Another Man's Wife

Another Man's Wife
Rebecca Winters

Nate Hawkins was a close friend of fellow air force pilot Scott Pierce. But he concealed one fact from Scott: Nate was in love with Scott's wife, Laurel.Now Scott is dead - and Laurel is obviously pregnant. But the timing's off, and as far as Nate's concerned, that can mean only one thing. Nate doesn't know it, but he's wrong. After years of fertility treatments, Laurel is indeed pregnant - with Scott's child. She loved her husband faithfully.But despite herself, she's starting to fall in love with Nate, the man Scott admired above all others. The man who believes she betrayed her husband…his friend. But despite himself, Nate wants to be with Laurel, a woman he considers another man's wife.

He’d met Scott’s wife only once…

It was back when he was at Nellis years ago. But a man didn’t forget a woman like that.

Her hair had been longer then. With her pictures plastered on the wall of their barracks, every guy in their first squadron was envious of Scott—or Spade, as they called him.

Nate closed his eyes.

Spade…whose career had escalated too fast, who’d died in the prime of life….

The pregnant woman in the elevator couldn’t possibly have been his widow—could she? When he’d crashed and died six months ago, Nate knew his friend’s only regret was that he and his wife had never been able to have children.

Was this woman, this pregnant woman, really his friend’s wife? If so, that could mean only one thing: she’d betrayed her husband.

Dear Reader,

Family relationships can bring us the greatest happiness and the greatest sorrow. One thing is certain. They’re always complicated, complex and intriguing.

In this novel, Another Man’s Wife, and the sequel, Home to Copper Mountain (coming from Superromance in May 2003), I’ve focused on the lives of two extraordinary brothers, Nate and Rick Hawkins, whose worlds are forever changed when tragedy strikes their remarkably close family.

As both men strive to put the pain behind them and make sense of their lives, we see them run the gamut of loss, anger, bitterness, guilt, confusion, self-doubt, struggle and growth—especially when they encounter the strong women whose love is able to heal their tortured souls.

I hope you enjoy their stories! And please check out my Web site, www.rebeccawinters-author.com.

Rebecca Winters

Another Man’s Wife

Rebecca Winters

Another Man’s Wife

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

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

MAJOR NATE HAWKINS GOT READY to climb out of the military transport at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado, aware that the moment his foot touched the tarmac, he’d be a civilian again.

Though he’d planned to stay in the Air Force until retirement, his mother’s unexpected death during an avalanche six months ago had brought huge changes to the Hawkins family. It seemed life had other plans for him.

He reminded himself that he could’ve been like Spade, who’d bought it during that damn air demonstration in Italy at the same time Nate had been burying his mother.

Nate knew he should be grateful to be alive….

The transport door opened. He filed out behind a couple of crewmen. After leaving the milder temperatures back in Holland, the frigid March air came as a shock. You’d never know spring was officially here.

He grimaced to think that his mother wouldn’t be home when he got there, and a sense of grief, of bleakness, settled over him. If this was how his father felt now that she was gone, then Nate understood why his parents’ ski business was in danger of going under.

“Hey, Nate! This way!”

His brother’s voice broke through the heavy shroud of oppression that had enveloped him during the long flight.

““Rick!” Thank God for that constant in his life.

A warm feeling displaced the sadness, and he rushed past people to reach his brother. Only a year apart in age, both men were six feet two, an inch taller than their father. They’d inherited his powerful athletic build, but it was Rick with the gray eyes who looked most like their dad.

Nate, on the other hand, had dark-blond hair and resembled their deceased mother, a statuesque, blue-eyed blonde from Are, Sweden. According to her, when the boys were toddlers people had often mistaken them for twins because Rick’s hair hadn’t turned brown yet.

They gave each other a fierce hug. “It’s good to see you, man.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Rick muttered.

Nate took a second look at his younger brother. Since tragedy had struck their family, the happy-go-lucky attitude—which had earned him the name “lucky” on the ski slopes and the racetrack—was still missing.