Anything, Any Time, Any Place Read online

  “Stop!”

  Letter to Reader

  Title Page

  Books by Lucy Gordon

  About the Author

  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

  Copyright

  “Stop!”

  Heads turned sharply to see the man who’d called out. He stood there in a shaft of sunlight, head up, arms akimbo, his face wearing a challenging grin. Kaye held her breath, her heart beating fast, not daring to believe that Jack had come into her life, when she’d given up hope.

  He strode down the aisle. “I have a prior claim on this woman,” he declared. “Until that’s satisfied, she can’t marry anyone.” With that, Jack seized Kaye up into his arms, and before she knew it they were in the church courtyard.

  “You can’t do things like that,” Kaye gasped.

  “I can,” Jack said confidently. “Besides, I do have a prior claim on you. Had you forgotten?”

  “No. I said I’d do anything you asked, whenever you asked.”

  “Anything, any time, any place. That was your promise. And now I’ve come to collect.”

  Dear Reader,

  February is the month of love...glorious love. And to commemorate the soul-searching connection between a man and a woman, Special Edition has six irresistibly romantic stories that will leave you feeling warm and toasty from the inside out

  Patricia Thayer returns to Special Edition with Baby, Our Baby!—a poignant THAT’S MY BABY! tale that promises to tug the heartstrings. Ali Pierce had one exquisite night with the man she adored, and their passionate joining brought them the most precious gift of all—a child. You won’t want to miss this deeply stirring reunion romance about the tender bonds of family.

  Cupid casts a magical spell over these next three couples. First, an intense bodyguard falls for the feisty innocent he’s bound to protect in The President’s Daughter by award-winning author Annette Broadrick. Next, Anything, Any Time, Any Place by Lucy Gordon is about a loyal bride who was about to marry her groom, until a mesmerizing man insisting he had a prior claim on her heart whisks her away.... And a forbidden desire is reignited between a lovely librarian and a dashing pilot in The Major and the Librarian by Nikki Benjamin.

  Rounding off the month, celebrated author Robin Lee Hatcher debuts in Special Edition with a compelling story about a man, a woman and the child that brings them together—this time forever—in Hometown Girl. And finally, Unexpected Family by Laurie Campbell is a heartfelt tale about a shocking secret that ultimately brings one family closer together.

  I hope you enjoy all our captivating stories this month. Happy Valentine’s Day!

  Sincerely,

  Karen Taylor Richman

  Senior Editor

  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

  LUCY GORDON

  ANYTHING, ANY TIME, ANY PLACE

  Books by Lucy Gordon

  Silhouette Special Edition

  Legacy of Fire #148

  Enchantment in Venice #185

  Bought Woman #547

  Outcast Woman #749

  Seduced by Innocence #902

  Forgotten Fiancée #1112

  Anything, Any Time, Any Place #1227

  Silhouette Romance

  The Carrister Pride #306

  Island of Dreams #353

  Virtue and Vice #390

  Once Upon a Time #420

  A Pearl Beyond Price #503

  Golden Boy #524

  A Night of Passion #596

  A Woman of Spirit #611

  A True Marriage #639

  Song of the Lorelei #754

  Heaven and Earth #904

  Instant Father #952

  This Man and This Woman #1079

  Silhouette Desire

  Take All Myself #164

  The Judgement of Paris #179

  A Coldhearted Man #245

  My Only Love, My

  Only Hate #317

  A Fragile Beauty #333

  Just Good Friends #363

  Eagle’s Prey #380

  For Love Alone #416

  Vengeance Is Mine #493

  Convicted of Love #544

  The Sicilian #627

  On His Honor #669

  Married in Haste #777

  Uncaged #864

  Two Faced Woman #953

  This Is My Child #982

  LUCY GORDON

  met her husband-to-be in Venice, fell in love the first evening and got engaged two days later. They’re still happily married and now live in England with their three dogs. For twelve years Lucy was a writer for an English women’s magazine. She interviewed many of the world’s most interesting men, including Warren Beatty, Richard Chamberlain, Sir Roger Moore, Sir Alec Guinness and Sir John Gielgud.

  In 1985 she won the Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award for Outstanding Series Romance Author. She has also won a Golden Leaf Award from the New Jersey Chapter of RWA, was a finalist in the RWA Golden Medallion contest in 1988 and won the 1990 RITA Award in the Best Traditional Romance category for Song of the Lorelei.

  Prologue

  Kaye’s wedding dress was grandiose, with yards of embroidered satin sweeping the floor, and seed pearls adorning the tight bodice. Diamonds sparkled about her throat and on her ears. Her groom had insisted on it. He wanted the world to see that he was a rich man who’d bought and paid for his bride, even though she hated him.

  Bertie, her beloved grandfather, knocked and entered her room, fat, puffing and bursting out of his wedding togs. “You look lovely, darling,” he growled. “Too good for Lewis Vane.”

  “Oh, Grandpa.” Kaye sighed. “Why did Paul have to steal from Lewis?”

  “Because your mother raised him to think he could do as he liked,” Bertie said angrily. “And now you’re being sacrificed to get him out of a mess of his own making. You should have refused to marry Lewis.”

  “How could I when he could send Paul to prison? He’d do it, too. He’s got all that evidence.”

  “A spell in jail would do your brother good,” Bertie said bluntly. “Kaye, darling, if only you’d learn to stand up for yourself! Your father wouldn’t have allowed this.”

  Kaye’s father had been Bertie’s son. When Kaye was six, Rhoda, her mother, had left home for another man, leaving her daughter behind. There’d been a divorce, a remarriage, and Paul had been born. It was only when her father died that Kaye had gone to live with Rhoda. Her mother had never loved her very much. Now Paul was the center of her world, and Kaye was expected to help look after him.

  She’d adored her pretty little brother. Her nature was gentle and yielding, and she was too warmhearted to be jealous. It was Rhoda’s new husband who minded never having his wife’s attention, who had walked out.

  As Paul grew up, Kaye was his protector, always getting him out of the trouble he’d brought on himself. Now here she was, on her wedding day, about to do so again.

  She stood up to brush Bertie’s coat. To do so she had to set down something she was holding in her hand. It was a tiny wooden ornament in the shape of a horse.

  “I didn’t know you’d kept Jack’s present,” Bertie said gently. “He meant a lot to you, didn’t he?”

  “Yes,” she said sof
tly. “Jack meant everything to me. But it was all a long time ago, and—and I didn’t mean anything to him.”

  For a moment her eyes were hazy with longing at the thought of the bright dream that would finally die today. Bertie put his arms about her and they clung together.

  “You go down first,” she said at last. “I’ll follow soon.”

  She needed a moment alone, even from Bertie. Just one last moment to say a whispered goodbye to the man she had secretly loved for six years.

  Jack Masefield.

  She said his name softly, longingly, using the sound of the words to conjure up the big, laughing bear of a man who’d won her heart in the first moment.

  She’d known him for just ten days, and they’d been the happiest of her life. He’d given her the little horse, but he’d also given her a flowering joy that she would never forget.

  They’d parted so suddenly that she’d felt as though her heart had been torn out. She’d made him a promise, hoping that one day he would come back and claim it.

  But he never had. And now he never would.

  Bertie sat beside her in the car and held her hand comfortingly all the way to the church.

  “I’ll be all right, Grandpa,” she said with a smile. “Honestly I will.”

  “You always said that when you were hurt, darling,” he told her sadly. “As a child, when you fell over, you’d never cry.”

  “And I won’t cry today,” she promised him.

  At the church she took his arm and began the march down the aisle with her head up. The altar grew inexorably nearer, with Lewis standing there, looking smug at having acquired her at last. Kaye’s heart sank at the thought of spending her life with this spiteful man.

  The parson began the wedding service, taking Kaye step by step to her doom. She heard the words, “If any of you know just cause or impediment why these persons may not be joined together, let him speak now, or forever hold his peace.”

  He’d already taken a breath to continue when a voice came ringing from the back of the church.

  “Stop! There is an impediment.”

  Heads turned sharply to see the man who’d called out. He stood there in a shaft of sunlight, tall and straight, head up, arms akimbo, his face wearing a challenging grin. Kaye held her breath, her heart beating fast, not daring to believe that this man had come back into her life when she’d given up hope.

  He strode down the aisle. “I have a prior claim on this woman,” he declared. “Until that’s satisfied, she can’t marry anyone.”

  “Jack,” Kaye whispered. “Jack Masefield.”

  Nobody heard her. A buzz was going around the church. Lewis Vane glared at the parson.

  “Get on with it,” he muttered.

  “I must ask some questions first,” the little man protested. “You mentioned a prior claim, sir. Do you mean that this lady is your wife?”

  “No, but she’s under an obligation to me.” Jack Masefield’s eyes were fixed on Kaye’s face.

  “Damned nonsense!” Lewis Vane roared. “Get out of here now.”

  “Certainly.”

  Jack made a half turn as if to leave, but at the last moment he swiveled around and seized Kaye up into his arms. Before anyone realized what was happening he was halfway out of the church with her.

  A gleaming car stood outside, with a man at the wheel, the engine running and the rear door wide open. Jack set Kaye down in the back, slammed the door behind them and called, “Move it!”

  The next moment they were out of the churchyard, speeding away. Through the rear window Kaye saw a stream of guests pour out of the church. In the lead was Lewis Vane, red faced and bellowing, with Paul beside him looking horrified, and Rhoda screaming hysterically. Bertie was dancing with glee, waving his arms and yelling, “Ye-es!”

  Perhaps one minute had elapsed since Jack had entered the church, and in that time the world had turned upside down.

  “You can’t do things like that!” Kaye gasped.

  “I can,” Jack said with his self-confident grin. “Besides, I do have a prior claim on you. Six years ago you gave me a promise. Had you forgotten?”

  “No. I said I’d do anything you asked, whenever you asked.”

  “Anything, any time, any place,” he confirmed. “That was your promise. And now I’ve come to collect.”

  Chapter One

  Bertie was a contest freak. He entered everything, yet had never won so much as a booby prize until the day, six years ago, when he’d scooped a holiday for two on the little Caribbean island of Singleton.

  Kaye had just passed her eighteenth birthday, and he’d taken her with him, ignoring hints from Rhoda that Paul was looking peaked. It seemed the fates were making up to Bertie for years of disappointment. The contest organizers flew them out first class, put them up in a luxury hotel and provided generous spending money.

  “Do you realize....” Bertie chuckled as they relaxed by the pool on their first day. “This hotel is filled with superrich folk, and we’re living as if we belonged with them.”

  “Mmm!” Kaye stretched luxuriously on her reclining bed. “Is this really happening?”

  Bertie frowned at her modest one-piece swimsuit. “You’ve got to get a bikini like all the others.” He indicated the voluptuous females reclining around the pool. “That thing makes you look like a schoolgirl.”

  “But I’ve got a figure like a schoolgirl.” She sighed. “I don’t go in and out in the right places. Not enough, anyway—hey!”

  The yell was forced from her by a large air-filled ball landing on her stomach. Kaye sat up indignantly and found herself looking into a pair of piercing blue eyes, set in the small, determined face of a little girl of about eight.

  “That’s my ball,” she said.

  “And that’s my tummy it landed on,” Kaye said.

  “I didn’t mean it to.”

  “Glad to hear it.”

  “I was aiming at him.” The child indicated Bertie. “’Cos he’s got a much bigger tummy than you.”

  Bertie regarded his bulge. “Guess I do make a tempting target.”

  “That’s not the point,” Kaye said, laughing. “You shouldn’t chuck balls at people.”

  “But I’m a free spirit,” the child explained.

  “Mommy says free spirits aren’t bound by ordinary rules.”

  “That sounds very convenient,” Kaye said thoughtfully. “So if I were a free spirit, I could puncture this ball.”

  “No, you couldn’t, because it’s mine.”

  “But I’m a free spirit, not bound by ordinary rules,” Kaye pointed out.

  The little girl opened her mouth, then closed it again, obviously taken aback by this view of things. “Well,” she said reluctantly at last, “I guess you need some rules.”

  “Georgy! Cut it out!”

  A man wearing only a pair of black shorts caught up with the little girl and admonished her in a voice that was half laughing, half harassed. Kaye looked up at him and felt her heart miss a beat.

  He was a good six feet four inches, with broad shoulders, long, muscular legs, a flat stomach and powerful torso dusted with curly hair. But it wasn’t his body’s magnificence that took her breath away. It was his generous mouth with its smile of sheer devilment, as though the whole world were his to be relished.

  He looked vaguely familiar, but then Kaye realized that her heart had known him all her life. And would know him forever. It had happened in one moment.

  “I’m afraid my daughter’s a bit out of hand,” he said ruefully. “I hope she didn’t hurt you.”

  “Not a bit,” Kaye said, smiling.

  “And I apologize for what she said about you, sir.”

  “Forget it,” Bertie said amiably.

  “I want my ball,” the child said.

  “How about some manners, young lady?” the man demanded.

  “Can I have my ball back, please?”

  Kaye handed it over and Georgy skipped away. The man gave a wry look and
sat down beside Kaye’s recliner.

  “I’m Jack Masefield,” he said, offering his hand.

  His name, too, struck a chord, but Kaye hardly noticed. She was absorbed in his overwhelming presence. His handshake was like the rest of him, huge and warm. Her small hand vanished without trace.

  When they had swapped names Jack hailed a passing waiter to order drinks. Kaye chose something long and cold, and the men had beers.

  “I’m afraid I make a poor hand at being a father,” Jack admitted. “Georgy lives with my ex-wife most of the time and, as you saw, does pretty much as she likes.”

  His eyes were the same deep blue as Georgy’s. Kaye hoped he hadn’t noticed her little start of pleasure at the discovery that his wife was “ex.”

  “I haven’t seen you around before,” Jack observed, smiling at her.

  It was a friendly rather than a flirtatious smile, but it turned her to jelly. Suddenly Kaye was hot and cold all over, desperately conscious of her dowdy swimsuit, and determined to buy a bikini as soon as possible.

  Bertie explained that they’d arrived only the night before and had a suite on the second floor, but he said nothing about the competition. Jack was left to assume that they were millionaires exploring the world’s playgrounds. Kaye turned an aghast look on Bertie, but he refused to meet her eyes.

  “What line are you in, sir?” Jack asked respectfully.

  “The gift trade,” Bertie declared with truth, having spent his working life behind the counter of a fancy goods shop.

  “I do a little of that myself,” Jack said. “I’m in sports goods, but it crosses the line into gifts.”

  Kaye couldn’t follow much of the talk that followed, but at first Bertie held his own. When he started to flounder help came unexpectedly.