A Game Of Chance

A Game Of Chance
Linda Howard

Undercover agent Chance Mackenzie knew that the best way to capture an elusive terrorist was to use the man's daughter as bait, so he seduced Sunny Miller and set out to discover her father's whereabouts. Sunny's own innocence was questionable, and gaining her trust was nearly impossible. And even with all his experience and training, Chance found it difficult to overlook her beauty. However, Chance soon realized that Sunny wasn't running from him - she was running for her life, and she needed Chance's protection. But keeping Sunny safe would involve telling her the truth . . .

Selected praise for (#u7b9dc7a5-7819-58ca-bd9b-0067c5f41e85)

LINDA

HOWARD

“Another firecracker Mackenzie book from favorite author Linda Howard…the hero is rough and tough, the lady is gallant, the adventure pulse-pounding and the romance sizzling hot. Another keeper for the bookshelf.”

—Romantic Times BOOK reviews on A Game of Chance

“Linda Howard writes with power, stunning sensuality and a storytelling ability unmatched in the romance genre. Every book is a treasure for the reader to savor again and again.”

—New York Times bestselling author Iris Johansen

“Ms. Howard can wring so much emotion and tension out of her characters that no matter how satisfied you are when you finish a book, you still want more.”

—Rendezvous

A Game of Chance

Linda Howard

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

LINDA HOWARD says that whether she’s reading them or writing them, books have long played a profound role in her life. She cut her teeth on Margaret Mitchell, and from then on continued to read widely and eagerly. Her interest has settled on romantic fiction, because she’s “easily bored by murder, mayhem and politics.” After twenty-one years of penning stories for her own enjoyment, Ms. Howard finally worked up the courage to submit a novel for publication—and met with success. This Alabama native is now a multi-New York Times bestselling author.

For the readers

Contents

Cover

praise (#u4bc68fd0-bd88-5327-9bb3-00ce26ef686c)

Title Page (#u5be7e937-67af-56d6-b6ce-e521976931a3)

About the Author (#ub5587302-0c1e-5fcd-bb7d-8d19b8e78322)

Dedication (#ufc0f2458-dbe5-5a19-8344-0c879996dd02)

The Beginning

Chapter 1 (#ulink_e9179cc7-fac7-530e-8709-db1f75cffc0d)

Chapter 2 (#ulink_937d0ee4-4a54-5132-9c95-428b1a65bcef)

Chapter 3 (#ulink_00202eb4-b952-56d3-87fa-ba873e523f83)

Chapter 4 (#ulink_c09c4132-1ffb-524e-83ad-e761c4762dff)

Chapter 5 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 6 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)

Epilogue

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

The Beginning (#u7b9dc7a5-7819-58ca-bd9b-0067c5f41e85)

Coming back to Wyoming—coming home—always evoked in Chance Mackenzie such an intense mixture of emotions that he could never decide which was strongest, the pleasure or the acute discomfort. He was, by nature and nurture—not that there had been any nurturing in the first fourteen or so years of his life—a man who was more comfortable alone. If he was alone, then he could operate without having to worry about anyone but himself, and, conversely, there was no one to make him uncomfortable with concern about his own well-being. The type of work he had chosen only reinforced his own inclinations, because covert operations and anti-terrorist activities predicated he be both secretive and wary, trusting no one, letting no one close to him.

And yet…And yet, there was his family. Sprawling, brawling, ferociously overachieving, refusing to let him withdraw, not that he was at all certain he could even if they would allow it. It was always jolting, alarming, to step back into that all-enveloping embrace, to be teased and questioned—teased, him, whom some of the most deadly people on earth justifiably feared—hugged and kissed, fussed over and yelled at and…loved, just as if he were like everyone else. He knew he wasn’t; the knowledge was always there, in the back of his mind, that he was not like them. But he was drawn back, again and again, by something deep inside hungering for the very things that so alarmed him. Love was scary; he had learned early and hard how little he could depend on anyone but himself.

The fact that he had survived at all was a testament to his toughness and intelligence. He didn’t know how old he was, or where he had been born, what he was named as a child, or if he even had a name—nothing. He had no memory of a mother, a father, anyone who had taken care of him. A lot of people simply didn’t remember their childhoods, but Chance couldn’t comfort himself with that possibility, that there had been someone who had loved him and taken care of him, because he remembered too damn many other details.

He remembered stealing food when he was so small he had to stand on tiptoe to reach apples in a bin in a small-town supermarket. He had been around so many kids now that, by comparing what he remembered to the sizes they were at certain ages, he could estimate he had been no more than three years old at the time, perhaps not even that.

He remembered sleeping in ditches when it was warm, hiding in barns, stores, sheds, whatever was handy, when it was cold or raining. He remembered stealing clothes to wear, sometimes by the simple means of catching a boy playing alone in a yard, overpowering him and taking the clothes off his back. Chance had always been much stronger physically than other boys his size, because of the sheer physical difficulty of staying alive—and he had known how to fight, for the same reason.

He remembered a dog taking up with him once, a black-and-white mutt that tagged along and curled up next to him to sleep, and Chance remembered being grateful for the warmth. He also remembered that when he reached for a piece of steak he had stolen from the scraps in back of a restaurant, the dog bit him and stole the steak. Chance still had two scars on his left hand from the dog’s teeth. The dog had gotten the meat, and Chance had gone one more day without food. He didn’t blame the dog; it had been hungry, too. But Chance ran it off after that, because stealing enough food to keep himself alive was difficult enough, without having to steal for the dog, too. Besides, he had learned that when it came to survival, it was every dog for himself.

He might have been five years old when he learned that particular lesson, but he had learned it well.

Of course, learning how to survive in both rural and urban areas, in all conditions, was what made him so good at his job now, so he supposed his early childhood had its benefits. Even considering that, though, he wouldn’t wish his childhood on a dog, not even the damn mutt that had bitten him.

His real life had begun the day Mary Mackenzie found him lying beside a road, deathly ill with a severe case of flu that had turned into pneumonia. He didn’t remember much of the next few days—he had been too ill—but he had known he was in a hospital, and he had been wild with fear, because that meant he had fallen into the hands of the system, and he was now, in effect, a prisoner. He was obviously a minor, without identification, and the circumstances would warrant the child welfare services being notified. He had spent his entire life avoiding just such an event, and he had tried to make plans to escape, but his thoughts were vague, hard to get ordered, and his body was too weak to respond to his demands.