Kathleen Creighton
One Summer’s Knight
The third book in the Sisters Waskowitz series, 1999
Dear Reader,
It’s summer, the perfect time to sit in the shade (or the air conditioning!) and read the latest from Silhouette Intimate Moments. Start off with Marie Ferrarella’s newest CHILDFINDERS, INC. title, A Forever Kind of Hero. You’ll find yourself turning pages at a furious rate, hoping Garret Wichita and Megan Andreini will not only find the child they’re searching for, but will also figure out how right they are for each other
We’ve got more miniseries in store for you this month, too. Doreen Roberts offers the last of her RODEO MEN in The Mavenck’s Bride, a fitting conclusion to a wonderful trilogy And don’t miss the next of THE SISTERS WASKOWIT7, in Kathleen Creighton’s fabulous One Summer’s Knight. Don’t forget, there’s still one sister to go. Judith Duncan makes a welcome return with Murphy’s Child, a FAMILIES ARE FOREVER title that will capture your emotions and your heart. Lindsay Longford, one of the most unique voices in romance today, is back with No Surrender, an EXPECTANTLY YOURS title. And finally, there’s Maggie Price’s Most Wanted, a MEN IN BLUE title that once again allows her to demonstrate her understanding of romance and relationships
Six marvelous books to brighten your summer-don’t miss a single one And then come back next month, when six more of the most exciting romance novels around will be waiting for you-only in Silhouette Intimate Moments
Enjoy!
Yours,
Leslie J Wainger
Executive Senior Editor
For the sisters Modrovich,
my daughters;
Gorgeous, talented, brilliant and utterly adored,
My constant source of worry, admiration,
inspiration, amusement and pride.
Chapter 1
It had never entered Summer Robey’s mind that she might go to jail. Primarily because it was unthinkable.
Jail. The word, spoken in the judge’s stern, Southern voice, rumbled inside her head like far-off thunder, ominous and threatening. Impossible, she thought. There were the children. The animals. She couldn’t possibly go to jail.
Summer, she ordered herself, take a deep breath. They didn’t really put people in jail for owing money anymore, did they? Hadn’t there been wars fought over that sort of thing? Hadn’t debtors’ prisons been banished long ago?
Deep in her heart she knew she wouldn’t really go to jail. For one thing, her family would never let it happen. It was the injustice of it all that was so overwhelming. And the humiliation. Oh, Lord, the humiliation.
Sitting in that overheated courtroom, hearing the judge’s rebuke echo in her ears, Summer felt exactly as if she’d been slapped. Her cheeks burned with it! All right, she’d never actually been slapped in the face in her life, but she was sure this must be what it would feel like. To be scolded like a child, publicly chastised in front of all those people…those strangers, the clerks and bailiffs, the spectators and lawyers.
Especially that lawyer, the opposing counsel, her enemy, the hospital’s high-priced ace. What was his name?
Two last names. Riley…Grogan-that was it A strange name, she’d thought, for a man so polished, so elegant, so immaculately groomed-so utterly heartless!-with his soft, Southern aristocrat’s voice and his cold blue eyes. A street fighter’s name. Oh, how she wished she’d had someone as ruthless fighting on her side!
She should have hired a lawyer, no matter what the cost. Charly had told her so, and now that it was too late, Summer knew that she was right. Charly was Summer’s sister Mirabella’s best friend, as well as the family’s attorney, but at the moment she was off in the South Seas honeymooning with her husband Troy, who also happened to be the big brother of Mirabella’s husband Jimmy Joe. Which, as Jimmy Joe would have put it, was a whole ’nother story.
“First thing you do is get yourself a lawyer and declare bankruptcy,” Charly had yelled over a bad satellite phone connection from somewhere in Tahiti. But Summer had cringed at the thought. It would have been bad enough having to ask Bella and Jimmy Joe for the money to hire an attorney. Horrible enough having to take her humiliating family problems-her miserable failures-to a stranger. But bankruptcy? Never. Summer Robey might be all but penniless and backed into a corner, but she did have her pride.
And what had all that pride got her? Simply the worst, the most humiliating day of her life.
How could this have happened? How could she be held liable for her ex-husband’s hospital bill when it was he who had deserted her, deserted his kids, leaving them virtually penniless and with the bank foreclosing on their home?
But unbelievably, none of that had mattered to this Southern judge. Immaterial, he’d called it, even if she’d had proof of her allegations. Which she didn’t. How could she have known Hal would become so desperate as to do such a thing? He’d seemed better, those last few months. She’d even allowed herself to hope… Stupid. Stupid. She should have known.
But it had never once occurred to her that she might not be believed. It was Hal Robey who was the compulsive gambler and congenital liar, Summer who was the responsible parent and respected veterinarian-didn’t that prove something?
Too bad. As the judge had coldly pointed out, there’d already been a ruling in this case, and the deadline for appeal had long since passed. The case could not be retried. Meanwhile, there was a judgment against her. She had been ordered by a California court to pay the rehab hospital’s bill. An order that she had chosen to ignore. Therefore, the judge had no option but to find her in contempt.
Contempt. Oh, yes, she’d seen it in the judge’s eyes when he’d scolded her as if she were a child-or an irresponsible nitwit. Of course, she knew that’s what he thought, that she was just another California bimbo, a dumb little beach bunny. And who could blame him? Because, unfortunately, that was exactly what she looked like.
For most of Summer’s life her looks had been her greatest trial For while she realized she looked very much like her name-golden and breezy, carefree and sunny-that was not who she really was. For one thing, she knew she looked much younger than her thirty-five years-when she wasn’t gaunt and hollow-eyed with worry-young enough to still get carded every time she ordered wine with dinner or bought a six-pack of beer at the supermarket, young enough that she could have fit right in with the crowds of gum-popping teenagers who hung out at the mall near her clinic, making conversation that seemed to consist mostly of “I mean, like, totally awesome, y’know?” No one would ever guess to look at her that she was a practicing vet with two kids and a truly frightening house payment.
And beach bunny? Well, she was blond-thanks to genetics, not choice-with a healthy glow to her skin that had little to do with exposure to the sun. But with the demands of her clinic, not to mention the hectic schedule set for her by the children’s activities, she had precious little time for the beach. If it wasn’t some school project, it was David’s swim practice or one of Helen’s gymnastics meets-for which Summer would almost invariably show up late, still wearing a smock smeared with heaven-knows-what and reeking of nervous animal. At least the children would forgive her for that, since it was what they’d grown up with and were pretty much used to. As co-custodians of an elderly and vile-tempered Persian cat, a timid but adorable Chihuahua, and an African gray parrot with an IQ surpassing that of some college students of her acquaintance, they often wore those telltale smears and scents themselves.