For Kaitlyn's Sake Read online

  “I’ll answer the rest of your questions once you’re dressed,” Kaitlyn told Jake emphatically.

  Letter to Reader

  Title Page

  Books by Dani Criss

  DANI CRISS

  Dedication

  Prologue

  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

  Copyright

  “I’ll answer the rest of your questions once you’re dressed,” Kaitlyn told Jake emphatically.

  He gave her a pleased grin. “I still have that effect on you.”

  She groaned aloud. “You and your oversize ego,” she muttered. “Look at you, Jake. Any woman would drool.”

  “I’m not talking about any woman, Katie. I’m talking about you. And me. We were damn good together in bed. We still would be.”

  He knew instantly he’d pushed her into realizing what she did not want to admit even to herself. She straightened. Her blue eyes directed her fury at him.

  “If you go down that road, you’ll go alone.”

  Dear Reader,

  It’s no surprise that Intimate Moments is the place to go when you want the best mix of excitement and romance, and it’s authors like Sharon Sala who have earned the line that reputation. Now, with Ryder’s Wife, Sharon begins her first Intimate Moments miniseries, THE JUSTICE WAY. The three Justice brothers are men with a capital M—and they’re about to fall in love with a capital L. This month join Ryder as he marries heiress . Casey Ruban for reasons of convenience and stays around for love.

  Popular Beverly Barton is writing in the miniseries vein, too, with A Man Like Morgan Kane, the latest in THE PROTECTORS. Beverly knows how to steam up a romance, that’s for sure! In Wife, Mother...Lover? Sally Tyler Hayes spins a poignant tale of a father, a family and the woman who gives them all their second chance at happiness—and love. Reilly’s Return also marks Amelia Autin’s return. This is a wonderfully suspenseful tale about a hero who had to fake his own death to protect the woman he loved—and what happens when she suddenly finds out he’s really still alive. In Temporary Marriage, Leann Harris takes us to the jungles of South America for a tale of a sham marriage that leads to a very real honeymoon. Finally, Dani Criss is back with For Kaitlyn’s Sake, a reunion story with all the passion you could wish for.

  Let all six of these terrific books keep you warm as the winter nights grow colder, and come back next month for even more of the most excitingly romantic reading around, right here in Silhouette Intimate Moments.

  Yours,

  Leslie J. Wainger

  Senior Editor and Editorial Coordinator

  * * *

  Please address questions and book requests to:

  Silhouette Reader Service

  U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269

  Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3

  * * *

  FOR KAITLYN’S SAKE

  DANI CRISS

  Books by Dani Criss

  Silhouette Intimate Moments

  Sheriffs Lady #490

  For Kaitlyn’s Sake #822

  Silhouette Romance

  Family in the Making #1065

  Family Ties #1112

  DANI CRISS

  has wanted to write romance since she first read Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. In high school she dabbled in poetry and short stories, though she has finally found her true love in novels.

  She squeezes her writing time between working as an office manager and taking care of her family. She lives in Kansas City with her husband, Dan, her two lovely daughters, Crissie and Sara, and Timmy, their dog.

  To the Princess and the Puter,

  two lovely young women.

  May all your dreams come true.

  Prologue

  You lied to me. You didn’t work late.

  I came by to see you, but the office was closed.

  I don’t like being lied to.

  The message was scrawled in red ink on a piece of her agency’s stationery, the letters huge on the ivory paper with the rainbow-colored logo for Memories To Go Travel.

  The note was unsigned, but Kaitlyn Adams didn’t need a signature. Nor did she need convincing she had a genuine problem on her hands.

  He’d been asking her for a date every day since he’d come in two weeks ago to talk about a trip. Last night had been no different. Again she’d politely refused, coming up with yet another made-up excuse for not having dinner with him. Something about the man had made her uncomfortable from the start and now she knew her instincts had been right.

  What was she going to do? she asked herself, still not picking up the note he’d placed in the exact center of her desk.

  Rubbing her arms against the chill she felt, she glanced around her tasteful office. Nothing out of place. Nothing missing. The only thing out of the norm was this cryptic message he’d left behind.

  How had he gotten in? The thought of his having access to her here at any time made her stomach knot with fear. She sat down and whirled her chair around to face the window behind her, gazing out at the morning’s cloudless blue sky. Outside, birds chattered and chirped, their songs competing with the noise from the riding mower engine. Grass grew, leaves waved in the hot August breeze, water trickled over the rocks in the courtyard fountain beyond the second-story office window.

  A world so at odds with what was going on inside the building.

  Shivering again, she picked up the phone and dialed her closest friend.

  “I know. You’re looking for that head count on the engagement party you’re throwing for us on Friday,” Shelly Preston said, not giving Kaitlyn a chance to explain otherwise. “It’s so good of you to do this. Rob hasn’t given me a number yet, but I’ll get it before lunch or I’ll strangle him. Police detective or not.”

  Kaitlyn felt fear climb her spine. Is that what the writer of this note had in mind for her? Strangulation. The threat, though veiled, was unmistakable.

  “Actually...” She paused, the words she needed to say sticking in her throat. Saying aloud what had happened made it seem even more frightening.

  “What is it, Kaitlyn? You sound...upset. Is it the party? You’re doing this on such short notice. We decided to get married only last week.”

  She latched onto that excuse until she could pull herself together. “I do need to tell the caterer how many to plan for....”

  “I’ll get Rob on it immediately. Let’s have lunch and go over the number of guests. I’ve got some other wedding ideas I’d like to run by you.”

  “All right,” Kaitlyn agreed, looking forward to a few moments without fear. “Urn, Shelly, when you talk to your fiancé, you might tell him I’m looking into an alarm system for the office. Maybe he could give me a couple of names....”

  “One name,” Shelly said emphatically. “I can tell you there’s only one person he’ll recommend—his buddy Jake Riley. Has his own company. Riley Security Services. Call him. I’ve been dying for you to meet him.”

  Kaitlyn’s heartbeat tripped. This was not a name she wanted to hear. “Jake Riley? How does Rob know him?”

  “They met on a case three years ago—about the time you and I met—and they’ve been friends ever since, just like we have.”

  “But surely Rob knows someone else who could—”

  Shelly laughed softly. “We’ve been wanting to get you two together for...let’s see... I met Rob two months ago, fell in love with him about a week
after that,” she said on another bubble of laughter, “then about a month ago we finally began introducing each other to our friends. We haven’t managed to get you and Jake together, though. We figured that would happen at one of the wedding events, but your calling him for an alarm system beforehand will be great.”

  Kaitlyn groaned softly. In her mind there was nothing great, or even good, about this. While on one level she knew Jake. was one person whose expertise she had complete trust in, on another level she didn’t want to deal with him again. He wouldn’t be the solution to her problem. He was a complication she didn’t want. A danger of another kind.

  Chapter 1

  He was here, the lover she’d left five years ago. Seated behind her desk, Kaitlyn took time to collect her thoughts. But apparently two days of stewing about this moment—worrying about seeing him again, wondering whether they would be able to deal with each other, fretting whether he would even want to see her again—two days of chasing the questions around in her mind hadn’t been long enough to prepare herself, and she doubted a few more minutes were going to make facing him any easier.

  Jake Riley hadn’t changed a lot in appearance. He still was a commanding presence with his dark hair cut short and almost military in style, his wide-shouldered, rigidbacked, six-foot-two stance and his sharp-edged features—the straight line of his nose, jutting chin, squared-off jaw, piercing midnight eyes. There was not a wrinkle in his charcoal suit, and how he managed that in the middle of an August heat wave was beyond imagining.

  Seeing him again brought back a rush of unwanted memories—memories that should have died from neglect. Then why were they still here, taunting her, mocking her, tempting her beyond reason?

  Not a good omen. Kaitlyn closed her eyes and breathed deeply in an effort to achieve a level of calm that would allow her to deal with him without old emotions getting in the way. The calm eluded her, just as her peace of mind had since she’d found that note on her desk Tuesday morning.

  Wednesday—yesterday—her admirer hadn’t come into her office as he had every day for the past two weeks, but had walked the hallway several times, pausing to give her a pointed look whenever he happened to catch her eye. A silent warning? A threat? Whichever, she couldn’t take any more of it. This morning she’d called Jake’s office, deciding that difficult or not, she would have to deal with him. She needed that alarm system installed.

  She stood up, squared her shoulders, then opened her office door.

  His eyes fixed on her immediately, his gaze hot and so intense she took an involuntary step backward. Her breath caught. Her heartbeat tripped as her planned greeting was lost in her mind’s confusion. She’d expected he might feel some lingering anger over the way she’d handled leaving him, but was that all he felt? Were there traces of desire in the heat in his gaze as it swept over her from head to foot? Anger she could handle, but the other...

  He took several purposeful strides toward her. She retreated farther into her office. He followed, closing the door softly and firmly behind him. Her back was against her desk before he came to a stop, a bare breath away. The scent of his aftershave, spicy and sharp, teased at her nostrils as it always had, drawing her into a whirlwind of sensations.

  Too easily the memories returned.-Memories of lying-in his strong and possessive embrace. Feeling his heat as he made love to her. Experiencing the depths and heights of passion that instinct told her she would never find with anyone else. In all these years, she’d never even tried.

  “Hello, Katie,” he said.

  How could his voice be rough and satiny at the same time, and how, after so many years, could it still affect her this way, the sound of it surrounding her like an embrace? It would be heaven to throw herself into his arms, but he’d nearly destroyed her once before with his need to overprotect and his strong, dominating personality.

  Reason broke through the sensual fog he created. She pushed against his chest until he finally moved back, giving her barely enough room to escape behind her desk. The wood between them, she could at last find her voice.

  “Hello, Jake,” she said, managing somehow to sound firm when she felt as steady as Jell-O. Just being near him was almost too much for her senses. How could she be so weak? She raised her chin an assertive notch that hopefully hid the fact that butterflies were somersaulting in her stomach.

  Jake placed both hands on her desk and leaned forward, deliberately narrowing the distance between them. He wanted to make her sweat—even if it was just a tiny bit—for the way she’d walked out on him. Not very professional of him, but he only now realized he’d been carrying this grudge for five years. Seeing her, he wanted to vent all that rage he’d felt the day he’d come home and found she’d left, with only a cryptic note saying she had to leave while she could.

  “Imagine my surprise when my secretary told me you’d called,” he said, noting her breathing was rapid and shallow. Her navy blue eyes were huge in her lovely and now-pale face. He had her practically cornered there behind her desk and the computer table—a tactic he knew she hated. But he figured he owed her a little something for all that her leaving had put him through. She hadn’t given him a chance to say his piece back then.

  “I’d hoped that your temper would have cooled by now,” she said, her spine straightening, stiffening. Her delicate chin raised several more defiant notches. “Maybe I shouldn’t have called you....”

  He felt the muscle in his jaw clench. “You let me go to work believing—expecting—that we would make up when I got home.”

  “You always had a habit of assuming you knew what I felt, no matter what I said to the contrary.”

  That seemed to give him pause, Kaitlyn thought as he slowly straightened. When she’d finally worked up the courage to make the appointment with his secretary this morning, she’d hoped that five years had been long enough for him to forget the past. But then, it hadn’t been long enough to kill the embers of desire within her that he could ignite so easily.

  Working with him wasn’t going to be smooth sailing. But she needed his expertise, needed that extreme attention to detail of his. During the eight months they’d lived together, that particular trait had caused her to lose her temper more than once. Now, though, she was nervous enough to appreciate it. She didn’t want Craig Fallon breaking into her office again.

  Somehow she had to work with Jake, without getting weak-kneed and without dissolving into a pool of longing at one heated glance. And without the past anger getting in the way.

  “If you’re willing to put your anger aside,” she said, sitting in her chair, “we have some business to discuss. Otherwise, I’m sure Rob Donovan or one of his buddies on the police force can recommend another reliable security firm.”

  He must have read the resolve in her gaze, because he slowly backed off and eased his tall frame into one of the chairs on the other side of the desk. She finally managed a full breath.

  “I’m sure Rob could find you someone else to install your security system,” he said evenly, “but you don’t settle for just anyone. You know me, know how I work. I’m thorough—”

  “You’re also demanding, difficult, stubborn, deliberately intimidating, authoritarian, and the list goes on. We don’t work well together.”

  “Then why did you call me and not someone else?” He leaned forward in his chair, his dark gaze probing hers.

  “Because when it comes to your work,” she said quietly, “I trust you. But I won’t deal with you, Jake, if the past keeps getting in the way.”

  He continued to study her. “Intimidation isn’t your style, but difficult, demanding, stubborn...”

  True, Kaitlyn mused. She could be all those things, in spades. It seemed that all her life she’d had to fight to be able to stand on her own, to have her abilities recognized and respected. Her father’s expectations had been impossibly high, and his criticism loud and clear when she didn’t measure up. He’d regularly stepped in and taken over a task rather than allow her to complet
e it in what he called her “usual inept way.” She’d had to work hard to develop any self-esteem at all and she would fight to hang on to what ground she had gained.

  “You’re right,” she admitted. “We are a lot alike in temperament. Neither one of us wants to give an inch. I supposed that’s the main reason we couldn’t get along.”

  “Except in bed,” Jake responded, needing to make that one crucial point.

  She gripped the arms of her chair. “That’s why I had to leave before you got home,” she said softly. “You could always make me want you so easily, and once you had me where you wanted me, I would agree to anything. I can’t go down that road again.”

  Had he actually been such a manipulative bastard? Jake wondered, but even as he asked himself the question, he knew the answer. He’d always known what he wanted and he was never afraid to push hard to get it. It appeared he’d pushed too hard.

  In Katie’s case, though, his motives had been pure. He’d wanted to take care of her—as he’d always taken care of the people closest to him. Wanted to have her depend on him, need him, lean on him. She’d called him pushy and overprotective, domineering, and said the only thing she’d needed from him was room to stand on her own. It appeared that hadn’t changed.

  She’d phoned him—rather than press Rob for another name—because she needed his help, he told himself. That couldn’t have been easy for her and he hadn’t made it any less difficult.

  “All right,” he said, getting up from the chair to extend his hand to her across the desk as a gesture of peace. “Let’s start this meeting over. My secretary said you wanted advice on a security system. What happened?”