Barbara Dunlop - In Bed With The Wrangler

A book in the Montana Millionaires: The Ryders series, 2010

Dear Reader,

Welcome to book number two in the MONTANA MILLIONAIRES: THE RYDERS series from the Silhouette Desire line. I love writing about siblings, and I hope you enjoy reading Royce’s story in In Bed with the Wrangler along with his brother Jared and his sister Stephanie’s stories in the companion books.

The idea for this series goes back a long time. When I was ten years old, my parents took me to visit my aunt and uncle’s ranch during the summer. Even at that young age, I spun fanciful stories about the people living and working on the cattle ranch. I thought the cowboys were exotic and exciting, and I loved the space and isolation that gave such a sense of community.

Montana is one of my favorite states, and since my husband is a pilot, a cowboy and a business owner all rolled into one, the stories came together quite naturally.

Happy reading!

Barbara

Strains from the jazz band followed Royce Ryder as he strode across the carpeted promenade between the ballroom and the lobby lounge of the Chicago Ritz-Carlton Hotel. He tugged his bow tie loose, popping the top button on his white tuxedo shirt while inhaling a breath of relief. His brother, Jared, and his new sister-in-law, Melissa, were still dancing up a storm in the ballroom, goofy smiles beaming on their faces as they savored every single moment of their wedding reception.

But it had been a long night for Royce. He’d stood up for his brother, joked his way through an endless receiving line, then toasted the bride and the bridesmaids. He’d socialized, danced, eaten cake and even caught the garter-a reflexive action that had everything to do with his years as a first baseman in high school and college, and nothing whatsoever to do with his future matrimony prospects.

Now his duty was done, and it was time for a final night in the civilized surroundings of downtown Chicago before his sentence began in Montana. Okay, so managing the family ranch wasn’t exactly hard labor in Alcatraz, but for a man who’d been piloting a jet plane around the world for the past three years, it was going to be a very long month.

It wasn’t that he begrudged Jared his honeymoon. Quite the contrary, he was thrilled that his brother had fallen in love and married. And the better he got to know Melissa, the more he liked her. She was smart and sassy, and clearly devoted to both Jared and their younger sister, Stephanie. Royce wished the couple a fantastic, well-deserved trip to the South Pacific.

It was just bad luck that McQuestin, the family’s Montana cattle ranch manager, had broken his leg in three places last week. McQuestin was down for the count. Stephanie was busy training her students for an important horse jumping competition. So Royce was it.

He slipped onto a padded bar stool, the majority of his focus on the selection of single malts on the mirrored, backlit shelf as he gave the woman next to him a passing glance. But he quickly did a double take, disregarding the liquor bottles and focusing on her. She was stunningly gorgeous: blond hair, dark-fringed blue eyes, flushed cheeks, wearing a shimmering, skintight, red-trimmed, gold dress that clung to every delectable curve. Her lips were bold red, and her perfectly manicured fingers were wrapped around a sculpted martini glass.

“What can I get for you?” asked the bartender, dropping a coaster on the polished mahogany bar in front of Royce.

“Whatever she’s having,” said Royce without taking his gaze from the woman.

She turned to paste him with a back-off stare, her look of disdain making him wish he’d at least kept his tie done up. But a split second later, her expression mellowed.

“Vodka martini?” the waiter confirmed.

“Sure,” said Royce.

“You were the best man,” the woman stated, her voice husky-sexy in the quiet of the lounge.

“That I was,” Royce agreed easily, more than willing to use tonight’s official position to his advantage. “Royce Ryder. Brother of the groom. And you are?”

“Amber Hutton.” She held out a feminine hand.

He took it in his. It was small, smooth, with delicate fingers and soft skin. His mind immediately turned to the things she could do to him with a hand like that.

“Tired of dancing?” he asked as the waiter set the martini in front of him. He assumed she would have had plenty of partners in the crowded ballroom.

“Not in the mood.” Her fingers moved to the small plastic spear that held a trio of olives in her glass. She shot a brief glance behind her toward the promenade that led to the sparkling ballroom. Then she leaned closer to Royce. He met her halfway.

“Hiding out,” she confided.

“From?” he prompted.

She hesitated. Then she shook her head. “Nothing important.”

Royce didn’t press. “Any way I can be of assistance?”

She arched a perfectly sculpted brow. “Don’t hit on me.”

“Ouch,” he said, feigning a wounded ego.

That prompted a smile. “You did ask.”

“I was expecting a different answer.”

“I’ll understand if you want to take off.”

Royce gazed into her eyes for a long moment. Past her smile, he could see trouble lurking. Though women with trouble usually sent him running for the hills, he gave a mental shrug, breaking one of his own rules. “I don’t want to take off.”

“You one of those nice guys, Royce Ryder?”

“I am,” he lied. “Good friend. Confidant. A regular boy next door.”

“Funny, I wouldn’t have guessed that about you.”

“Ouch, again,” he said softly, even though she was dead right. He’d never been any woman’s good friend or confidant.

“You strike me as more of a playboy.”

“Shows you how wrong you can be.” He glanced away, taking a sip of the martini. Not a lot of taste to it.

“And you left the party because…”

“I wasn’t in the mood for dancing, either,” he admitted.

“Oh…” She let her tone turn the word into a question.

He swiveled on the stool so he was facing her. “I’m a jet pilot,” he told her instead of explaining his mood. Time had proven it one of his more successful pickup lines. Sure, she’d asked him not to hit on her, but if, in the course of their conversation, she decided she was interested, well, he had no control over that, did he?

“For an airline?” she asked.

“For Ryder International. A corporate jet.”

Her glass was empty, so he drained his own and signaled the bartender for another round.

“Getting me drunk won’t work,” she told him.

“Who says I’m getting you drunk? I’m drowning my own sorrows. I’m only including you to be polite.”

She smiled again and seemed to relax. “You don’t strike me as a man with sorrows, Mr. ‘I’m a Jet Pilot’ Best Man.”

“Shows you how wrong you can be,” he repeated. “I’m here celebrating my last night of freedom.” He raised his skewer of olives to his mouth, sliding one off the end.

“Are you getting married, too?”

He nearly choked on the olive. “No.”

“Going to jail?” she tried.

He resisted the temptation to nod. “Going to Montana.”

She smiled at his answer. “There’s something wrong with Montana?”

“There is when you were planning to be in Dubai and Monaco.”

Her voice turned melodic, and she shook her head in mock sympathy. “You poor, poor man.”