’s still in him?” she asked, remembering the difficult time she’d had with Jane Hay’s horse four years ago, when a hunter had mistaken the poor animal for a moose.
The hand on her throat twitched. “Bullet?”
Isobel squirmed, moving his thumb off her throbbing artery. “I’m trying to figure out what I have to do when we get to my surgery. Where was he hit? Is there an exit wound?”
“Daniel wasn’t shot,” the man in the backseat said. “He fell. We aren’t sure if he has any broken bones; it’s the tree branch in his side that seems to be putting him in immediate danger.”
“Is the branch still in him?”
“Yes. We packed a pressure bandage around it.”
“Then let me drive you to the hospital. He needs a real doctor!”
Instead of tightening again, the thumb on her pulse moved soothingly. “We mean you no harm. You help Daniel, and the four of us will be gone by morning.”
And if Daniel died on her operating table—would they still feel the same way about not harming her?
Two
Isobel got straight down to business the moment she pulled up to the front of her surgery and shut off the engine. “Carry him in and lay him on the table in the back room,” she instructed, opening her truck door.
Her assailant’s grip tightened, and Isobel fell back with a yelp.
“That’s enough!” she cried, clawing his hand as she drove her elbow into his ribs. “If you don’t quit manhandling me, I swear I’ll let your buddy bleed out.”
“Let her go, Micah,” came a pained growl from the backseat.
Micah’s grip only slackened. “What if someone’s in the house?”
“Chase will check it out. If he finds anyone, he has my permission to kill them.”
Though he might be bleeding to death, apparently Daniel was coherent enough to realize that threatening a loved one would gain her cooperation far better than manhandling her would. “There’s no one inside,” she whispered. “But I have a pet rabbit!” she rushed to say when the man sitting beside Micah got out. She was worried he might hurt Snuggles if her pet took him by surprise.
The fingers around her neck suddenly opened, but instead of bolting for the woods like she wanted to, Isobel cautiously got out. Rubbing her sore throat, she opened the back door and leaned inside to see the extent of Daniel’s injury. Only, when she tried to move his jacket aside, his hand shot out and captured hers, and Isobel found herself looking into piercing, arctic blue eyes.
“Go prep your surgery, Doctor,” he said quietly, though he continued to hold on to her. “And don’t bother trying to call for help. Chase will have cut your phone line.”
She started to back out, but he still didn’t let her go. Isobel arched a brow. “Postponing going inside isn’t going to make it hurt less.”
One corner of his mouth lifted in a tight smile. “What’s your name?”
“Isobel.”
“You won’t be harmed, Isobel.”
“Even if you die?” she whispered.
His eyelids dropped momentarily before his gaze locked on hers again. “I have no intention of dying. You take the branch out and sew me up, and tomorrow it will be as if we were never here,” he said, finally releasing her.
This time Isobel did bolt, but for her surgery instead of the woods. She didn’t know who in hell these guys were, but they obviously meant business. They didn’t appear to be common criminals but had more of a . . . military air about them.