All He Ever Wanted Read online

  Faith knew Cameron Stevenson was strong.

  And she knew—having seen him in one of the worst situations a parent would ever find themselves in—that he could be incredibly gentle with his son.

  Realizing that she was still staring after him, she felt her cheeks heat and glanced around, hoping nobody noticed her hovering there in the corridor like some gawking groupie.

  The fact was, she knew certain things about Cameron and she was enormously curious to know more, and it wasn’t all caused by the fact that her hormones had unfrozen with unseemly haste the first time she’d ever seen him.

  But Cameron Stevenson was a family man, pure and simple. So it didn’t matter what sort of effect he had on her.

  She wasn’t going down that road ever again.

  Dear Reader,

  Spring might be just around the corner, but it’s not too late to curl up by the fire with this month’s lineup of six heartwarming stories. Start off with Three Down the Aisle, the first book in bestselling author Sherryl Woods’s new miniseries, THE ROSE COTTAGE SISTERS. When a woman returns to her childhood haven, the last thing she expects is to fall in love! And make sure to come back in April for the next book in this delightful new series.

  Will a sexy single dad find All He Ever Wanted in a search-and-rescue worker who saves his son? Find out in Allison Leigh’s latest book in our MONTANA MAVERICKS: GOLD RUSH GROOMS miniseries. The Fortunes of Texas are back, and you can read the first three stories in the brand-new miniseries THE FORTUNES OF TEXAS: REUNION, only in Silhouette Special Edition. The continuity launches with Her Good Fortune by Marie Ferrarella. Can a straitlaced CEO make it work with a feisty country girl who’s taken the big city by storm? Next, don’t miss the latest book in Susan Mallery’s DESERT ROGUES ongoing miniseries, The Sheik & the Bride Who Said No. When two former lovers reunite, passion flares again. But can they forgive each other for past mistakes? Be sure to read the next book in Judy Duarte’s miniseries, BAYSIDE BACHELORS. A fireman discovers his ex-lover’s child is Their Secret Son, but can they be a family once again? And pick up Crystal Green’s The Millionaire’s Secret Baby. When a ranch chef lands her childhood crush—and tycoon—can she keep her identity hidden, or will he discover her secrets?

  Enjoy, and be sure to come back next month for six compelling new novels, from Silhouette Special Edition.

  All the best,

  Gail Chasan

  Senior Editor

  All He Ever Wanted

  ALLISON LEIGH

  For Chris, Pam, Judy, Karen and Cheryl,

  fellow “Gold Rush Groomers” and for Susan,

  who kept us on track. It’s been a pleasure!

  Books by Allison Leigh

  Silhouette Special Edition

  *Stay… #1170

  *The Rancher and the Redhead #1212

  *A Wedding for Maggie #1241

  *A Child for Christmas #1290

  Millionaire’s Instant Baby #1312

  *Married to a Stranger #1336

  Mother in a Moment #1367

  Her Unforgettable Fiancé #1381

  The Princess and the Duke #1465

  Montana Lawman #1497

  Hard Choices #1561

  Secretly Married #1591

  *Home on the Ranch #1633

  The Truth About the Tycoon #1651

  All He Ever Wanted #1664

  ALLISON LEIGH

  started early by writing a Halloween play that her grade-school class performed. Since then, though her tastes have changed, her love for reading has not. And her writing appetite simply grows more voracious by the day. She has been a finalist in the RITA® Award and the Holt Medallion contests. But the true highlights of her day as a writer are when she receives word from a reader that they laughed, cried or lost a night of sleep while reading one of her books.

  Born in Southern California, Allison has lived in several different cities in four different states. She has been, at one time or another, a cosmetologist, a computer programmer and a secretary. She has recently begun writing full-time after spending nearly a decade as an administrative assistant for a busy neighborhood church, and currently makes her home in Arizona with her family. She loves to hear from her readers, who can write to her at P.O. Box 40772, Mesa, AZ 85274-0772.

  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 One

  “How long has it been since you last saw your son?”

  Cameron Stevenson eyed the police officer. Impatience clawed at him. He wanted to be out looking for Erik, not answering Bobby Romano’s incessant questions. “Almost two hours. The band was taking their second break.”

  The officer’s pencil scratched on his small notepad. “How do you know it was their second? Maybe it was their first. Their last.”

  Romano’s neck was looking more appealing by the minute and Cam’s hands itched to strangle it. But it wasn’t Romano’s fault that Erik was missing.

  It was Cam’s.

  So instead of throttling the officer for detaining him when he would otherwise have been scouring the buildings surrounding the Thunder Canyon Town Hall—usually known as The Hall—Cameron’s fist tightened around the leather coat that Laura had given him their first winter together in Thunder Canyon.

  Their only winter.

  “It was Montana Gold’s second break,” he said flatly. “As soon as I saw the band members putting down their instruments, I started hunting for Erik. He’d already messed with the instruments after the band’s first set. I didn’t want him getting into mischief on the stage again.” The first time, Erik’s focus had been the drum set. The end result had been a crash of cymbals when the hi-hat tumbled off the stage. “It was around eight. I was gonna take him home.”

  Romano scratched his jaw and then made a few more notes. “And you’re sure he’s not just hiding? We all know how Erik can get. Kid was probably bored out of his skull coming to a wedding and reception.”

  Since it seemed as if everyone in town had crammed into The Hall to celebrate with the bridal couple—Katie Fenton and Justin Caldwell—Cam couldn’t have very well come to the event without his son. None of the regular baby-sitters had been available. So he’d dragged Erik—not quite kicking and screaming—along with him.

  Now he wished they both had stayed home. He hadn’t wanted to come to the wedding in the first place, but Katie had been pretty insistent.

  And he’d had the notion that Laura was standing behind him, silently pushing him to take part in the town’s activities. So he’d accepted the invitation, and he’d lassoed Erik into accompanying him.

  “He’s not just hiding,” he assured. The door to The Hall opened yet again, letting in a spit of snow along with the arrival. The evening had not only marked a second wedding for Katie to Justin in as many months, but it seemed to be capped by another blizzard as well.

  Which only thinned out his control to a translucent veneer.

  Most of the wedding guests had already departed because of the weather. Many of them were even now out looking for his son despite the weather.

  While he was stuck in the lobby of the town hall answering Romano’s damn questions.

  “How do you know?” Romano was plodding.

  Cam exhaled roughly. His fingers flexed. Tightened on the coat. “Because Rhonda Culpepper was here at the wedding, too.” Rhonda manned the information desk for The Hall. She knew every nook and cran
ny of the place. “She had her keys. We checked all the offices upstairs. We checked the archives in the basement. We checked the damn elevator shaft. We checked every damn hiding hole in this entire damn place!” His voice rose, and there was little he could do to stop it. He towered over Romano, wanting to smash the man for hindering him.

  “Here.” A hand, holding a cup of water, appeared from one side, pushing between him and the police officer. A physical barrier. He looked at the cup for a moment, and the slender hand—then at the woman who’d offered it.

  Faith Taylor.

  He knew her only by sight.

  Which was more than he wanted…and not because he didn’t like the look of her.

  He just didn’t like the effect she had on him.

  But she was SAR. Search and Rescue. The fact that his son might need her, though, or any other member of the county-wide team, made that veneer of control even thinner.

  Don’t panic.

  “I don’t want any water. I don’t want to answer any more questions about how tall Erik is, or what he was wearing.” Questions from Romano that had eroded Cam’s nerves and pulverized his ability to remain calm. “I want to find my son. He’s probably playing down on Main Street somewhere. He likes pretending he’s an outlaw from the Old West.”

  “And the old-fashioned Western buildings all along Main provide the perfect setting.” Faith’s voice was calm enough. “Let’s just hope that he’s doing exactly that. And if he is, he’ll be found quickly enough. There are officers and volunteers right now out canvassing the area, doing a door-to-door.”

  “And I should be out there with them. It’s only getting later and that snow doesn’t look like it’s gonna lighten up anytime soon.”

  Her soft lips pressed together. Earlier in the evening, she’d worn a deep blue dress that had flowed around her slender ankles whenever she took a step. But since word had gotten out that Erik was missing, she’d changed. Now, she wore a coat similar to the one Bobby Romano wore, only hers didn’t bear the insignia of the Thunder Canyon police. It shouted Search and Rescue in nauseatingly bright orange letters across the back of the slick green fabric. She looked official.

  Except for her eyes.

  But looking at those eyes that were neither brown nor green but somewhere…distracting…in between was something he’d tried to avoid since the first time he’d seen her months ago sitting quietly in the rear of one of the town council meetings.

  “Have you called your son’s friends? Would he have tried walking home without you?”

  “Erik tries anything,” he said grimly. Despite Cam’s concerted efforts otherwise. “And yes, I’ve called all of his friends. Most of the families were already here anyway.”

  There must have been three hundred people crowded into The Hall. And if Cam hadn’t been cornered by the troublesome threesome—a term he’d privately applied to the trio of high school girls who were forever trying to practice their budding wiles on him—he’d have never lost sight of Erik in the first place.

  “Yet you didn’t call in the police right away,” Romano observed. “Any particular reason for that, Coach?”

  Cam narrowed his eyes. He didn’t care for Romano’s tone. He didn’t care for Romano, for that matter. “Maybe because I was combing every square inch of this building, because I figured Erik was just hiding out. Only he’s not. He’s not in this building. Get it?”

  He looked down at the coat his wife had given him.

  God.

  He couldn’t lose Erik, too.

  He shoved his arms into the coat.

  Don’t panic.

  “I’m going to find my son.”

  He ignored Romano and Faith and turned on his heel. His boots rang out hollow on the wood floor of the nearly empty lobby and the wind ripped the door out of his grip when he stepped onto the wooden sidewalk outside the entrance. The awning that stretched across the front of The Hall, as well as the adjacent buildings butting up against it, didn’t offer much protection against the swirl of snow.

  He flipped up his collar and set off across the street. The town square held plenty of hiding places for a seven-year-old boy. “Erik,” he yelled, his feet moving faster.

  He shouldn’t have made Erik go to the wedding and reception. Shouldn’t have made him put on his best clothes—even a damned tie. His son had been nearly apoplectic.

  Rightfully so, Cam had realized, as soon as they’d walked into The Hall and had seen just how casually many of the guests were dressed, given the short notice of Katie and Justin’s “do.” Erik had slanted a look up at Cam and immediately started fiddling with his tie, despite Cam’s warning. Ten minutes later, he’d caught his son in the bathroom, wrapping toilet paper around his head like a turban. The turban had been ditched, but the tie had come off and Erik had returned to his seat with Cam.

  “Erik!”

  He rounded a slow-moving car and nearly hurdled an old-fashioned bench sitting outside a Western-themed storefront.

  Don’t panic.

  “Mr. Stevenson. Wait.”

  He very nearly ignored the raised voice. But he stopped, impatience coiling inside him, and turned to see Faith Taylor jogging across the road, her sturdy boots kicking up puffs of snow.

  “Don’t mind Bobby.” She skidded a little on the slippery road as she reached him. “He really is trying to help.”

  Cam steadied her and just as quickly released her. “He’s pissed that I’ve still got his son benched,” he said bluntly. Danny Romano—Romance, as he was called—was one of the strongest players on the high school basketball team Cam coached. He was also carrying the worst grades. But that didn’t matter to his dad, Bobby, who was more interested in his son being spotted by a scout than whether or not his son had decent enough grades to even be accepted into college.

  Faith’s long blond hair—confined in a ponytail—rippled and lifted in the harsh wind, reflecting the dim glow from a nearby lamppost. “He’s going back to the police station to make the report. A broadcast will go out on the local television station. Did you have a picture to give him?”

  Cam nodded, his gaze scanning the white-dark shadows of the town square. He could hear the shouts of his son’s name, and through the swirling snow, could see the bob of flashlights. “Erik’s school picture.” It had been in his wallet, next to the photo of Laura when she’d been pregnant.

  “Good. The more people who see it, the better. The radio station here will also be making the announcement. And there’s no one who might have taken Erik? Your wife, or—”

  “My wife is dead. And there are no other family members in the area.”

  Her lips parted for the briefest moment. “I’m sorry. I, um, I didn’t know that.” She hesitated, as if she were adjusting her thought processes. “I assume Bobby told you the process for issuing an AMBER alert?”

  He nodded. The very notion of a nationwide alert being issued for his missing son was more than he could stand, because it would mean that Erik hadn’t just wandered off. It would mean that his son had been abducted. That he could be facing serious injury. Or death.

  His head felt ready to explode.

  Don’t panic.

  How many times had he issued that advice to Laura?

  Erik would be fine. He was probably sitting in someone’s living room, drinking hot chocolate and talking about the impossibility of two snowflakes being identical as he watched them hurtle from the sky.

  “Okay. Well, we’re not at that point, which is a good thing.” She shifted from one foot to the other, her legs looking long and slender in her heavy, tan pants. “I’ll head out in just a few minutes, too. I’ve been in contact with the other members of my team. Unfortunately, thanks to this snow, it’ll be a while before any of them can make it here to Thunder Canyon. And, of course, while the search is still confined to the town limits, the police are in charge of coordinating the search.”

  “Erik is still in town,” he said. Because he had to believe it.

  “Y
ou’re probably right,” she agreed evenly. “And you need to go home. It’s likely that your son will show up there.”

  She clearly didn’t know Erik. “He won’t.”

  “Mr. Stevenson—”

  “Cam.”

  She exhaled in a visible puff. “Mr. Stevenson. Let us do our job. Go home.”

  “What you really mean is that you don’t think I’ve done my job,” he countered.

  Another gust of wind blew over them and she flipped up the lined collar of her coat, deftly fastening it around her neck. She didn’t deny his words, either. “Let’s just find Erik,” she said. “The quicker the better, considering the way this storm is picking up. Has he run off like this before?”

  “No. Yes.” He shook his head sharply. “Dammit. I have to find him. This is wasting more—”

  “Don’t.” She touched her gloved hand to his sleeve. “I know you’re worried. Upset. But the best thing that you can do is try to stay calm, and go home. Make a list of Erik’s friends. The places he likes to go. Was he upset about anything? Did you argue?”

  “Being forced into a monkey suit,” Cam muttered. “And Erik doesn’t run off because he’s angry. He runs off because he sees a bug he’s interested in, or a rabbit he wants to follow. He’s seven. He’s got more energy and curiosity than either one of us knows what to do with.” Attention deficit wasn’t his son’s problem, either. He just had an insatiable curiosity toward life.

  In that regard, he was like Laura.

  And Cam hadn’t been able to protect Laura.

  He would protect their son.

  If he could only find him.

  “Okay.” Faith nodded. “So go home. Call the station and give them just that kind of information once you’re there. And wait for Erik.”

  “I’ll do better looking.”