Love Is Elected

• Chapter One
  
• Chapter Two
  
• Chapter Three
  
• Chapter Four
  
• Chapter Five
  
• Chapter Six
  
• Chapter Seven
  
• Chapter Eight
  
• Chapter Nine
  
• Chapter Ten
  
• Chapter Eleven
  
• Chapter Twelve
  

"Cover Yourself Up,"
he said roughly.


Kara glared at him as she pulled the towel around her body.


Try to memorize what he looks like, she told herself, so you can give the police a good description. She had to admit he was handsome in a hard, ruthless sort of way.


"I'm here for a meeting with James Barnett tomorrow," he added. "He invited me to spend the night here."


"Well that's too bad," Kara shot back. "You'll just have to find other accommodations."


"We both know there are no other accommodations," he said harshly.

ALYSSA HOWARD lives in Maryland and is a wife and mother, as well as a writer of fiction and nonfiction. She loves writing romances because they celebrate the most joyful part of a woman's life—and there's always a happy ending.

Dear Reader,

Silhouette Romances is an exciting new publishing series, dedicated to bringing you the very best in contemporary romantic fiction from the very finest writers. Our stories and our heroines will give you all you want from romantic fiction.

Also,
you
play an important part in our future plans for Silhouette Romances. We welcome any suggestions or comments on our books, which should be sent to the address below.

So enjoy this book and all the wonderful romances from Silhouette. They're for
you
!

Jane Nicholls

Silhouette Books

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Dunton Green

Sevenoaks

Kent

TN13 2YE

Copyright© 1982 by Alyssa Howard

Map by Ray Lundgren

First printing 1983

ISBN 0 340 33274 3

Kara Barnett gripped the steering wheel tighter and squinted through the mist obscuring Highway 15. Towering shapes of tall pines loomed on either side of the country passage that led up the mountain to Uncle James' cabin.

Had she missed the turnoff? she wondered. She hoped not, because thunder was already rumbling in the distance and the sky had taken on an ominous cast.

Getting caught in a spring storm would be a fitting end to a wretched day, Kara assured herself grimly. First there had been the fiasco at work. As public relations specialist at Citizens for Consumer Protection in Washington, D.C., Kara had spent the last two months lobbying for stricter toy safety inspection regulations. But she'd found out this morning that the bill she was pushing was stuck in committee.

With Congress adjourning for a three week break, there wasn't a prayer of passing it this session.

Then there had been the humiliating call from Wayne Lyle—the handsome lawyer Kara had been dating for half a year, almost ever since she'd come to D.C. with her B.A. in public relations tucked under her arm. For the past several months he'd been pressing his own campaign—trying to get her to move out of the apartment she shared in Georgetown with Jill Sanders and into his Roslyn highrise. But recently he'd slackened the pressure. And she had breathed a sigh of relief, until this afternoon, when he'd called to tell her he wouldn't be seeing her anymore because Gloria Ferguson was moving in with him.

That bleached-blond pushover, Kara fumed. She may be more glamorous than I am, but I thought that wasn't important. Kara glanced critically in the mirror, inspecting her own dark curls, heart-shaped face and wide violet eyes, totally unaware of their potential for real beauty. Had she been wrong, Kara wondered, to turn down Wayne's proposition? He had called her old-fashioned.

"But that's just the way I am," she muttered fiercely to herself as she clutched the wheel tighter. I want a special man to share the rest of my life, to make a home with and raise a family, and not just an affair that lasts a few months. I'm not going to move in with any man unless we're married!

Kara reflected back over the past few months, remembering a time when she had thought Wayne might be that man. Getting the big rush from him had been a heady experience at first. It had come at a time when she had been ready for love.

Kara's parents had been killed six years ago in a plane crash, and she had spent most of her life since then in fancy boarding schools, summer camps, and a girls' college where there were few eligible men to date. She had grown self-sufficient and independent in those years, but she had been starved for affection. She had been eager to soak up the flattering attention Wayne had lavished on her.

But after a few months, something in her had reluctantly pulled back. She had begun to suspect that Wayne's plans for her didn't include wedding bells. Yet she couldn't help clinging to the hope that she could make their relationship into what she wanted it to be. And there was no doubt about it—despite her suspicions that it might be coming, his rejection had hurt terribly.

Her roommate Jill had tried to be consoling. But Kara didn't want anyone's sympathy. She wanted to be alone to sort out her feelings. So she'd packed an overnight case, left D.C. in the height of rush-hour traffic, and headed for Uncle James' cabin in rural Frederick County. Along the way she had stopped for enough groceries to last through the weekend.

Suddenly Kara slammed on the brakes. She'd been so involved in her thoughts that she had overshot the dirt turnoff to the cabin. After backing up and shifting down, she nosed her yellow hatchback onto the rutted drive. Large drops of rain were just beginning to plop against the windshield.

Kara stopped the car in the clearing beside the cabin. Just as she turned off the ignition, the skies opened up. Sheets of rain began to pelt against the sturdy A-frame that Uncle James had built as a getaway when he was still Party Chairman.

James was her father's older brother. And for the thousandth time she wondered why he, and not her parents, had walked away from that company plane wreck. But then he had always been the lucky one.

For the past six years—out of what she surmised was a sense of duty—he'd been her guardian, paying her bills at school and camp. But when she'd been at his house during vacations, he'd always seemed too busy, too wrapped up in his political wheeling and dealing to take much interest in her.

There had always been expensive presents like giant stuffed animals, a room full of French Provincial furniture and fancy stereo equipment. But for Kara, none of these made up for the fact that he was never at home for dinner.

She'd forced herself to be independent, but when she'd graduated from college and gotten a job, she'd still been hurt at his seemingly obvious relief that she was moving out.

She'd left all the expensive presents behind at his house and kept only her clothing, car and the key to her uncle's cabin in the mountains which he'd given her, along with permission to use it as long as he didn't have plans for entertaining his cronies at a hunting party.

But it was too early in the season for hunting. So, in her haste to get away, she hadn't bothered to make her usual check with his secretary before fleeing Georgetown.

Kara peered out the car window. Now she could barely make out the cabin's outline through the downpour. There was no sign of the rain letting up. Maybe coming here was a mistake, after all. She shivered. It was always colder in the mountains. And the dampness was penetrating. But driving back to D.C. now was out of the question.

I guess I'm going to have to get really wet before I get dry again, she thought. Resolutely she opened the door, sloshed through the puddles to the back of the car, and pulled out her overnight case and handbag, which she carried to the cabin porch. Then she made another trip through the downpour to retrieve the groceries she'd bought.

With everything transferred to the porch, she heaved a sigh of relief and tried to blink the drops of water out of her thick black lashes. Then she unlocked the door and stepped quickly into the familiar shelter of the cabin.