Protector With A Past

Harper Allen

iyl, 2012 · HarperCollins Australia

Bu e-kitob haqida

No words could terrify Julia Stewart more. After two years of hiding, of dreaming about darkly sensual police detective Cord Hunter and the life she'd left behind, Cord had found her. And he'd brought their orphaned goddaughter 'a child in danger'.

Julia's career as a child protection officer had ended after a near tragedy. But she couldn't turn away from the little girl she'd sworn to protect, even though it meant working side by side with the man she still loved with furious passion. Even though it meant exposing the secrets she'd driven Cord away to keep!

Muallif haqida

Hey — the girl can't help it. If Harper Allen seems to feel more at home writing about life on the wild side, it's only because she s following that old literary maxim: Write what you know. Growing up in a blue-collar motor city, and with comments such as "Does not play well with others" on her grade-school report cards, it was pretty much a given that she would end up creating loner heroes, tough heroines, and gritty settings. Harper's characters have always been real people with real flaws, desperately struggling to find the love that will redeem them.But there's a kinder, gentler side to Harper. Underneath the motorcycle leathers (I was going how fast, officer?) and the rose tattoo (don't ask — there was a bet, she won, that's all you need to know) beats the heart of a true romantic. The day she met the man who eventually became her husband, she told her sister, "Get out of the way, that one's mine." Okay, okay. "Really" she said, "I ve just met the man I m going to marry. How long do you think it'll take him to figure it out?" She's a sucker for stray dogs (they've got four), abandoned kittens (six, and they're pretty darn big cats now), and not-so-cute little kids who aren't the first ones picked for the volleyball team. Her idea of a great date with her husband is going to a baseball game. Her idea of a great baseball game is any one in which the Red Sox win (a hopeless romantic, did we say?).While her work as a reporter in the criminal court system gives her books a darker edge, and her Irish ancestry lends them a touch of Celtic mysticism, first and foremost each one is a story about a man and a woman falling in love and holding on to that love — and for that Harper need look no further for inspiration than her own life.So what happens to bad girls when they grow up? Just ask Harper — if they're lucky, they get to write about it and the story has a happy ending. Because the best romances always do.