Hired Hand

by Elizabeth Bevarly

Fortune-teller Miranda True claimed she could see the future - and more - in the lines of a man's hand. And while he'd had his doubts at first, Lucas Strathmoor was becoming a believer - even trusting her mystical powers to guide his corporate takeover bids. Trouble was, these days his mind seemed to be on a different kind of merger....

Miranda liked what she saw in the ruthless corporate raider's palm. His heart line betrayed the gentleness he hid from the world - and even from himself. But while she was willing to share her knowledge with him, she wasn't about to be just another hired hand. She meant to be nothing less than Lucas Strathmoor's partner - for life.

Genres: Romance

Mass Market Paperback

First published March 1, 1993

About the author

Elizabeth Bevarly was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky and earned her BA with honors in English from the University of Louisville in 1983. Although she can’t recall ever wanting to be anything but a novelist-oh, all right, she toyed briefly with becoming an archaeologist, until she realized how awful she looked in khaki and flannel, and there was a brief fling with the interior decorator thing, until she realized she had trouble distinguishing chintz from moiré, and… (Where was I? Oh, yeah. My brilliant career.) Anyway, her career side trips before making the leap to writing included stints working as a bartender, a waitress, a movie theater cashier, a soap-hawker for Crabtree & Evelyn, an apparel-hawker for The Limited, and a bridal registry consultant for a major department store. She also did time as an editorial assistant for a medical journal, where she learned the correct spellings and meanings of a variety of words (like microscopy and histological) which, with any luck at all, she will never use again in this life.

She wrote her first novel when she was twelve years old. It was 32 pages long-and that was with college rule notebook paper-and featured three girls named Liz, Marianne and Cheryl, who explored the mysteries of a haunted house. Her friends Marianne and Cheryl proclaimed it “Brilliant! Spellbinding! Kept me up past dinnertime reading!” Those rave reviews only kindled the fire inside her to write more.

Since sixth grade, Elizabeth has gone on to complete more than 60 works of contemporary romance. Her novels regularly appear on the USA Today and Waldenbooks bestseller lists, and The Thing About Men was a New York Times Extended List bestseller. She’s been nominated for the prestigious RITA Award, has won the coveted National Readers’ Choice Award, and Romantic Times magazine has seen fit to honor her with two-count ‘em TWO-Career Achievement Awards. Her books have been translated into two dozen languages and published in three dozen countries, and there are more than ten million copies in print worldwide. She has claimed as residences Washington, DC, northern Virginia, southern New Jersey and Puerto Rico, but she now resides back in her native Kentucky with her husband and son and two very troubled cats where she fully intends to remain.

Reviews

[Claudia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well, it got me through an afternoon of sheltering in place.

[TINNGG · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars

The phrase "use your friends wisely" is somewhat of a joke with real implications. It's understood that friends often do things for each other - the give and take. And, I'm sure, in certain social circles people use each other sans friendship all the time. Using a random woman's insight and observations to aid in business deals is pushing it. Toying with her affections to do so is reprehensible.

The h is just your average health food store owner/vegetarian who does house parties as a palm reader while dressed in evening attire, and whose dress for work involves dresses and pantyhose... say what?! Every person I've ever run into with leanings in that direction tended to be all about comfort, and to have a certain style that ran towards tevas and organically grown cotton. Her attending functions as his date while wearing cocktail dresses and high heels seems... strange.

Of course, she eventually found out why he'd asked her in the first place but you know, her instincts were screaming that something was odd that he never took her on a "real" date; always to some house party. But she was entirely too willing to hope/believe that he really really liked her and meant nothing untoward.

Yeah; she's willfully naive and a pollyanna. She's also a sucker in that she let an old lady maneuver her - at his behest - into spending a weekend with him in an attempt to kiss and make up. Uh...

So, I can believe in the HEA, because she never lost it and shot him (she's too nice in that respect). I just have a hard time swallowing her not losing her shit and decking him at some point. I also have a hard time with her inner voice essentially making excuses for him. And... the realization that in the month that they were sexually active, they were not using any protection. How do we know this? Because she specifically asked him about it during his seduction attempt that weekend. His reaction was not that of someone who'd ever bothered to think of protection. And when they did get back together, he'd made sure he had some around. So, if he'd gotten her pg during that month or so they were really involved (or was he paying her back with sex, unsure on that), I guess he had no plan. It never crossed her mind.

[Sylvia · Rating 3 out of 5]

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