Trusting Ryan

Trusting Ryan
Tara Taylor Quinn

Trusting Ryan

Tara Taylor Quinn

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

Table of Contents

Cover (#u9015ee63-5305-5a4f-83ef-85900d3ba4f1)

Title Page (#u5ac520f7-6dac-5cc1-b012-071df6ba01c5)

About the Author (#u7fd24dea-e043-507a-811b-a1f816c966bf)

Dedication (#u366b1fa6-539e-5145-9450-1fe018bc7c73)

Chapter One (#ua7503bf5-cd16-5876-a824-e264930441c4)

Chapter Two (#u80c72237-c27b-5b80-ac41-0a2b618025b8)

Chapter Three (#uda4fc3b7-9ad8-5098-a6d1-8f8cda81a7d7)

Chapter Four (#u5685464b-a206-5f64-8931-f8531597bbd5)

Chapter Five (#ue64a693b-1d88-551b-9f5b-6233ca76497c)

Chapter Six (#ufe791144-5892-547c-815a-84d2e2a4188a)

Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

With more than forty-five original novels, published in more than twenty languages, Tara Taylor Quinn is a USA TODAY bestselling author. She is known for delivering deeply emotional and psychologically astute novels. Ms Quinn is a three-time finalist for the RWA RITA

Award, a multiple finalist for the National Reader’s Choice Award, the Reviewer’s Choice Award, the Bookseller’s Best Award and the Holt Medallion. Ms Quinn recently married her college sweetheart and the couple currently lives in Ohio with their two very demanding and spoiled bosses: four-pound Taylor Marie and fifteen-pound rescue mutt/cockapoo, Jerry. When she’s not writing or fulfilling speaking engagements, Ms Quinn loves to travel with her husband, stopping wherever the spirit takes them. They’ve been spotted in casinos and quaint little antique shops all across the country.

To Tim,

my own young hero who’s all grown up now.

I love you more today than yesterday.

CHAPTER ONE

THE WOMAN WAS too damned gorgeous for his good. When he was with her, he couldn’t focus on anything else. Including the reasons why he, Columbus Police Detective Ryan Mercedes—one of the city’s youngest and newest special victim detectives—was not going to get romantically involved with anyone anytime in the near future.

Most particularly, he was mesmerized by her laughter—had been since he’d first met her six months before at the adoption of an incest victim he’d rescued. The young girl had been Audrey’s client.

“What?” Audrey Lincoln asked, glancing over at him in the small living room of his one-bedroom loft condominium.

On the TV Bruce—Jim Carrey—had just been endowed with God’s powers and had single-handedly taken on the gang of thugs who’d earlier beaten him up. The scene involved a birth-worthy monkey and cracked Ryan up every time he saw it.

“Nothing,” he said, maintaining eye contact with the woman sitting next to him. They’d started hanging out a few months ago. Catching an occasional movie or meeting for a cup of coffee.

“I thought you liked this movie.”

Bruce Almighty. He’d seen it so many times the lines randomly popped into his head. “I do.”

“You said it was your favorite.”

“It is.”

“Then why aren’t you watching it?”

Good question.

“I am.”

Her brown eyes narrowed in a way that made him hungry. She stared at him a second longer, then turned back to the large screen television across from them.

They weren’t dating. Weren’t on a date. They were just friends. Watching a movie on a Saturday night.