Sandra Steffen - Wes Stryker's Wrangled Wife

He wished...

He didn’t know what he wished anymore. He only knew that this woman had driven out here when he’d needed her, and he didn’t want her to go. Not yet, not until they’d talked a little more and maybe he’d kissed her very thoroughly. Maybe not even then.

“Well,” she was saying, backing up. “I guess I’ll leave you to your assorted pets.”

By the time his gaze made it back to her face, he found her looking at him, waiting for him to say something. During the seventeen years he’d spent on the rodeo circuit he’d made small talk with just about everybody he’d seen, from rodeo clowns to judges to buckle bunnies. And here he was, standing before a woman he wanted to impress, as tonguetied as a teenager with a new pair of boots and his father’s car, trying to work up his courage to talk to the prettiest girl in school.

“You’re right about the animals,” he finally managed to say as he shortened the distance between them. “They’re all misfits in one way or another. By rights, kittens born so late in the year shouldn’t have survived. The dog came limping into the barn a week ago, hungry and half-frozen, no collar, no tags. I asked around, but nobody seems to know who he belongs to.”

Jayne looked at him and then at the dog. “What’s his name?”

Wes shrugged. “I thought I’d wait and see if he decides to stay before I name him.”

He wondered if she would say something negative about the animal. He wouldn’t have blamed her if she had. The dog was a mongrel, not quite brown, not quite black, ugly by most people’s standards. He had a dull coat, a cropped tail and a slight limp, not at all unlike Wes’s.

Wes wondered which of those features Jayne would comment on. She leaned down and held out the back of her hand, letting the dog sniff. “He has soulful eyes.”

Wes swore the beating rhythm of his heart changed tempo. Nothing about the conversation should have aroused lust, yet his desire for her was strong. The entire time it was wrapping around him, soft-touched thoughts were shaping his smile. “So do you, Jayne. So do you.”

He could tell by the way she shook her head very slowly, very precisely and rose stiffly to her feet that he probably shouldn’t have said it. But hell, it was true. He strolled closer, intent upon convincing her to stay. She shook her head again. “Look,” she said, “just so you don’t get the wrong idea. I didn’t come out here to start something. I meant what I said last night. I’m finished with men. All men.”

“You can’t deny the attraction that’s between us.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Wanna bet?”

He took another step in her direction. He liked the way her chin came up and her shoulders went back. He especially liked the way his blood was heating as it made its way to the very center of him. Ignoring the hand she held up to ward off his advance, he said, “I want you. And I think you want me.”

Her blue eyes narrowed, flashing with insolence. “You must have hit your head earlier.”

“I don’t think so.”

Looking him up and down in a manner that would have made a lesser man crumble, she said, “If you tell me you have an itch and a hankering, I’ll be forced to clobber you.”

He eased closer. “That’s one way to put it.”

“It was the way my ex-husband put it when I confronted him with my suspicions that he was seeing another woman. He said the affair meant nothing, he’d had an itch, that’s all, and a hankering. I told him to scratch the itch and shove the hankering. The same goes for you.”

She turned on her heel and headed for the door.

Since Wes didn’t want her to leave, period, and he especially didn’t want her to leave angry, he followed her outside. “Jayne?” he called when she was halfway to her car.

Jayne came to an abrupt stop. Although it went against her better judgment, she turned around. She found herself looking across the expanse of yard where the barn stood in stark contrast to the snow and the sky. If there had ever been any paint on the old building, it was long gone, the boards weathered to a dull, dark gray. Wes’s cowboy hat was gray, too, but a lighter shade, and although she couldn’t see his eyes from here, she could feel the intensity of his gaze.

“I was thinking,” he called, holding very still.

In her experience a woman had to beware of a man who’d been thinking. “About what?” she asked.

“Maybe you’d like to name the dog.”

The suggestion caught her off guard. “You’d really let me choose a name for your dog?”

He didn’t set any records closing the barn door, but he ambled toward her, his limp all the more noticeable since it slowed down a man who was so naturally made for strength and speed.

She wasn’t a mystical, whimsical woman, or a particularly romantic one. She knew herself inside and out, her limits and goals, her strengths and weaknesses. She was a modern-day woman with a smart mouth, a sore heart and an honest soul. And she honestly didn’t know what to do about Wes Stryker.

“A friend of mine gave her dog her middle name, although now that I think of it, her mother had a fit,” she said. “You could do that, I suppose. What is your middle name, anyway?”

He grimaced. “You don’t want to know.”

“Now I have to know.”

Resting his hands on his hips, he lifted one shoulder sheepishly. “You’ll laugh. Everyone laughs.”

“I won’t, I promise.”

He hesitated a little longer, and then, in a voice so quiet she had to strain to hear over the crunch his boots made on the crusty snow, he said, “Engelbert.”

She had to bite her lip to keep from grinning. “Your parents named you Wesley Engelbert Stryker?”

His nod was accompanied by a sigh. “My mother was a huge fan of Engelbert Humperdinck.”

She had to turn around to hide her grin, but she was pretty sure he could hear the smile in her voice as she said, “That dog doesn’t really look like an Engelbert.”

“Who does?”

Her smile grew. “I’ll see what I can do about coming up with something else.”

“I would appreciate that.”

Neither of them said goodbye, but Jayne glanced toward the house after she’d backed from the driveway. Wes hadn’t moved and was watching her from underneath the brim of his worn Stetson. He looked down suddenly and reached into his pocket, pulling out a portable phone.

Before she drove away, she saw him raise the antenna and say something into the mouthpiece. She couldn’t see his expression, but his head was tilted slightly, one knee bent, a hand in one pocket. He didn’t seem to mind the cold or the fact that he was all alone on Christmas morning. Wesley Engelbert Stryker appeared relaxed and comfortable talking to whoever was on the other end of that phone.

Wesley Engelbert Stryker. Lord, what a name.

What a man.

Chapter Three

The phone rang just as Wes was taking a frozen dinner out of the microwave. It was the third phone call he’d had since talking to Annabell earlier that morning. The kids were excited and nervous and curious, not to mention a little afraid of yet another change in their lives.

He left the dinner on top of the stove. Leaning a hip against the counter, he listened intently to the tiny voice on the other end of the line.

“Yes, Olivia, honey. You’ll have your own room... Of course you can bring all your stuff.... Even Snuggles the goose...especially Snuggles the goose.... Uh-huh. And all your pictures of your mommy and daddy.... Yes, you have to bring Logan, too. He’s your brother. No, Olivia, you can’t—”

There was a screech that put Wes in mind of permanent hearing loss. A scuffle followed, and then a young boy’s voice claimed the line. “It’s me, Uncle Wes. Logan.”