Courteous, courageous and commanding—these heroes lay it all on the line for the people they love in more than fifty stories about loyalty, bravery and romance. Don’t miss a single one!
AVAILABLE FEBRUARY 2010
A Vow to Love by Sherryl Woods
Serious Risks by Rachel Lee
Who Do You Love? by Maggie Shayne and Marilyn Pappano
Dear Maggie by Brenda Novak
A Randall Returns by Judy Christenberry
Informed Risk by Robyn Carr
Five-Alarm Affair by Marie Ferrarella
AVAILABLE MARCH 2010
The Man from Texas by Rebecca York
Mistaken Identity by Merline Lovelace
Bad Moon Rising by Kathleen Eagle
Moriah’s Mutiny by Elizabeth Bevarly
Have Gown, Need Groom by Rita Herron
Heart of the Tiger by Lindsay McKenna
AVAILABLE APRIL 2010
Landry’s Law by Kelsey Roberts
Love at First Sight by B.J. Daniels
The Sheriff of Shelter Valley by Tara Taylor Quinn
A Match for Celia by Gina Wilkins
That’s Our Baby! by Pamela Browning
Baby, Our Baby! by Patricia Thayer
AVAILABLE MAY 2010
Special Assignment: Baby by Debra Webb
My Baby, My Love by Dani Sinclair
The Sheriff’s Proposal by Karen Rose Smith
The Marriage Conspiracy by Christine Rimmer
The Woman for Dusty Conrad by Tori Carrington
The White Night by Stella Bagwell
Code Name: Prince by Valerie Parv
AVAILABLE JUNE 2010
Same Place, Same Time by C.J. Carmichael
One Last Chance by Justine Davis
By Leaps and Bounds by Jacqueline Diamond
Too Many Brothers by Roz Denny Fox
Secretly Married by Allison Leigh
Strangers When We Meet by Rebecca Winters
AVAILABLE JULY 2010
Babe in the Woods by Caroline Burnes
Serving Up Trouble by Jill Shalvis
Deputy Daddy by Carla Cassidy
The Major and the Librarian by Nikki Benjamin
A Family Man by Mindy Neff
The President’s Daughter by Annette Broadrick
Return to Tomorrow by Marisa Carroll
AVAILABLE AUGUST 2010
Remember My Touch by Gayle Wilson
Return of the Lawman by Lisa Childs
If You Don’t Know by Now by Teresa Southwick
Surprise Inheritance by Charlotte Douglas
Snowbound Bride by Cathy Gillen Thacker
The Good Daughter by Jean Brashear
AVAILABLE SEPTEMBER 2010
The Hero’s Son by Amanda Stevens
Secret Witness by Jessica Andersen
On Pins and Needles by Victoria Pade
Daddy in Dress Blues by Cathie Linz
AKA: Marriage by Jule McBride
Pregnant and Protected by Lilian Darcy
MARISA CARROLL
RETURN TO TOMORROW
MARISA CARROLL
is the pen name of sisters Carol Wagner and Marian Franz. They have been writing bestselling books as a team for almost twenty-five years. During that time they have published more than forty titles, many for the Harlequin Superromance line and Feature and Custom Publishing. They are the recipients of several industry awards, including a Lifetime Achievement Award from RT Book Reviews and a RITA® Award nomination from Romance Writers of America, and their books have been featured on the USA TODAY, Waldenbooks and B. Dalton bestseller lists. The sisters live near each other in northwestern Ohio, surrounded by children, grandchildren, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins and old and dear friends.
For Nancy Roher, editor and friend…because you knew Rachel deserved a love of her own before we did.
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
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
PROLOGUE
“I DON’T THINK IT’S a good idea for Rachel to be going back to Thailand.” Micah McKendrick swirled the ice in his glass of lemonade, special lemonade, laced with smooth, aged whiskey. He watched his brother from hooded blue-gray eyes.
“You aren’t going to get an argument from me.” Simon McKendrick settled back against the cushions of the couch, his gaze wandering around the firelit room. It was a shambles; cushions and pillows scattered everywhere, paper plates and cups sitting on tables and cluttering the mantelpiece. It was exactly what a room that had just housed a combination rained-out Fourth of July picnic/high-school graduation celebration was supposed to look like. Leave it to his Annie not to let an unseasonably cold and wet Chicago holiday spoil her fun…or the celebration of Doug’s triumph. A year ago he wouldn’t have believed the boy would achieve that goal. He had Micah and his bride to thank for setting his stepson on the right path.
The twins, and the dog, raced through the room, stirring debris as they went. “Slow down,” he yelled automatically.
Domestic chaos, he was learning, was something you got used to, living in a house where there were two teenagers, two almost-teenagers, and one just-about-on-his-own college junior and a geriatric dog underfoot and under the same roof—his roof and Annie’s. He could hardly believe they’d been married a year and a half.
“Didn’t you try to talk her out of it when she came down here last month?” Micah asked, returning to the subject uppermost in both their minds.
Simon didn’t answer for a moment. Instead, he glanced at Micah over the rim of his glass. There was a little more silver in his thick, dark hair but, all in all, he looked better than Simon could remember seeing him in a long time. Domesticity, hard as it was to believe, seemed to suit his brother almost as well as it did himself.
“Of course, I did.” Simon looked down at the floor. Half a hotdog bun had rolled off a plate and lay by his foot. He picked it up and put it on another abandoned plate on the coffee table. “I talked a blue streak.” And he’d gotten exactly nowhere. Rachel, the eldest of the three siblings, was every bit as stubborn as he and Micah.
“How about Annie?” Micah asked.
Simon looked at his brother, hazel eyes locking with Micah’s guarded blue-gray gaze.
“Annie thinks she should go.” He didn’t often quarrel with his wife. But on this subject they’d had a major difference of opinion. “She thinks it will do her good.”
“Carrie thinks so too.” Micah shook his head in bewilderment. “How can going back to the place that stole half your life do you any good? Women. Their reasoning is beyond me.”
Simon knew living with and loving his taciturn and reclusive brother was a challenge that many women wouldn’t have accepted. But Carrie Granger McKendrick, like his Annie, wasn’t just any woman. She was one in a million. They’d both been luckier than any man deserved to be to have found them.
“Carrie knew Rachel had been in touch with this Dolph character three weeks before I did,” Micah continued.
“I checked out Father Dolph,” Simon revealed, taking a healthy swallow of his lemonade. It went down smooth and mellow. He gave Micah a small salute in appreciation of the added whiskey. “He’s legit. He’s in charge of one of the smaller, Church-affiliated refugee camps along the T
hai-Laotian border. I didn’t visit that one when I was there last fall, but they’re all pretty much alike.” His voice was grim. “Adequate food and housing but a pretty bleak way to live.”
“Unless you consider the alternative—being marched off to Saigon or Hanoi or Phnom Penh as forced labor—or worse.”
“We don’t know for certain that would happen.”
“The hell we don’t. Tiger…” Micah broke off, leaving the sentence unfinished.
“I should have known you were still in contact with the guy.”
“Don’t change the subject.” Micah took a big swallow of his drink.
“Be careful how far you trust the man.” Simon obliged his brother by returning to the original topic of conversation, but his thoughts remained troubled by the reference to Tiger Jackson, Micah’s expatriate air force buddy. At best, the man was a mercenary, at worst, a criminal in league with one of the most notorious and ruthless drug lords operating out of the Golden Triangle—that remote area of Southeast Asia where Thailand, Laos, and Burma meet. “At least she’s agreed not to leave until after the rainy season. Maybe Mom can talk her into staying in the States until Christmas.”
Micah snorted. “How safe will she be at this camp? Most of them aren’t more than a grenade throw away from the border.”
“This one’s practically rear echelon. Twenty klicks or so from Laos.” Simon tried to smile but gave up the attempt. He leaned forward, his hands between his knees, twirling his glass as he talked. “We’re working on getting these people someplace permanent to stay.” He’d been traveling openly for the government in the past six months, inspecting refugee facilities around the world, reporting back to his superiors, testifying before various congressional committees and doing his damnedest to get innocent victims of half a dozen warring nations a place to live, to belong, to call home. It was a far cry from the undercover work he’d been involved in for many years, less exciting and somewhat less dangerous, but more rewarding.
“You don’t think we can change her mind, do you?”
Simon shook his head. Just then Leah, Annie’s adopted half-Vietnamese daughter, glided into the room with Carrie’s baby son. She deposited the teething infant in Micah’s lap.
“Carrie wants you to please give him his bottle. With any luck he’ll fall asleep.” Leah cocked her head, straight, night-black hair falling over her shoulder, and examined the bright-eyed baby. “I don’t think that’s going to happen,” she observed with all the knowledge and experience four years of baby-sitting had given her. “He looks like he’s ready to party.”
Micah took the little boy who would soon be legally his son, accepted the bottle Leah held out to him and settled the infant in the crook of his arm. “Tell his mother I’ll do my best.” Micah grinned at the pretty teenager, then looked down at the baby with great contentment.
“Don’t forget to burp him when he’s done. They always spit up on you if you don’t, and that is so gross.”
“Don’t I know it.” Micah held the bottle to his son’s mouth, and the baby sucked contentedly. “Don’t look at me like that,” he growled, catching Simon’s amused eye on him.
“I think it’s sweet,” Leah said dreamily. “Men holding babies are so sexy.” She drifted out of the room on a wave of perfume.
“Beware,” Simon said dryly. “They grow up and turn into teenagers.”
“Now you’re the expert, huh?”
“Ain’t life funny.” Simon grinned.
“Yeah.” Micah was suddenly serious once again. The old haunted look came back into his eyes. “I still don’t think Rachel should be going back. Nam screwed us all up pretty good but Rachel most of all. And regardless of what your buddies at State tell you, we don’t know for sure that this Father Dolph is on the up and up.”
“His full name is Dolph Hauer,” Simon said very quietly. “He’s Father Pieter’s nephew. I don’t think there’s anything in the world we could do to stop our sister from going to Thailand if she’s doing it to honor the old man’s memory.”
“No, you’re probably right there.” Micah looked as strong and unbending as the mighty oaks of his north country home, but his big, scarred hands were gentle as he resettled his son in his arms. “But there’s one man over there I can trust to keep an eye on her.”
CHAPTER ONE
“WHAT MADE YOU WANT TO return to Southeast Asia, Mrs. Phillips?”
That was a very good question. Rachel McKendrick Phillips lifted her eyes from her soup and studied the face of the man across the table. Was there something more to this young State Department official than her first impression had led her to believe? Or was he merely curious about her past, as so many others were, and had chosen this particular way of opening up the subject?
“I’ve come to Thailand,” she said with just a hint of the smile that more than one reporter had described as elusive and hauntingly sad, “as a favor to an old, dear friend.”
“Ah, yes, that would be the Dutch priest, Father Pieter Hauer, I believe his name was, who was with you in that hill village in Laos.”
Rachel stiffened, betraying her surprise at the extent of his knowledge. A small, stinging dart of anger pricked her. The slight annoyance she’d felt all morning at being in Harrison Bartley’s company escalated.
“Yes.” She hoped her curt answer would stop his flow of questions.
“The old man is dead now, isn’t he?” The junior-grade diplomat was nothing if not tenacious.
Rachel stared at his round, unformed face for a long moment before answering. “Yes, he’s dead. He’s been dead for seven years.”
“But there’s a nephew, isn’t there, also a priest?” He paused, his fork suspended over a bite of his duck salad. “Working with hill tribe refugees somewhere up in the Golden Triangle, isn’t he?”
“North of Chiang Rai.” Rachel returned her attention to her meal.
“Downright primitive up that way.” Harrison Bartley shook his head as if in sympathy.
Not a hair shifted out of place. It wouldn’t dare, Rachel decided, looking up once more from her excellent soup, flavored with an herb known as lemongrass, for which the restaurant was named, and fiery with tiny red and green chilies.
“I think I can adjust,” she said quietly.
Harrison Bartley had the grace to look sheepish. “Yes, Mrs. Phillips, I expect you can.”
“Look, you might as well call me Rachel. We’re going to be spending a lot of time together over the next few days.” Taking advantage of the fifteen years’ difference in their ages to impose her will, Rachel changed the subject.
“Thank you, Rachel.” He smiled and Rachel revised her estimate of his charm upward slightly. He did have a very nice smile. His teeth were white against his skin. His hair was a dark mahogany brown, fashionably cut and styled. His white linen suit had certainly been made to order, probably in Hong Kong. He would be a valuable addition to any hostess’s insurance list of single men available to fill a vacant seat at a dinner party on very short notice.
Rachel realized as she watched Bartley toy with his food that he wasn’t ready to drop the subject of her past. She waited. How would he phrase it? The question he was dying to ask? What was it like, Rachel, being a prisoner of the Vietnamese all those years? Or would he be more subtle, in keeping with his chosen calling? It must be difficult, Rachel, returning to a part of the world where you’ve known such hardship and…degradation….
“It must be diff—”
Rachel cut him short. “I spent five years in a Vietnamese work camp somewhere in Laos after the fall of Saigon,” she said, her voice even and emotionless. It was still the only way she could get the words past the automatic tightening in her throat, the familiar clutch of fear that squeezed her heart and made it hard to breathe. “Father Pieter and I escaped and made our way through the mountains until we were found and taken in by the Hlông. It was almost ten years later that my brothers learned I was alive and came to Laos to find me. Surely all that m
ust be in my official records, Mr. Bartley.”
“Yes, it is. Sorry for the third degree. Part of my job is asking questions, you know. Look, why don’t you call me Bart? I feel uncomfortable calling you Rachel and you’re still addressing me as Mr. Bartley.”
“All right,” she agreed reluctantly.
“When Alf Singleton, my boss, was called back to Washington to brief the President on Khen Sa, he asked me to look after you.” The charming smile was in place again. “He said that you were a very special lady and to get you to Chiang Rai safely or my…butt…would be in a sling. Alf’s got a very colorful way of expressing himself but he meant what he said. I made it a point to learn what I could.”
“I do appreciate your help.” Rachel relaxed a little. Her brother, Simon, couldn’t have known that his trusted friend, Assistant Ambassador Alfred Singleton, would be unable to escort her north. She’d have to make do with D. Harrison Bartley as a guide.
Bart leaned toward her. “And I promise, no more questions.”
“Mai pen rai,” Rachel said, and picked up her glass of bottled water, giving a small salute.
“Never mind,” Bart translated loosely from the Thai. “I should have known you’d throw their favorite saying at me sooner or later this afternoon.” He picked up his own glass. “Cheers.”
BILLY TODD PUSHED ASIDE the curtain of wooden beads that covered the archway leading into the bar of the Lemongrass with an impatient gesture. The damn things were a real nuisance, but the tourists expected them and so there they hung. The room itself was dark and cool and nearly empty, but beyond the screened windows the terrace tables were filled with the late lunch crowd, mostly Japanese, some Americans with a few Australian sailors and retired British schoolteachers thrown in. A waiter entered the service door from the terrace and Billy beckoned him over. They carried on a low conversation in Thai for a few minutes. Then Billy made his way to the private area at the back of the restaurant.
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