Love Will Find a Way by Barbara Freethy

From the Publisher

Sometimes forbidden fruit
is the sweetest of all...

She was untouchable...his business partner's wife. Beautiful Rachel Tanner was everything that Dylan Prescott longed for in a woman — all lush curves and unconscious sensuality. But he had too much honor to even think about tempting her away from the man she loved...Dylan has always known he should stay far away from this bewitching woman, but now, her marriage over, she has turned to him with questions only he can answer on her alluring lips, As he takes her in his arms he realizes that her tantalizing kisses are no longer forbidden...and the illicit passion he feels for her is no longer out of his reach. But will their love find a way to survive once he tells her the truth?

Library Journal

Six months after Rachel Tanner's husband, Gary, dies in an automobile accident, the insurance company rules that his death was a suicide. Refusing to believe that Gary would kill himself, Rachel leaves their apple orchard home and goes to San Francisco, where her husband kept an apartment to use weekdays. She talks his best friend and partner, Dylan Prescott, into searching the apartment with her. As the two look for clues, Rachel notices a perfume bottle on Gary's dresser...and it isn't hers. Later, when Dylan brings Gary's things home to Rachel he impulsively offers to finish the dream house that Gary had started for Rachel. As indications of Gary's other life begin to surface, Dylan has a hard time keeping his own secret hidden he's loved Rachel since he first set eyes on her. A second love story, that of Rachel's younger sister, is skillfully interwoven throughout the book. Although the plot is a classic retread, RITA Award winner Freethy has penned another exceptional piece of fiction. Shelley Mosley, Glendale P.L., AZ Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

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Chapter One

At twelve stories, the Caldwell Court Hotel wasn't even close to being the tallest building in San Francisco, but Dylan Prescott still felt like he was standing on top of the world. With a hard hat on his head, the roar of drills and saws in the background, the chill wind coming through the framing for the windows, the distant hum of the traffic below, and a stack of blueprints in his hand, Dylan felt completely in his element.

This was his world, a world where numbers added up, where perfect angles met and meshed, where someone's dream came true. He found himself smiling at the errant thought. He'd left little time in his Iife for dreaming. That had been his best friend, Gary Tanner's, department, not his.

Gary...Dylan took a, deep breath as the smile faded from his face and the almost unbearable grief threatened to choke him. It had been six months since Gary's tragic death. This hotel was the last building his best friend had designed. Dylan still couldn't believe there wouldn't be any more buildings that were designed by Tanner and built by Prescott. They had made a hell of a team, and now one of them was gone.

It was easier to imagine that Gary was working on the other side of the country, that he would call at any second and tell some lame joke or put forth a wild idea for his next building, or ask him what the Giants were thinking when they'd traded their best pitcher to the Yankees. Dylan could almost hear Gary's energetic, laughing voice in his head, especially his familiar parting comment, "Don't do anything I wouldn't do." As if he would. Garyowned the patent on crazy. Dylan usually just went along for the ride.

Although, truthfully, there hadn't been many rides in the past few years. Gary's little spare time had gone to his family, and Dylan — well, he had no spare time at all. He kept himself busy from morning to night, ten hours a day, seven days a week. The past nine years had been like running in a marathon.

But that's the way he liked it, frantic, intense, no time for idle hands or idle thoughts. And if his latest bid went through, in three months he would tackle the biggest project of his life, the soon-to-be tallest skyscraper in downtown Los Angeles. Getting that job would put him at the top of his profession. A voice inside his head questioned what the hell he'd do then, but he ignored it.

"See you in the morning," one of his co-workers called out. Dylan suddenly realized that the buzz of work had come to a grinding halt and his crew was headed for home. Checking his watch, he saw it was past five, and the sun was drifting over the horizon.

It was late September and already the days were getting shorter. Soon night would descend, and the lights would come on in the other buildings. It would be a magnificent cityscape, a sight that always made him catch his breath. He just needed a cold beer and a best friend to share it with, the way he and Gary had done so many times before.

Get over it already, he told himself. Just get over it. But that ruthless order didn't work any better now than it had any other day for the past six months.

His cell phone rang, and Dylan slipped it off his belt, grateful for the distraction. Work was what he needed to focus on, and nothing else. "Prescott," he said briskly.

"You've got a little problem," his secretary, Connie, informed him.

"What's up?"

"Remember all those messages I gave you from Rachel Tanner?"

Dylan had been avoiding her calls since last Friday, and it was Wednesday now. He kept telling himself he'd call her back, but he never quite got around to it. He didn't know what to say to her. And he couldn't understand the sudden flurry of phone messages from Gary's widow. He'd offered his help at the funeral, but Rachel had turned him down with a polite "No, thank you, well be fine."

He'd believed her. Besides that, she had her family, her friends. Now that Gary was gone, they had nothing more in common. Unless this was about the house, the dream house Gary had wanted him to build for Rachel. It was the only one of Gary's jobs that Dylan had turned down.

"Oh, boss." Connie's voice brought him back to reality. "Are you there?"

"I'll call her back. Just brush her off. If she calls again, tell her I'm out of town or something."

"But—"

"Tell Rachel whatever you have to. I can't deal with her right now."

"That's too bad a woman said from behind him. "Because as far as I can see, you're not out of town."

Dylan's chest contracted at the sound of her voice, the voice that had haunted his dreams for so many years, the voice he'd tried to forget, just as he'd tried to forget everything else about her. He was her husband's best friend, and she was his best friend's wife. That's all they would ever be to each other. All they ever could be.

He heard Connie say something, but he simply closed the phone and forcedhimself to turn around, to face Rachel. She was dressed in black, the way she'd been at the funeral, her long blond hair hidden by the incongruous hard hat on her head. Her face was pale, her blue eyes dimmed, shadows of fatigue drawing lines around those eyes. Dammit, she was too young to be a widow, not even thirty yet. But then, Gary, at...