Daddy With a Badge (Silhouette Intimate Moments, No 1083)

Rating:
Summary: Sensuous and dangerous -- Very highly recommended
Review: Once she'd been willing to throw away her family and her heritage for Rafe. Now Daniela Fabrizio would prefer that he would just ask his questions and disappear again. Her life is set on implode, and she only wants to put it back on an even kilter. Daniela misses the magic years, as she calls them, when she had a lovely house full of antiques, a nest egg to pay for college for her twelve-year-old daughter Lyssa, and a reliable, luxury car.

Unfortunately, a whirlwind courtship with Jonathan Sommerset resulted in his stealing every cent of her liquid assets, charging her cards up to the max, selling her beautiful home on the bluffs, and destroying her credit rating. So when Rafe shows up on her doorstep, she's stunned to learn the reasons for his departure twenty years ago, and equally shocked to learn the husband she knew as Jonathan Summerset is actually Jacob Fulsom, psychopath, bigamist, con artist and murderer.

Senior agent of the Special Investigation Branch of the Secret Service Rafael Cardoza was shot down while guarding a witness at a government safe house. While the witness was murdered, Rafe survives to protect the next victim of the con artist turned murder, Daniela Fabrizio. Twenty years ago he'd been wildly in love with her, until he was driven from his home and joined the military. Now the mischievous hoyden had developed into a mature, sensuous woman that he must protect her from the filth Daniela nicknames the "serial weasel." But there's no way he can protect his heart from this single-mom with a baby on the way. Suddenly being a daddy with a bade never looked so good, at least to him.

Separated for twenty years, the love scenes that finally join this hero and heroine are powerful, sexy and playful. Paula Detmer Riggs daringly explores passion between these strong characters as the very pregnant Daniela makes love with Rafe in moments both tender and heated. Because these love scenes bring maturity and strong sensuality into play, the scenes become startlingly memorable and touching. In addition, while there are moments in the novel when I want to crawl into the pages to shake the twelve-year-old Lyssa, or possibly spank her, I find her character growth enchanting and beautiful, thereby lending DADDY WITH A BADGE and an added depth. Very highly recommended.