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Sometimes love is stronger than death. . .

Security agent Dante Moran can't afford the luxury of love-in his line of work, emotions can get you killed. Besides, he's never recovered from the pain of losing his high school sweetheart to a serial rapist and killer. As far as Dante is concerned, his heart died the day he identified her body.

But when he's hired to protect Tessa Westbrook's young daughter from a kidnapper, Dante is shocked to feel his long-buried emotions rise to the surface. Tessa stirs something in him that he hasn't felt since he was a kid. . .something that makes him think she could become more than a client. But Tessa's past is full of secrets. . .and with a killer on the loose, Dante must decide if she's worth dying for--or a reason to live.

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Worth Dying For

Harlequin Enterprises, Ltd.

Chapter One

WHERE IS HE? Amy wondered. It wasn't like Dante to keep her waiting. During the ten months they'd been dating, he had proven himself to be trustworthy and reliable. Wary of people in general, she had made him earn her trust. She hadn't even let him kiss her until they'd been going out for nearly two months.

He would be here soon. Whenever she had to work late, as she had tonight, he made a point of being there when she got off so he could drive her home. Tapping her foot nervously, Amy checked her watch. He was already ten minutes late.

The November wind picked up, seeping through her thin sweater. She should have brought a jacket.

Of course hindsight was twenty-twenty. A piece of paper whirled through the air and floated down the sidewalk, then landed on the curb. Maybe she should go wait back inside where it was warm.

Just as she turned to open the door of the Dairy Dip, where she worked after school three evenings a week and all day on Saturdays, Jerry Vinson came outside and locked the door behind him. Jerry was part owner and full-time manager of Colby, Texas's only localfast-food restaurant.

"Dante still hasn't shown up?" Jerry asked. "This is the first time he hasn't been here waiting on you at quitting time."

"I know." Amy rubbed her palms up and down her arms in an effort to warm herself. "Something must be wrong. He probably had car trouble. He has to work on that old Mustang all the time just to keep it going."

"Want me to wait with you until he shows up?"

Jerry and his wife, Lorna, were new parents, and Amy understood how eager Jerry was to go home to Lorna and their six-week-old son.

"No, you go home," she told him. "I'm sure Dante will be here soon. Besides, this isn't Dallas or Houston. This is Colby. It's not as if I won't be safe on a downtown street at ten o'clock."

Jerry chuckled. "Yeah, you're right. But if Dante doesn't show soon, go to the corner pay phone and call me. Or if you don't want to wait, you can go with me now and I'll run you over to the Morrisons on my way home."

She shook her head. "I'll wait for Dante. If I'm gone when he gets here, he'll worry. And if he shows up at the Morrisons to check on me, they won't like it. They're good people and they've been kind to me, but they think I'm too young to be serious about any guy, especially a guy like Dante."

"It's your life, kid," Jerry said, a concerned frown on his round, rosy face. "But your foster folks have a point, you know. Dante's pretty rough around the edges and you're a sweet and innocent seventeen-year-old."

"Dante's only nineteen."

"Yeah, nineteen going on thirty-five."

Amy sighed. She'd heard it all before - from the Morrisons, from Jerry and even from a couple of her teachers. How could she make anyone else understand what she knew in her heart - that Dante Moran was a good man? The man she loved. The man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with.

"Go home. I'll be fine." Amy smiled warmly at Jerry. "Stop playing big brother."

She knew he meant well, just as everyone else did when they doled out advice. But no one could imagine what it was like to be her. To have lost both parents when she was in first grade. To have spent the past eleven years being shuffled from one foster home to another. More than anything she wanted a family of her own. With Dante, she could have that family.

"Call me if he doesn't show."

"He'll be here soon. Don't worry."

Nodding, Jerry grinned at her and then headed off around the building and into the alley behind the Dairy Dip where his car was parked.

Huddling in the doorway, seeking protection from the wind, Amy hugged herself as she looked up the street, hoping for a glimpse of Dante's car. Please, hurry up. If he didn't pick her up soon, they wouldn't have any time together tonight. The Morrisons expected her to be at home no later than ten-thirty on weeknights, which usually gave her only thirty minutes with Dante. She lived for those precious minutes when he held her in his arms and kissed her and told her how much he loved her.

One day soon, she and Dante would be together all the time, without having to follow other people's rules and meet her foster parents' strict curfews. Dante and she had a secret, one they couldn't share with anyone else. They were engaged and planned to marry when she turned eighteen next May and grad-uated from high school. Two weeks ago they had exchanged rings - symbols of their commitment to each other. He'd given her a half-carat diamond, which he jokingly said he would be paying for until he was on social security. She had given him her father's diamond and onyx ring. She had worn that ring around her neck on a chain ever since she was six and the social worker had given her a small bag containing several personal items that had belonged to her parents.

Now she kept her engagement ring on the chain around her neck and always made sure it was well hidden beneath her clothes. But in seven and a half months, she could proudly wear her engagement ring, along with a wedding band. She longed for that day. There was nothing she wanted more than to be Dante's wife. She loved him so much, more than anything, more than life itself. No matter what anybody said, what she felt was true love, the kind that would last a lifetime. In her heart of hearts, she knew that Dante and she would love each other forever.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Worth Dying For by Beverly Barton Copyright © 2004 by Harlequin Enterprises, Ltd.. Excerpted by permission.
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