Twice a Hero, Always Her Man

  She’d stopped believing in happy endings…

  Widowed TV reporter Ellie King had given up on looking for heroes ever since her beloved husband was killed in a robbery gone wrong. Because she could have used one then, but there was no one around—or was there?

  ...until a hero walked back into her life.

  Detective Colin Benteen had been the first on the scene to comfort Ellie’s husband, to hold his hand when it was clear his wounds were fatal. Now, years later, Ellie is interviewing the handsome officer when she realizes who he is—a single parent (to his niece), all-around good guy and proof that once in a lifetime can happen twice! But Colin might not be the only one who needs convincing...

  She knew that she didn’t really owe him an explanation.

  After all, he was a public servant and this had been done in the service of the public. The public had a right to know. But she had made him a promise, so she felt the need to explain why she’d gone back on it.

  “I know I promised that you’d have the final say, but I’ve got people I answer to and they insisted that the segment go on tonight as is. It turned out pretty well, I thought.” She crossed her fingers that he saw it that way, too.

  “You lied to me.” It wasn’t an accusation but a flat statement. It carried with it not anger, but a note of genuine disappointment. And that made her feel worse than if he’d launched into a tirade.

  “I didn’t lie,” she replied. “I had every intention of showing you the clip first.” When he said nothing, she felt uncomfortable, despite the fact that this ultimately wasn’t really her fault. “The station manager wanted to air it before the other stations got it. I’m sorry, but these things happen. Listen, if you want me to make it up to you—” she began, not really certain where this would ultimately go.

  He cut her short with two words. “I do.”

  Matchmaking Mamas: Playing Cupid. Arranging dates. What are mothers for?

  Dear Reader,

  Sometimes it takes just one word, one passing incident to make a story start coming together for a writer. The “incident” that made this story begin to form was a chance conversation struck up in line at my local post office last Christmas season. The place was packed with impatient people who all had somewhere else to be if only they could take care of whatever business had brought them to the post office—mailing Christmas packages comes to mind.

  I was as trapped as everyone else, standing in line behind this young woman. She, however, didn’t have her arms filled with packages that needed to be mailed “yesterday.” She was there to pick up a box that needed a signature. But her arms weren’t empty. She was holding on to—or trying to hold on to—this energized ball of flying fur that seemed determined to make a break for it up or down the young woman’s arms.

  Since I will, given half a chance, strike up a conversation with a box of oatmeal cookies to make the time go faster, I made a comment that the dog—a puppy really—looked about as anxious to leave as I was. The woman laughed, saying that the puppy, which she’d picked up at our local shelter (which takes in all manners of stray animals—even the occasional chicken and turtle—and puts nothing to death, not even ill-tempered opossums), was like this all the time. I sympathized, saying it was very cute and then asked its name, thinking that would be my clue to its gender. I didn’t want to come right out and ask if it was a male or female. Some owners are funny about their pets when it comes to that.

  The puppy’s name, it turned out, was Pancakes. It didn’t clue me in as to whether the puppy was a male or female, but suddenly a kernel of an idea came to me, and by the time I was able to leave the post office, Christmas package free, I had the makings of another story in my head. Just goes to prove that the post office works in mysterious ways.

  As always, I would like to thank you for taking the time to read my book—I will never take you for granted—and from the bottom of my heart, I wish you someone to love who loves you back.

  All the best,

  Marie

  Twice a Hero, Always Her Man

  Marie Ferrarella

  USA TODAY bestselling and RITA® Award–winning author Marie Ferrarella has written more than two hundred and fifty books for Harlequin, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide. Visit her website, marieferrarella.com.

  Books by Marie Ferrarella

  Harlequin Special Edition

  Matchmaking Mamas

  Dr. Forget-Me-Not

  Coming Home for Christmas

  Her Red-Carpet Romance

  Diamond in the Ruff

  Dating for Two

  Wish Upon a Matchmaker

  Ten Years Later...

  A Perfectly Imperfect Match

  Once Upon a Matchmaker

  Montana Mavericks: The Baby Bonanza

  A Maverick and a Half

  Montana Mavericks: What Happened at the Wedding?

  Do You Take This Maverick?

  The Fortunes of Texas: Cowboy Country

  Mendoza’s Secret Fortune

  The Fortunes of Texas: Welcome to Horseback Hollow

  Lassoed by Fortune

  Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com for more titles.

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  To Charlie

  For stepping up

  And

  Taking care of me

  When I couldn’t.

  After all these years,

  You still manage to surprise me.

  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

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from Wild Horse Springs by Jodi Thomas

  Prologue

  “Oh, Maizie, it’s just breaking my heart, seeing her like this.”

  Maizie Sommers quietly pushed the gaily decorated box of triple-ply tissues she kept on her desk toward her friend, waiting for the woman to collect herself. Connie Williams had called her first thing this morning, asking to see her.

  Maizie knew from her friend’s tone of voice that she wasn’t asking to see her in her professional capacity—at least not in her professional capacity as an award-winning Realtor.

  But Maizie had another vocation, an altruistic one that was near and dear to her heart, as it was to the hearts of her two dearest, lifelong friends, Theresa Manetti and Cecilia Parnell. All three were career women who did quite well in their respective chosen fields. But it was the one avocation that they had in common that brought them the most joy. The one that carried no monetary reward whatsoever, just one that made them feel good.

  All three were matchmakers.

  It
had begun quite innocently enough. The three of them had been friends since the third grade. In the years that followed, they had gone through all the milestones of life together, great and small—not the least of which was widowhood. And all three were also blessed with children. Maizie had a daughter, as did Cecilia, while Theresa had a daughter and a son.

  Their four children were all successful in their own rights—and they were also maddeningly single. Until Maizie decided that her daughter, an ob-gyn, needed more in her life than just delivering other people’s babies. She needed a private life of her own. Joining forces with her two friends, Maizie began to closely monitor and review the wide variety of people all three of them dealt with.

  Thanks to their professions—Theresa ran a catering company, while Cecilia had a thriving housecleaning service—Maizie quickly and secretly found the perfect “someone” for her daughter.

  Theresa and Cecilia were quick to follow her example, and soon all three of their children were matched to their soul mates, as well.

  Nothing bred more success than initial success and so a passion was born. Maizie, Theresa and Cecilia began helping the children of other friends, all while always managing to keep the principals involved in the dark, thinking it was fate rather than three very artful women that had intervened in their lives for the better.

  So it didn’t surprise Maizie at all to be sitting in her office today across from one of her friends, quietly waiting for the request she knew was coming. Connie wanted her to find someone for her daughter, a reporter with a prominent local news station.

  Connie pulled out a tissue and wiped away the tears that had slid down her cheek despite her best efforts to the contrary.

  “Ellie puts up a brave front and whenever I ask her, she tells me that she’s fine, but she’s not fine. A mother knows, Maizie,” the older woman insisted, stifling a sob.

  Maizie offered her an understanding smile. “Truer words were never spoken,” she agreed. Then, gently, Maizie asked her friend, “How long has it been now?”

  “Two years,” Connie answered. She didn’t even have to pause to think. She knew it to the exact day. Remembered how stricken her daughter had been when she’d found out that her husband, a recently discharged, highly decorated Marine sergeant had been killed while trying to save a couple who were being robbed at a convenience store.

  “She goes on with her life, goes on with her career, but I know in my heart nothing’s changed. If anything, she works harder these days, spends long hours both in the field on assignment and at the studio, overseeing the editing of her work, but it’s like everything froze inside her since that day.”

  Maizie nodded. “I can imagine how awful it must have been for Ellie to find out that the news story she was being sent to cover involved her own husband.”

  There had been a mix-up when the story had come over the wire and the name of the hero of the piece had been accidentally switched for the name of the owner of the convenience store where the robbery had occurred. When Ellie and her cameraman had arrived on the scene, the ambulance had already come and gone. It wasn’t until she was in the middle of covering the story, talking to the two grateful people her husband had saved, that her cell phone had rung. Someone from the hospital was calling her to notify Ellie that her husband had been shot and had died en route.

  “Ellie went numb when the call on her cell came in. The poor thing barely kept from fainting in front of everyone. Her studio was exceedingly sympathetic, and Ellie, well, she just froze up inside that awful, awful night and she still hasn’t come around, no matter what she tries to tell me to the contrary.”

  Connie looked at the woman she was counting on to change things for her daughter, her eyes eloquently entreating her for help.

  “Maizie, she’s only thirty years old. Thirty is much too young to resign from life the way she has. Ellie has so much to offer. It’s just killing me to see her like this.” Connie pressed her lips together. “If I say anything to her, she just smiles and tells me not to worry. How can I not worry?” she asked.

  Maizie placed her hand over her friend’s in a comforting gesture, one mother reaching out to another. “I’m glad you came, Connie. Leave this to me.”

  The woman hesitated, her gratitude warring with a host of other feelings—and one main one that she gave voice to now. “If Ellie knew I was trying to find someone for her—”

  “You’re not,” Maizie pointed out. “Let me look into this and I’ll get back to you,” she promised. In her mind, she was already summoning her friends for an evening card game, happily telling them that they had a brand-new assignment of the heart.

  Nothing was more satisfying to them—except, of course, for the successful execution of said operation.

  Maizie couldn’t wait.

  Chapter One

  It felt as if mornings came earlier and earlier these days, even though the numbers on the clock registered the same from one day to the next. Even so, it just seemed harder for Elliana King to rouse herself, to kick off her covers and find a way to greet the world that was waiting for her just outside her front door.

  It wasn’t always this way, she thought sadly. There was a time that she felt sleeping was a waste of precious hours. Those were the days when she would bounce up long before the alarm’s shrill bell officially went off, calling an end to any restful sleep she might have been engaged in.

  But everything had changed two years ago.

  These days, her dreams were sadly all empty, devoid of anything. The first year after Brett had been taken from her, she’d look forward to sleep because that was when he visited her. Every night, she dreamed of Brett, of the times they’d spent together, and it was as if she’d never lost him. All she had to do was close her eyes and within a few minutes, he was there. His smile, his voice, the touch of his hand. Everything.

  She’d been more alive in sleep than while awake.

  And then, just like that, he wasn’t. Wasn’t there no matter how hard she tried to summon him back. And getting up to face the day, face a life that no longer had Brett in it, became progressively harder for her.

  Ellie sat up in bed, dragging her hand through blue-black hair Brett always referred to as silky. She was trying to dig up the will to actually put her feet on the floor and begin her day, a day that promised to be filled from one end to the other with nothing but ongoing work. Work that was meant to keep her busy and not thinking—not feeling.

  Especially not feeling.

  Work was her salvation—but first she had to get there.

  Still trying to summon the energy to start, Ellie glanced at the nightstand on her left. The nightstand that held her phone, the lamp that was the first piece of furnishings Brett and she had chosen together—and the framed photograph of Brett wearing his uniform.

  A ghost of a smile barely curved her lips as she reached out to touch the face that was looking back at her in the photograph.

  And without warning, Ellie found herself blinking back tears.

  “Still miss you,” she murmured to the man who had been her whole world. She sighed and shook her head. “Almost wish I didn’t,” she told him because she had never been anything but truthful with Brett. “Because it hurts too much, loving you,” she admitted.

  Closing her eyes, Ellie pushed herself up off the bed, taking the first step into her day.

  The other steps would come. Not easily, but at least easier. It was always that first step that was a killer, she thought, doing her best to get in gear.

  She went through the rest of her morning routine by rote, hardly aware of what she was doing or how she got from point A to point B and so on. But she did, and eventually, Ellie was dressed and ready, standing at her front door, the consummate reporter prepared to undertake a full day of stories that needed to be engagingly framed for the public.

  Sh
e knew how to put on a happy face for the camera.

  No one except those who were very close to her—her mother; Jerry Ross, her cameraman; and maybe Marty Stern, the program manager who gave her her assignments—knew that she was always running on half-empty, because her reason for everything was no longer there.

  Several times Ellie had toyed with the idea of just bowing out. Of not getting up, not going through the motions any longer. But she knew what that would do to her mother and she just couldn’t do that to her, so she kept up the pretense. Her mother, widowed shortly before Brett had been killed, would be devastated if anything happened to her, so Ellie made sure nothing “happened” to her, made sure she kept putting one foot in front of the other.

  And just kept going.

  “But sometimes it’s so hard,” she admitted out loud to the spirit of the man she felt was always with her even if she could no longer touch him.

  Ellie took a deep breath as she opened the front door. It was fall and the weather was beautiful, as usual. “Another day in paradise,” she murmured to herself.

  Locking the door behind her, she forced herself to focus on what she had to do today—even though a very large part of her wanted to crawl back into bed and pull the covers up over her head.

  * * *

  “I know that look,” Cecilia Parnell said the moment she sat down at the card table in Maizie’s family room and took in her friend’s face. “This isn’t about playing cards, is it?”

  Maizie was already seated and she was dealing out the cards. She raised an eyebrow in Cilia’s direction and smiled.

  “Not entirely,” Maizie replied vaguely.

  Theresa Manetti looked from Cilia to Maizie. She picked up the cards that Maizie had dealt her, but she didn’t even bother fanning them out in her hand or looking at them. Cilia, Theresa knew, was right.

  “Not at all,” Theresa countered. “You’ve got a new case, don’t you?” She did her best to contain her excitement. It had been a while now and she missed the thrill of bringing two soul mates together.