Sandra Steffen - Wes Stryker's Wrangled Wife

Growing up the fourth child of ten in a family of ambitious and opinionated people, she developed a keen appreciation for laughter and argument, for stubborn people with hearts of gold and intelligent people who aren’t afraid of other intelligent people. Sandra lives in Michigan with her husband, three of their sons and a blue-eyed mutt who thinks her name is No-Molly-No. Sandra’s book, Child of Her Dreams, won the 1994 National Readers’ Choice Award. Several of her titles have appeared on national bestseller lists.

Chapter One

Wes Stryker spread the crinkled sheet of paper out on the small table in front of him. The words, written in fountainpen ink in an old woman’s shaky scrawl, swirled before his eyes. He blinked to bring them into focus, although he knew them by heart. Annabell wanted him to take the kids. Kate and Dusty’s kids. The thought of Kate and Dusty, and the accident that had taken their lives, sent a stabbing pain all the way through him.

The blinking lights on the Christmas tree in the corner reflected off his glass of beer. Very festive. Ho. Ho. Ho. Wes folded the letter and very carefully slid it into his pocket. Now and then one or two of the local ranchers who were huddled in the bar made an attempt at small talk, and every five minutes Forest Wilkie deposited more coins in the jukebox. Wes wondered how many times he’d heard Elvis Presley’s rendition of “Blue Christmas” tonight. Five? Six? It didn’t matter, because he was pretty sure that if he heard it one more time, he was going to have to hit somebody.

“Slow night,” Butch Brunner mumbled from a table nearby.

Wes acknowledged the statement, but he didn’t look up from the beer in front of him. It was a slow night, all right. Christmas Eve. The longest, slowest, dreariest night of the year.

“Snow’s really coming down out there.”

Wes cast a cursory glance out the window. “Yeah.”

“You doin’ anything tomorrow?”

“Nope. You?”

“Nope.”

Silence. Ah, blessed silence. Unfortunately, it only lasted until Forest deposited more coins.

“For cryin’ out loud,” one of the other area ranchers grumbled. “Can’t you play anything else?”

Ignoring the criticism, Forest settled himself back at his table. Wes continued staring into his beer, wondering what a down-on-his-luck ex-rodeo champion with a bum knee could offer his dead best friends’ kids. Children, especially orphaned children, needed a woman’s touch, didn’t they? He could think of at least one down-on-his-luck ex-rodeo champion who could have used the same thing.

All in all, he figured he’d done a halfway decent job reminding himself that life wasn’t so bad. So what if the woman he’d set his sights on had just married somebody else? He liked Louetta Graham. He’d even go so far as to say he liked her a lot, but he hadn’t been in love with her. Good ol’ Louetta. had known it and had proceeded to let him down in a manner that had left his pride intact. And so what if his rodeo days were over? He’d given bronco riding everything he had. The last couple of years, that had become harder and harder to do. Wes knew timing was everything—it was one of the reasons he’d taken so many trophies over the years. And it had been time to get out. Start over. Come home.

That was what he’d done.

It wasn’t as if he didn’t have anything to come home to. He had the ranch, such as it was. Aside from stiff joints and a limp that probably wouldn’t be getting a whole lot better, he had his health. He supposed he might as well be thankful that he had the town of Jasper Gulch to come back to, not to mention the Crazy Horse Saloon where he could nurse a beer along with a handful of other men who had no better place to be on Christmas Eve. Now, if Forest would stop playing that danged song, they all might make it through the long, gloomy night.

With that in mind, Wes picked up his beer and downed a good portion of it. Wiping his mouth on the back of his hand, he realized that what he needed was some excitement. A barroom brawl or a warm, willing woman. An intense game of poker or a warm, willing woman. Unfortunately, women were hard to come by in Jasper Gulch, South Dakota. Since the men weren’t in the mood to play poker, and the fact that Forest had played “Blue Christmas” seven—good grief, make that eight—times in a row wasn’t really a good enough reason to start a barroom brawl, Wes placed his glass on the table and continued to stare into what was left of his beer.

Suddenly the sleigh bells, hanging from the back of the door, jangled up a storm. It wasn’t surprising that every man in the room glanced up at the commotion, and it stood to reason that each and every one of those men would perk up considerably. After all, the person who’d entered was a woman, and a damned attractive one, at that. Wes, however, was the only man in the room who didn’t duck back behind the safety of his beer. He happened to think their reactions were mighty interesting, not to mention worthy of a little healthy speculation on his part. Evidently the area bachelors knew something he didn’t.

Mighty interesting, indeed.

Wes waited to rise to his feet until after the woman had read the card the bar’s owners had left on the counter, a card wishing everyone a merry Christmas and a drink or two if they wanted to help themselves. Hooking his fingers loosely over the top of his glass, he moseyed a little closer, reaching the row of bar stools about the same time the woman carried a long-necked brown bottle to the counter and started to wiggle out of her coat.

Holy-moly. Now there was a sight for sore eyes, not to mention a sure cure for boredom. And this was a lot better than a game of poker or a barroom brawl.

He’d seen women in leather coats and suede coats with fringe. He’d seen them in plastic rain slickers and wool and fleece and down-filled jackets. Once he’d even kissed a woman who-was wearing mink from head to toe, but he’d never seen a coat quite like the one sliding from this woman’s shoulders. He couldn’t tell what it was made of. This close, he only knew it was fuzzy looking and had what appeared to be red and purple reindeer, some upside down, some right side up, prancing across it.

She hooked a foot on the bottom rung of the bar stool closest to her and hoisted herself onto the seat. Like a man in a trance, Wes watched as she made herself comfortable. He had a hazy impression of long legs encased in dark brown jeans, ankle-high boots, slight hips and round breasts, recently chilled. In his younger days, Wes would have been tempted to chew on his fist. At thirty-five, he realized there was more to a woman than a good body. It just so happened that once a man got past this particular woman’s truly amazing body, he could spend an equal amount of time on her face, which was exactly what he was doing when he found himself looking into electric blue eyes that were looking right back at him.

Coming to his senses enough to realize that it wasn’t polite to stare, and because he still considered himself a gentleman, no matter where his gaze had gotten stuck and his thoughts had wandered, he removed his cowboy hat with his left hand and said, “Evening, ma’am.”

The only indication she gave that she’d heard him was a slight lift of one perfectly arched black eyebrow. Since it was all the encouragement he needed, what with the way the blood was zinging through his body, he sidled a little closer. “Mind if I sit down?”

She took her time looking him up and down. Seemingly altogether unfazed by his rapt attention, she raised the beer bottle halfway to her lips. “On one condition,” she said, holding the bottle in midair.

Wes hitched his weight to one foot and settled his hand, hat and all, to one hip. He waited as long as he could and finally said, “You care to name your condition, or do you want me to guess?”