What's Cooking?

"Hi, honey, I'm home."

"I'm not your honey and this is absolutely not your home," Maggie said, blocking the way when Rick would have walked right in. She was trying to muster the strength and indignation necessary to keep him on the other side of :his door. Once he crossed the threshold, she cou d no longer be held accountable for her actions.

His grin never faltered. "Not happy to see me?"

"No."

"Not even a tiny bit?"

"Absolutely not."

He chuckled. "Liar."

"I am not lying. How many ways do I have to say it?"

"Until you can do it without those telltale patches of red in your cheeks."

"If my cheeks are red..." She could tell they were. "If they are, it's because I find you infuriating. It takes a lot of nerve to come here after I told vou not to."

"Bravery should be rewarded, don't you think?"

2

Celebrate those April showers this month by curling up inside with a good book?and we at Silhouette Special Edition are happy to start you off with What's Cooking? by Sherryl Woods, the next in her series THE ROSE COTTAGE SISTERS. When a playboy photographer is determined to seduce a beautiful food critic fed up with men who won't commit.. .things really start to heat up! In Judy Duarte's Their Unexpected Family, next in our MONTANA MAVERICKS: GOLD RUSH GROOMS continuity, a very pregnant?not to mention, single?small-town waitress and a globe-trotting reporter find themselves drawn to each other despite their obvious differences. Stella Bagwell concludes THE FORTUNES OF TEXAS: REUNION with In a Texas Minute. A woman who has finally found the baby of her dreams to adopt lacks the one element that can make it happen?a husband?or does she? She's suddenly looking at her handsome "best friend" in a new light. Christine Flynn begins her new GOING HOME miniseries?-which centers around a small Vermont town?with Trading Secrets, in which a down-but-not-out native repairs to her hometown to get over her heartbreak.. .and falls smack into the arms of the town's handsome new doctor. Least Likely Wedding? by Patricia McLinn, the first in her SOMETHING OLD, SOMETHING NEW... series, features a lovely filmmaker whose "groom" on celluloid is all too eager to assume the role in real life. And in The Million Dollar Cowboy by Judith Lyons, a woman who's fallen hard for a cowboy has to convince him to take a chance on love.

So don't let those April showers get you down! May is just around the corner?and with it, six fabulous new reads, all from Silhouette Special Edition.

Happy reading!

Gail Chasan Senior Editor

Please address questions and book requests to: Silhouette Reader Service

U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269 Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3

3 SHERRYL

WOQDS

Special edition*

Published by Silhouette Books America's Publisher ot Contemporary Romance

4 If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this "stripped book."

SILHOUETTE BOOKS

ISBN 0-373-24675-7

WHAT'S COOKING?

Copyright � 2005 by Sherryl Woods

All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the editorial office, Silhouette Books, 233 Broadway, New York, NY 10279 U.S.A.

All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

� and TM are trademarks of Harlequin Books S.A., used under license. Trademarks indicated with � are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.

Visit Silhouette Books at www.eHarlequin.com

Printed in U.S.A.

5 Books by Sherryl Woods

Silhouette Special Edition

Vows

Ijjve #769 Honor #775 Cherish #781 Kate's Vow #823 ,4 Daring Vow #855 A Vow To iMve #885

And Baby Makes Three

A Christmas Blessing #1001 Natural Born Daddy #1007 The Cowboy and His Baby #1009 The Rancher and His Unexpected Daughter #1016

The Bridal Path

A Ranch for Sara #1083 Ashley's Rebel #1087 Danielle's Daddy Factor #1094

And Baby Makes Three: The Next Generation

The Littlest Angel #1142 Natural Born Trouble #1156 Unexpected Mommy #1171 Tlie Cowgirl and the Unexpected

Wedding #1208 Natural Born Lawman #1216 The Cowboy and His Wayward

Bride #1234 Suddenly, Annie's Father #1268

And Baby Makes Three: The Delacourts of Texas

The Cowboy and the New Year's

Baby #1291 Dylan and the Baby Doctor #1309 The Pint-Sized Secret #1333 Marrying a Delacourt #1352 The Delacourt Scandal #1363

The Calamity Janes

D( You Take This Rebel? #1394 Cc uiling the Enemy #1411 To Catch a Thief #1418 Wi angling the Redhead #1429

The Devaneys

Ryan's Place #1489 Sean's Reckoning #1495 Michael's Discovery #1513 Patrick's Destiny #1549 Daniel's Desire #1555

Million Dollar Destinies

Is/it It Rich? #1597 Priceless #1603 Treasured #1609

The Rose Cottage Sisters

Three Down the Aisle #1663 What's Cooking? #1675

Sifiiouette Books

Silhouette Summer Sizzlers 1990 "A Bridge to Dreams"

Maternity Leave 1998 "The Paternity Test"

So This Is Christmas 2002 "The Perfect Holiday"

The Unclaimed Baby The Calamity Janes

SHERRYL WOODS

has written more than seventy-five novels. She also operates her own bookstore, Potomac Sunrise, in Colonial Beach, Virginia. If you can't visit Sherryl at her store, then be sure to drop her a note at P.O. Box 490326, Key Biscayne, FL 33149 or check out her Web site at www.sherrylwoods.com.

6

When the summer heats up at Rose Cottage, there's more cooking than what's on the stove as magazine food editor Margaret?Maggie?D' Angelo arrives to get away from the man who's making her just a little crazy.

Convinced that her attraction to photographer Rick Flanneiy is all about great sex, Maggie flees to Rose Cottage on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay to regain her equilibrium. Unfortunately, Rick is not the kind of man who enjoys being left behind. He's hot on Maggie's heels, and before she knows it, the magic of Rose Cottage is spinning its web around the two of them.

I hope you have a special place in your life, one that brings back fond memories or one that even now takes you away from your everyday world to bring you inner peace. If not, drop by Rose Cottage and let me share its magic with you.

All best,

7 Prologue

ohe was apparently addicted to sex. That was the only conclusion Margaret D'Angelo could come up with to explain this ridiculous habit she had of convincing herself she was wildly in love with a man she barely knew. She'd made way too many bad choices in her twenty-seven years based on letting her hormones overrule her head. She was not about to make another one.

And when it came to photographer Rick Flannery, he all but had the phrase "bad choice" tattooed on his forehead. It didn't take a genius to figure that one out. The man was a talented, world-renowned fashion photographer. That Maggie had even met him was such a fluke, she could still hardly believe it. Under normal circumstances, their paths would never cross. She set up photo shoots of food, for goodness' sakes! The most glamorous things on her magazine's pages wore decadent icing, not makeup.

8

WHAT'S COOKING?

Rick had merely stepped in at the last minute to do a favor for a friend. She figured that was about the most luck she could count on where he was concerned.

To add to her conviction that any relationship was doomed, she recognized that he was surrounded daily by some of the most gorgeous women in the world. The tabloids carried a picture of him almost every week with yet another model on his arm. Society columns linked his name with women from around the globe. Rarely was it the same name twice. That did not bode well for her own relationship with him.

Yes, indeed, for once in her life Maggie actually got it before she made the kind of mistake she'd live to regret, before she confused passionate sex with eternal love. Just this once she was going to sever all ties with a man before he could break her heart. This sane, rational thought might not have come to her in time to keep her from sleeping with Rick, but it sure as hell was in time to keep her from falling for him.

Proud of herself for making such a calm, intelligent decision for once and backing it up with a plan of action, she marched into her big sister's law office in a prestigious Boston skyscraper and held out her hand. "Give me the key," she demanded grimly.

Ashley's head snapped up from the stack of paperwork on her cluttered desk. She stared at Maggie blankly. Clearly her mind was still on whatever high-profile case she was preparing to take to court.

"What key?" Ashley asked, sounding surprisingly less quick-witted than she did when she was defending one of her clients against an aggressive prosecutor.

"To Rose Cottage, dammit!" Their grandmother's

9

9

cottage was far away from Boston. Rick knew absolutely nothing about it. Maggie figured she could hide out there until this attraction or addiction or whatever it was cooled down, until it became nothing more than a distant memory. Down there in the boonies, she might not even have to see his picture in some tabloid with whatever model du jour was taking her place. That was definitely an added bonus.

"Why?" Ashley asked.

"I'm taking a vacation, that'swhy," Maggie retorted.

Ashley looked even more surprised. Maggie was no more in the habit of taking time off than Ashley was. She might not maintain Ashley's workaholic pace* but she didn't like being too far from the office and the whirlwind that publishing a monthly magazine entailed.

"Sit," Ashley commanded, waking patiendy until Maggie relented and complied. "What's going on, Maggie?"

"Rick Flannery is going on," Maggie responded, blurting out the words without thinking of the consequences. Ashley went into full protective big-sister mode. It was an awesome, sometimes intimidating transformation, especially for the person on the receiving end of her wrath.

"The photographer?" Ashley asked, getting a better grip on her pen and looking as if she might start taking notes and readying some sort of suit against the man at any second if she didn't find Maggie's answers satisfactory. 'The one you've been raving about ever since he stepped in at the last minute to do the photo shoot for the July issue of your magazine? The one who could make the most ordinary mac and cheese look like gourmet

10

WHAT'S COOKING?

fare, even though he normally takes pretty pictures of gorgeous women? The man who has eyes as crystal-blue as a lake and a tight little butt? That Rick Flannery?"

"Yes, that Rick Flannery," Maggie snapped. As if there could possibly be another one, she thought irritably. Wasn't it bad enough that there was one of them? And did her sister have to remember every blasted thing she'd ever said about the man?

To Maggie's shock, Ashley leaned back and grinned. "The man's got your hormones all stirred up, hasn't he? Why didn't I see that the first time you mentioned his name? When you started waxing eloquent about his body, it should have been a dead giveaway."

Maggie remained stubbornly silent.

"So?" Ashley prodded. "Does he make your heart pound and then some?"

"So what if he does? Nothing's going to come of it." Actually quite a lot had come of it, several glorious days and nights of unbridled passion, in fact. That was the problem, but Ashley didn't need to know it. Nor was Maggie about to add that he'd failed to call for six endless days now, pretty much proving her impression of a hit-and-run kind of a guy.

"Why not? Is there some reason the two of you can't be together?" Ashley persisted.

"Because he's Rick Flannery, dammit! There are a hundred?no, maybe a thousand?absolutely gorgeous, willowy women who drool over him on a regular basis. I am not about to set myself up to compete with that." What they had might be very hot right now, but it wouldn't last, not with that kind of competition underfoot day in and day out. Maggie hadn't been able to sus-

11 T

SHERRYL WOODS11

tain a relationship yet, not once the sex cooled down. And Rick, according to all sorts of tabloid accounts, was not known for ignoring temptation.

"You've already slept with him, haven't you?" Ashley inquired knowingly. "And it was fabulous. Otherwise you wouldn't be this scared."

Leave it to Ashley to see straight through her, Maggie thought with disgust. She'd hoped to get through this conversation with one tiny shretji of dignity intact. Apparently that wasn't to be.