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For sensual tales filled with romance and charm, don’t miss any of the titles in New York Times bestselling author Diana Palmer’s breathtaking Long, Tall Texans series!
Defender
Untamed
Invincible
Protector
Courageous
Merciless
Dangerous
Heartless
Fearless
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“Palmer knows how to make the sparks fly!”
—Publishers Weekly
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Defender
by Diana Palmer
ONE
Isabel Grayling stuck her head around the study door and peered in. The big desk was empty. The chair hadn’t been moved from its position, carefully pushed underneath. Everything on the oak surface was neatly placed; not a pencil wasn’t neatly in a cup; not a scrap of paper was out of line. She let out a breath. Her father wasn’t home, but the desk kept the fanatical order he insisted on, even when he wasn’t here.
She darted out of the office with a relieved sigh and pushed back the long tangle of her reddish-gold hair. Blue, blue eyes were filled with relief. She wrinkled her straight nose, where just a tiny line of freckles ran over its bridge. Her name was Isabel, but only Paul Fiore called her that. To everyone else, she was Sari, just as her sister, Meredith, was always called Merrie.
“Well?” her younger sister, Merrie, asked in a whisper.
Sari turned. The other girl was slender, like herself, but Merrie had hair almost platinum blond, straight and to her waist in back. Her eyes, like Sari’s, were blue, but paler, more the color of a winter sky. Both girls looked like their late mother, who was pretty but not beautiful.
“Gone!” Sari said with a wicked grin.
Merrie let out a sigh of relief. “Paul said that Daddy was going to Germany for a few weeks. Maybe he’ll find some other people to harass once he’s in Europe.”
Sari went up to the shorter girl and hugged her. “It will be all right.”
Merrie fought tears. “I only wanted to have my hair trimmed, not cut. Honestly, Sari, he’s so unreasonable...!”
“I know.” She didn’t dare say more. Paul had told her things in confidence that she couldn’t bear to share with her baby sister. Their father was far more dangerous than either of them had known.
To any outsider, the Grayling sisters had everything. Their father was rich beyond any dream. They lived in a gray stone mansion on acres and acres of land in Comanche Wells, Texas, where their father kept Thoroughbred horses. Rather, his foreman kept them. The old man was carefully maneuvered away from the livestock by the foreman, who’d once had to save a horse from the man. Darwin Grayling had beaten animals before. It was rumored that he’d beaten his wife. She died of a massive concussion, but Grayling swore that she’d fallen. Not many people in Comanche Wells or nearby Jacobsville, Texas, wanted to argue with a man who could buy and sell anybody in the state.
That hadn’t stopped local physician Jeb “Copper” Coltrain from asking for a coroner’s inquest and making accusations that Grayling’s description of the accident didn’t match the head injuries. But Copper had been called out of town on an emergency by a friend and when he returned, the coroner’s inquest was over and accidental death had been put on the death certificate. Case closed.
The Grayling girls didn’t know what had truly happened. Sari had been in high school, Merrie in grammar school, when their mother died. They knew only what their father had told them. They were much too afraid of him to ask questions.
Now, Merrie was in her last year of high school and Sari was a senior in college. Sari had majored in history in preparation for a law degree. She went to school in San Antonio, but wasn’t allowed to live on campus. Her father had her driven back and forth every day. It was the same with Merrie. Darwin wasn’t having either of his daughters around other people. He’d fought and won when Sari tried to move onto the college campus. He was wealthy and his children were targets, he’d said implacably, and they weren’t going anywhere without one of his security people.