Man With A Mission

Man With A Mission
Muriel Jensen

He's a man with a missionShe's a woman with a secretHank Whitcomb is back in Maple Hill, Massachusetts, the tiny town he grew up in but fled almost twenty years earlier for fame and fortune. And he's determined to make a new life for himself. It doesn't take long before he discovers that he wants his old high school flame, Jackie Bourgeois, to be part of it–and in the deepest way possible: love, commitment, family.Until, that is, Hank happens to learn the real reason Jackie refused to come with him all those years ago…Still, nothing can keep Hank and Jackie from being together again–as they quickly find out!

“When did you try to tell me?” Hank demanded

He took several paces away from Jackie, as though he found her distasteful. “When? I don’t remember once in seventeen years.”

“Yes,” she replied. “I did… That day.” She struggled to maintain control, as everything inside her shook with emotion and old pain.

And new pain.

“I tried to explain why I couldn’t go with you,” she went on, “but you—”

“You said you thought it’d be better if you stayed behind,” he interrupted, taking several angry steps back to her. “You never once mentioned—”

“You talked over me,” she told him quietly. “You didn’t give me a chance. Then you stormed away.”

“Well, what about the seventeen years since?” he roared at her. “Why didn’t you call or write?”

Oh, God, she thought, steeling herself. Anguish squeezed her lungs and made air escape in a painful sound. She had to pull herself together. The hard part was coming….

Dear Reader,

Some women respond to the dreamer hero in romance novels, while others are attracted to the footloose wanderer. Many have an affinity for bad boys, and some want to make a home for the wounded man in need of a woman with just the right antibiotic.

Personally, I have a thing for the hero with purpose. I like the man who knows what he wants in a woman and goes after her with confidence, determination and just enough vulnerability to leave me wondering whether he’ll get her or not. In real life, I’d be offended if my husband behaved as though he had all the answers—particularly because I never seem to have any. Life is a mystery that confounds and confuses me every day. But in my dreams—or in my romantic fantasies—I love to think there’s a man out there to whom life is a clear, straight path to the woman he cherishes, and he’ll let nothing, including her confusion, get in his way.

This is your introduction to Hank Whitcomb, just such a man.

I wish you all good things.

Muriel

Muriel Jensen

P.O. Box 1168

Astoria, Oregon 97103

Man with a Mission

Muriel Jensen

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

Man with a Mission

CONTENTS

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 ONE

HANK WHITCOMB STARTED backwards down the stairs in his office building, supporting one end of a heavy oak table that served as his desk. Bart Megrath, his brother-in-law, carried the other end.

“Whose idea was it to move your office anyway?” Bart asked. “And why is everything oak? Don’t you believe in light, easy-to-clean plastic?”

“The move was my idea.” Haley Megrath, Hank’s sister, brought up the rear with an old oak chair. “If he’s going to bid on City Hall jobs, he may as well conduct business from one of their new rental spaces in the basement instead of in this derelict old mill a mile outside of town.”

Hank was counting. Twelve steps—eight to go. “It was my own idea,” Hank insisted. Thirteen. Fourteen. “You just agreed that it was a good one.”

“I’m the one who told you the City had decided to rent spaces.”

“And when you told me, I told you that Evelyn Bisset had already called me about it.”

“So, the suggestion had more punch coming from Jackie’s secretary.” Haley’s voice took on a deceptively casual but suggestive note. He refused to bite. He would not discuss Jackie Bourgeois. He’d neither forgotten nor forgiven her. It was unfortunate that she was mayor at this point in time, but she was. Still, there was little chance they’d have to deal with each other. The city manager handled the bids on city hall repairs, so Hank would be doing business with him.

“Hey,” Bart said with a grunt. “Let Haley take the credit. Electrical power comes and goes in that ancient building, and the roof leaks. When the time comes that you regret moving Whitcomb’s Wonders out of Chandler’s Mill and into City Hall, you can blame your little sister.”