Heart of Fire Read online

  LOOK FOR THESE HEART-POUNDING NOVELS OF ROMANTIC SUSPENSE FROM BESTSELLING AUTHOR

  LINDA HOWARD

  She’s hunting for a mate—and there’s no more playing it safe.

  OPEN SEASON

  Handsome, rich, sexy, deadly....

  MR. PERFECT

  “Sexy fun.”—People

  ...and don’t miss

  ALL THE QUEEN’S MEN NOW YOU SEE HER SON OF THE MORNING SHADES OF TWILIGHT AFTER THE NIGHT DREAM MAN HEART OF FIRE THE TOUCH OF FIRE

  All available from Pocket Books

  PRAISE FOR THE SENSATIONAL NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERS OF

  LINDA HOWARD

  OPEN SEASON

  “A perfect mystery for a late summer weekend. It’s part romance with a dollop of suspense.”

  —The Globe & Mail (Toronto)

  “This book is a masterpiece. Howard hooks us with a devastating opening prologue, then paints such visual pictures of her characters that they live.”

  —Rendezvous

  “A modern-day version of the fairy tale about the ugly duckling that grows into a magnificent swan. . . . Linda Howard plays the fairy godmother with deftness and charm, two words not often associated with a thriller.”

  —The Orlando Sentinel (FL)

  MR. PERFECT

  “Sexy fun.... A frolicsome mystery.... Jaine Bright lives up to her name: she’s as bright—and explosive—as a firecracker.”

  —People

  “Mr. Perfect really scores. . . . Part romance novel, part psychological thriller, [it] is both a frightening and funny look at the search for an ideal mate.”

  —New York Post

  “Funny, exciting, gripping, and sensuous . . . one of her all-time best!”

  —Romantic Times

  Books by Linda Howard

  A Lady of the West

  Angel Creek

  The Touch of Fire

  Heart of Fire

  Dream Man

  After the Night

  Shadow of Twilight

  Son of the Morning

  Kill and Tell

  Now You See Her

  All the Queen’s Men

  Mr. Perfect

  Open Season

  Published by POCKET BOOKS

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  An Original Publication of POCKET BOOKS

  POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  Copyright © 1993 by Linda Howington

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  ISBN 13:978-0-671-01974-7

  ISBN 10: 0-671-01974-0

  eISBN-13: 9-781-45166-4-430

  First Pocket Books printing July 1993

  22 21 20 19

  POCKET and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

  Cover design by Carlos Beltran

  Printed in the U.S.A

  Contents

  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

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  Who’s that, Daddy?” Jillian’s small finger poked insistently at a picture in the book her father held. She was ensconced on his lap, as she often was, for even though she was only five years old she was fascinated by his tales of long-ago people and faraway places, and had been since she was a toddler.

  “That’s an Amazon.”

  “What’s her name?” Jillian knew the figure was female because of the way it was shaped. When she was real little she had sometimes been confused by the length of the hair, until she realized that almost everyone in Daddy’s picture books had long hair, boys as well as girls. In search of a better means of gender identification, she had soon discovered a much more dependable clue: chests. Men and women had different chests.

  “I don’t know her name. No one knows if she ever truly lived.”

  “So she may be a pretend person?”

  “Maybe.” Cyrus Sherwood gently stroked his daughter’s small round head, lifting her thick, shiny hair and letting the dark strands drift down to fall once more into place. He delighted in this child. He knew he was biased, but her understanding and her grasp of the abstract were far beyond what was normal for her age. She was fascinated by his books on archaeology; one of his favorite memories was of her, at the age of three, tugging on a book that weighed almost as much as she did, wrestling it to the floor, and then spending an entire afternoon lying on her stomach, slowly turning the pages as she pored over the pictures, utterly oblivious to everything else around her. She combined childhood innocence with a startling logic; no one would ever accuse his Jilly of being muddleheaded. And if her primary personality trait was pragmatism, her second was stubbornness. He fondly suspected that his beloved daughter would turn out to be more than a handful for some unsuspecting man in her future.

  Jillian leaned closer to study the picture in greater detail. Finally she asked, “If she’s a pretend person, why is she in here?”

  “The Amazons are classified as mythical figures.”

  “Oh. Those people that writers make up stories about.”

  “Yes, because sometimes myths can be based on fact.” He usually tried to simplify his vocabulary when he was talking to Jillian, but he never talked down to her. If she didn’t understand something, his fierce little darling would demand explanations from him until she did understand.

  Her little nose wrinkled. “Tell me about these Amazings.” She settled back in his lap, making herself comfortable.

  He chuckled at her accidental but on-target pun, then launched into an account of the warrior women and their queen, Penthesilea. A door slammed somewhere in the house, but neither of them paid attention, caught up in the old world that was their favorite playground.

  Rick Sherwood bounded into the house with unusual enthusiasm, his customary sullenness lost in excitement. The cleats on his baseball shoes made a strange metallic sound against the wooden floors as he ignored the housekeeper’s oft-repeated demand to take the shoes off before coming inside. God, what a game! It was the best game he’d ever played. He wished his dad had been there to see him, but he’d had some student appointments and couldn’t make it.

  Up to bat five times, and he’d had four hits, one of them a home run. That made his batting average for the day a stupendous .800! Math wasn’t his strong point, but he could figure that batting average easily enough.

  He stopped in the kitchen to down a glass of water, gulping it so thirstily that rivulets ran down his chin, then ran another glass. As he brought it to his mouth he heard voices and paused. It sounded like his dad.

  Still impelled by excitement, he clumped rapidly toward the library, where he knew his dad would be. He burst the door open and rushed through. “Hey, Dad! I got four hits today, one of them a home run! I had seven RBIs and made a