The Rancher's Bride Read online

  Table of Contents

  Cover Page

  Excerpt

  Dear Reader

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Books by Stella Bagwell

  About the Author

  A Letter

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Copyright

  Harlan wanted her to be his wife!

  What was she going to do? What did she want to do?

  “Rose?”

  She heard him coming up behind her. Quickly she sucked in several breaths of cool night air.

  His fingers touched the back of her neck and she wilted inside.

  “I know this is very sudden for you,” he murmured. “But please don’t say no.”

  Her throat grew tighter. “Just what sort of marriage would this be?”

  “What do you mean?”

  She glanced over her shoulder at him. He was such a strong, handsome man. A man made to love a woman. He didn’t need her for a wife. He needed someone who would be not only a companion and friend, but also his lover. If he didn’t realize that, she certainly did.

  “I mean—” Oh, how could she do this? She turned to face him. “Are you expecting us…to have a sexual relationship?”

  Dear Reader,

  Love is always in the air at Silhouette Romance. But this month, it might take a while for the characters of May’s stunning lineup to figure that out! Here’s what some of them have to say:

  “I’ve just found out the birth mother of my son is back in town. What’s a protective single dad to do?”—FABULOUS FATHER Jared O’Neal in Anne Peters’s My Baby, Your Son

  “What was I thinking, inviting a perfect—albeit beautiful—stranger to stay at my house?”—member of THE SINGLE DADDY CLUB. Reece Newton, from Beauty and the Bachelor Dad by Donna Clayton

  “I’ve got one last chance to keep my ranch but it means agreeing to marry a man I hardly know!”—Rose Murdock from The Rancher’s Bride by Stella Bagwell, part of her TWINS ON THE DOORSTEP miniseries

  “Would you believe my little white lie of a fiancé just showed up—and he’s better than I ever imagined!” —Ellen Rhoades, one of our SURPRISE BRIDES in Myrna Mackenzie’s The Secret Groom

  “I will not allow my search for a bride to be waylaid by that attractive, but totally unsuitable, redhead again!”—sexy rancher Rafe McMasters in Cowboy Seeks Perfect Wife by Linda Lewis

  “We know Sabrina would be the perfect mom for us—we just have to convince Dad to marry her!”—the precocious twins from Gayle Kaye’s Daddyhood

  Happy Reading!

  Melissa Senate

  Senior Editor

  Please address questions and book requests to:

  Silhouette Reader Service

  U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269

  Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3

  The Rancher’s Bride

  Stella Bagwell

  To Charles and Denise, for their appreciation of the great West and its cowboys. Love ya.

  Books by Stella Bagwell

  Silhouette Romance

  Golden Glory #469

  Moonlight Bandit #485

  A Mist on the Mountain #510

  Madeleine’s Song #543

  The Outsider #560

  The New Kid in Town #587

  Cactus Rose #621

  Hillbilly Heart #634

  Teach Me #657

  The White Night #674

  No Horsing Around #699

  That Southern Touch #723

  Gentle as a Lamb #748

  A Practical Man #789

  Precious Pretender #812

  Done to Perfection #836

  Rodeo Rider #878

  *Their First Thanksgiving #903

  *The Best Christmas Ever #909

  Hero in Disguise #954

  Corporate Cowgirl #991

  Daniel’s Daddy #1020

  A Cowboy for Christmas #1052

  Daddy Lessons #1085

  Wanted: Wife #1140

  † The Sheriff’s Son #1218

  †The Rancher’s Bride #1224

  Silhouette Special Edition

  Found:

  One Runaway Bride #1049

  *Heartland Holidays Trilogy

  †Twins on the Doorstep

  STELLA BAGWELL

  lives in the rural mountains of southeastern Oklahoma, where she enjoys the wildlife and hikes in the woods with her husband. She has a son, a wonderful daughter-in-law and a great passion for writing romances—a job she hopes to keep for a long time to come. Many of Stella’s books have been transcribed to audiotapes for the Oklahoma Library for the Blind. She hopes her blind audience, and all her readers, will continue to enjoy her stories.

  Chapter One

  Rose Murdock reined the sorrel alongside the fence and stared in shocked dismay. Each of the six strands of barbed wire had been cut, then carefully twisted back together.

  Quickly, she stepped down from the saddle and examined the ground on both sides of the fence. The soil was crusty and dry from a drastic lack of rain. Even so, Rose managed to pick up the faint marks of hoof tracks. Too many to count!

  Leading the sorrel, called Pie, behind her, she followed the tracks down a long slope of land until she reached the river. The hoof prints stopped at the watering hole, then turned and headed back the way she’d come from the cut wire.

  Someone had cut the fence to water their cattle on Bar M land! Who would have done such a thing, then fixed the fence neatly back in place? The cattle were obviously not on her land now. She’d ridden out this whole pasture today and not seen one stray.

  Sighing, Rose pushed the gray cowboy hat off her head. Its stampede string caught at the front of her neck, preventing the hat from falling further than the middle of her back.

  Sweat glistened on the soft features of her face. She mopped it away with the back of her denim sleeve, then carefully scanned the horizon to the east.

  Across the barbed wire fence lay Harlan Hamilton’s ranch, the Flying H. From what she could read of the tracks, the cattle had come from that direction. But she couldn’t imagine the man doing such a thing without notifying her or her sisters first. Open range in New Mexico had come to an end a long time ago. No one with any courtesy or respect would drive their cattle onto another rancher’s land without asking permission first.

  But then, she didn’t really know Harlan Hamilton. At least, not personally. She’d seen him maybe three separate times, the last being almost a year ago when he’d stopped by the ranch to visit her late father, Tomas.

  The two of them had been friends and Tomas had spoken highly of Harlan. Yet Rose had never done more than say a polite hello to the man. Not because she had anything against the rancher next door. Saying hello was as far as she went with any man.

  Well, it looked as though more than a simple greeting was going to have to be said to him now, she decided. And unfortunately it looked as though she’d been picked for the job.

  Rose mounted Pie and turned him in a northerly direction. For three miles or more she rode along the fence line until she reached two rock pillars flanking a metal gate. At the top of one pillar, the words Flying H Ranch were etched in black iron.

  The gate didn’t appear to be locked so she opened it, led her horse through, then carefully closed it behind her. Back on Pie, Rose rode steadily down the dirt road that cut through the desert hills east of Hondo. Knee-high sage and piñon pine grew on either side of her. Now and th
en a choya stood in bloom, though she didn’t see how the plants were managing to survive, much less bloom in this drought that had lasted more than two months now.

  As the horse trotted on, Rose grew more nervous. She’d already been sweating from the afternoon heat, but in the past few minutes, her hands had become slick with perspiration and her mouth was as dry as the fine dust stirred by the horse’s hooves.

  She didn’t relish exchanging words with Harlan Hamilton. She wasn’t good around men. Not like her sister Justine, who’d just married the local sheriff. Nor was she like her younger sister, Chloe, who wasn’t afraid to look a man in the eye and speak her mind.

  But Justine wasn’t here to do her talking for her and Chloe was back at the ranch with hardly enough time in the day to work the horses and take care of the twins.

  No, she couldn’t ask either of her sisters to do this for her, Rose thought with grim determination. Since her father had died and money had grown tight, the cattle had become her responsibility. It was her job to confront trespassers, whomever they might be.

  More than two more miles passed before Rose spotted the house in the distance. Like her own home, it was structured in stucco and sat wedged between a row of ragged poplars and a stand of piñon pine..

  As Rose rode closer, she could see the place was neither large nor elaborate. The house needed painting and, other than the scrubby trees casting a few spots of flimsy shade, there were no flowers or grass or fence to declare a dividing line between yard and pasture.

  Pie didn’t have to be tethered to stay put. Rose left him a few yards away from the house and walked slowly toward the porch. Through the screen door she could hear the sound of a television playing.

  She was climbing the steps when a girl of twelve or thirteen opened the door and stepped onto the concrete porch. Her straight blond hair was pulled back into a sloppy ponytail. Cutoff blue jeans covered part of her long, coltish legs; the rest of her thin adolescent figure was hidden beneath an oversize T-shirt. She looked at Rose as if visitors were an odd commodity on the Flying H.

  “Hello,” Rose said. “Is Mr. Hamilton home?”

  The girl gave a single nod of her head. “Daddy’s down at the barn.”

  “Would it be all right if I walked down there to see him?”

  The girl shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

  Rose turned to go, then a thought struck her and she looked back at the sullen teenager. “If your mother is in the house, she might be able to help me.”

  “I don’t have a mother,” she said curtly, then went back into the house before Rose could make any sort of reply.

  What a sad little girl, Rose thought. She hadn’t known that Harlan Hamilton had a child or that he was single. How long had he been without a wife and his daughter without a mother? she wondered.

  As Rose approached the barn, she spotted the owner of the Flying H trying to coax a black yearling to follow a lead rope. The young horse was balking. Each time the man tugged on the rope, the animal stiffened its front legs and reared its head back.

  Still unnoticed, Rose walked up to the wooden corral and stood quietly watching. Her neighbor was a big man. At least two inches past six feet, and she figured he weighed well over two hundred pounds. Faded jeans clung to his long strong legs and a gray chambray work shirt was stretched taut across his broad shoulders. He had a lean waist and large, menacing arms. Dark, almost black hair waved from beneath the straw cowboy hat on his head.

  Normally Rose didn’t notice men in the physical sense. She had long ago lost her appetite for sex or romance, and what a man did or didn’t look like hardly mattered to her. But something about this man was urging her to take a closer look than usual.

  The sight of a woman, a beautiful one at that, standing outside Harlan’s horsepen was more than a shock to his senses. Women didn’t visit the Flying H. As far as that went, hardly anyone ever came to see him or his daughter, Emily.

  He dropped the yearling’s lead rope and slowly walked over to the fence where the woman stood. “Hello,” he said.

  She extended her hand through the fence to him. “Hello, Mr. Hamilton. I’m Rose Murdock, your neighbor on the Bar M.”

  Yes, Harlan remembered as his eyes skimmed over the long, chestnut braid lying against her right breast, her fair, faintly freckled skin and clear gray eyes. He’d been visiting Tomas one day and while they’d been looking over some of his racehorse stock, she’d approached the two of them to give her father a telephone message.

  She’d barely spoken to Harlan that day, but he hadn’t felt slighted by her lukewarm greeting. He’d figured she’d taken him for a wrangler in need of work rather than a friend of her father’s. At the time, all three of the Murdock sisters had been single. But he’d read a few weeks ago where one of them had married Sheriff Pardee. An acquaintance of his had once made a joking remark that Harlan might enjoy a redhead cooking his meals and warming his bed. Harlan had ignored the suggestion. He didn’t want or need his bed warmed by a redheaded Murdock or any woman for that matter. One wife had been enough for him.

  “So Miss Murdock, is this a social call or can I help you with something?”

  The words “social call” brought a heated stain to Rose’s cheeks. “I don’t call on men socially. I’m here to talk to you about something I observed on the ranch awhile ago.”

  Realizing he was still holding onto her hand, Harlan dropped it and motioned toward a piñon standing a few feet away. “Let’s get out of this sun,” he suggested, then stepped out of the corral and latched the gate behind him.

  Her heart thudding with each step she took, Rose followed him to the flimsy shade. “I’m sorry to interrupt your work like this, Mr. Hamilton, but I—”

  “There’s no need for you to call me Mr. Hamilton. My name is Harlan.”

  Yes, she’d known his name was Harlan, but calling him by his first name was getting too personal for Rose’s taste. Still, she didn’t want to offend this man. He was her neighbor and he could make life hell for her and her sisters if he decided to be difficult.

  Clearing her throat, she lifted her eyes to his face. Close up, she was immediately struck by the toughness of his features, his rough, leathery skin and hooded brown eyes. A shadow of unshaven beard darkened his chin and jaws, while sweat trickled from beneath his hatband and tracked down his temples.

  “Well, Harlan,” she finally managed to say, “what I’m here about is the fence running between our properties. It’s been cut, and cattle have been herded from your pasture onto my pasture. Do you know anything about this?”

  He remained silent for a long time and Rose eventually felt herself begin to wilt beneath his gaze. She could feel his eyes on her face, her lips, her bosom. Rose had never considered herself attractive to men and to have one look at her as blatantly as this was something she wasn’t quite ready to deal with.

  “I suppose I should have said something to you or your family before I cut the fence. But I didn’t have any idea you’d be riding horseback that far away from your ranch.”

  Rose stared at him with wide eyes. “I have to ride fence just like you do, Mr. Hamilton. And for you to take it for granted that a certain part of our boundary fence would be ignored is, well—it’s insulting.”

  “I told you to call me Harlan,” he said with a sudden flare of his nostrils. “And as for the fence, I might remind you that your father and I were equal partners building it.”

  Rose hadn’t any idea the man had contributed toward the fence. She’d thought the Bar M had shouldered all the labor and expense. Embarrassed by her ignorance, Rose glanced away from him. “I wasn’t aware of that. But I was concerned when I found the cut wires. There wasn’t any way of my knowing you’d done it.”

  He grimaced. “Believe me, Miss Murdock, I didn’t get any enjoyment in tearing down the fence. But I hardly had any choice in the matter. I’m in bad need of water over here, and before your father died, he gave me permission to use the river on your land.”
/>   Surprised by his admission, she said, “Surely the river runs through your property, too.”

  “Only parts of it. The pasture where I cut the wire has nothing but a pond and it dried up two weeks ago.”

  “I know it’s been dry but—”

  “Dry! It’s been hell for the past two months! There’s plenty of people around here who are hurting for water. We just aren’t as blessed as you Murdocks.”

  Blessed! He didn’t know the half of it, Rose thought a little angrily. Their father had died and left them a pile of debts, then they’d discovered that the twin babies abandoned on their front porch were really their half brother and sister. Their father apparently had had an affair with a woman in Las Cruces while their invalid mother had lain dying. And to make matters worse, he’d been sending his mistress an exorbitant amount of money every month. Tomas Murdock’s lack of morals and common sense had left Rose, her sisters and aunt in dire straits. No, this man didn’t know the half of it!

  “We aren’t exactly overflowing with water ourselves, Mr.—Harlan. The river is very low.”

  “At least there’s water in it.”

  “Yes. It’s still running,” she had to agree.

  “Then I think the least you and your sisters can do is share.”

  Her brows shot upward. “Share?”

  He frowned. “I don’t know why you find that so incredible. I mean, it’s been a year and I haven’t seen a cent from you people. I realize Tomas passed on, but that doesn’t mean his debts can be ignored.”