Allison Leigh - Home on the Ranch

Belle shivered. She tugged away from his hold, that wasn’t really a hold at all when Cage let go of her so easily, and she was grateful she hadn’t betrayed the way he made her feel.

“I’m sorry, too,” she whispered.

About so many things.

She walked out, leaving Cage standing there in the barn, surrounded by weights and mats and bars and bells, all procured with the intention of helping his daughter walk and run and dance again.

Just then, however, it felt to Belle as if she and Cage were the ones in need of walking lessons.

Dear Reader,

It’s that time of year again—back to school! And even if you’ve left your classroom days far behind you, if you’re like me, September brings with it the quest for everything new, especially books! We at Silhouette Special Edition are happy to fulfill that jones, beginning with Home on the Ranch by Allison Leigh, another in her bestselling MEN OF THE DOUBLE-C series. Though the Buchanans and the Days had been at odds for years, a single Buchanan rancher—Cage—would do anything to help his daughter learn to walk again, including hiring the only reliable physical therapist around. Even if her last name did happen to be Day….

Next, THE PARKS EMPIRE continues with Judy Duarte’s The Rich Man’s Son, in which a wealthy Parks scion, suffering from amnesia, winds up living the country life with a single mother and her baby boy. And a man passing through town notices more than the passing resemblance between himself and newly adopted infant of the local diner waitress, in The Baby They Both Loved by Nikki Benjamin. In A Father’s Sacrifice by Karen Sandler, a man determined to do the right thing insists that the mother of his child marry him, and finds love in the bargain. And a woman’s search for the truth about her late father leads her into the arms of a handsome cowboy determined to give her the life her dad had always wanted for her, in A Texas Tale by Judith Lyons. Last, a man with a new face revisits the ranch—and the woman—that used to be his. Only, the woman he’d always loved was no longer alone. Now she was accompanied by a five-year-old girl…with very familiar blue eyes….

Enjoy, and come back next month for six complex and satisfying romances, all from Silhouette Special Edition!

Gail Chasan

Senior Editor

www.millsandboon.co.uk

started early by writing a Halloween play that her grade-school class performed. Since then, though her tastes have changed, her love for reading has not. And her writing appetite simply grows more voracious by the day.

She has been a finalist in the RITA ®Award and the Holt Medallion contests. But the true highlights of her day as a writer are when she receives word from a reader that they laughed, cried or lost a night of sleep while reading one of her books.

Born in Southern California, Allison has lived in several different cities in four different states. She has been, at one time or another, a cosmetologist, a computer programmer and a secretary. She has recently begun writing full-time after spending nearly a decade as an administrative assistant for a busy neighborhood church, and currently makes her home in Arizona with her family. She loves to hear from her readers, who can write to her at P.O. Box 40772, Mesa, AZ 85274-0772.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Epilogue

“He is not an ogre.”

Belle Day flicked her windshield wipers up to frenzied and tightened her grip around the steering wheel of her Jeep. She focused harder on the unfamiliar road, slowing even more to avoid the worst of the flooding, muddy ruts.

It wasn’t the weather, or the road, or the unfamiliar drive that had her nerves in a noose, though. It was the person waiting at the end of the drive.

“He is not an ogre.” Stupid talking to herself. She’d have to keep that to a minimum when she arrived. Not that she did it all the time.

Only when she was nervous.

Why had she agreed to this?

Her tire hit a dip her searching gaze had missed, and the vehicle rocked, the steering wheel jerking violently in her grip. She exhaled roughly and considered pulling over, but discarded the idea. The sooner she got to the Lazy-B, the sooner she could leave.

Not exactly positive thinking, Belle. Why are you doing this?

Her fingers tightened a little more on the wheel. “Lucy,” she murmured. Because she wanted to help young Lucy Buchanan. Wanted to help her badly enough to put up with Lucy’s father, Cage.

Who was not an ogre. Just because the therapist she was replacing had made enough complaints about her brief time here that they’d found a way through Weaver’s grapevine didn’t mean her experience would be similar.

That’s not the only reason. She ignored the whispered thought. The road curved again, and she saw the hooked tree Cage had told her to watch for. Another quarter mile to go.

At least the ruts in the road were smoothing out and she stopped worrying so much about bouncing off into the ditch. The rain was still pouring down, though. Where the storm had come from after weeks of bonedry weather, she had no idea. Maybe it had been specially ordered up to provide an auspicious beginning to her task.

She shook her head at the nonsense running through it, and slowed before the quarter-mile mark. It was raining and that was a good thing for a state that had been too dry for too long. She finally turned off the rutted road.

The gate that greeted her was firmly closed. She studied it for a moment, but of course the thing didn’t magically open simply because she wished it.

She let out a long breath, pushed open the door and dashed into the rain. Her tennis shoes slid on the slick mud and she barely caught herself from landing on her butt. By the time she’d unhooked the wide, swinging gate, she was drenched. She drove through, then got out again and closed it. And then, because she couldn’t possibly get any wetter unless she jumped in a river, she peered through the sheet of rain at Cage Buchanan’s home.

It was hardly an impressive sight. Small. No frills. A porch ran across the front of the house, only partially softening the brick dwelling. But the place did look sturdy, as the rain sluiced from the roof, gushing out the gutter spouts.

She slicked back her hair and climbed into her Jeep once more to drive the rest of the way. She parked near the front of the house. Despite the weather, the door was open, but there was a wooden screen. She couldn’t see much beyond it, though.

She grabbed her suitcase with one wet hand before shoving out of the Jeep, then darted up the narrow edge of porch steps not covered by a wheelchair ramp. A damp golden retriever sat up to greet her, thumping his tail a few times.

“You the guard dog?” Belle let the curious dog sniff her hand as she skimmed the soles of her shoes over the edge of one of the steps. The rain immediately turned the clumps of mud into brick-red rivulets that flowed down over the steps. Beneath the protection of the porch overhang, she wiped her face again, and flicked her hair behind her shoulders. Of all days not to put it in a ponytail. She couldn’t have arrived looking more pathetic if she’d tried.