Emilie Rose - The Ashtons - Walker, Ford & Mercedes

One outrageous family, three lifetime passions!

Three of your favourite authors bring you three pulse-racing romances following the scandalous Ashton dynasty

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MILLS & BOON SPOTLIGHT™

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May 2010

The Ashtons: Walker, Ford & Mercedes

Featuring

Betrayed Birthright by Sheri WhiteFeather Mistaken for a Mistress by Kristi Gold Condition of Marriage by Emilie Rose

Princes of the Outback

by Bronwyn Jameson

Featuring

The Rugged Loner

The Rich Stranger

The Ruthless Groom

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Cover Page

Excerpt One outrageous family, three lifetime passions!

Other Books By We’re proud to present MILLS & BOON SPOTLIGHT™ A chance to buy collections of bestselling novels by favourite authors every month – they’re back by popular demand! May 2010 The Ashtons: Walker, Ford & Mercedes Featuring Betrayed Birthright by Sheri WhiteFeather Mistaken for a Mistress by Kristi Gold Condition of Marriage by Emilie Rose Princes of the Outback by Bronwyn Jameson Featuring The Rugged Loner The Rich Stranger The Ruthless Groom

Title Page The Ashtons: Walker, Ford & Mercedes Sheri WhiteFeather Kristi Gold Emilie Rose www.millsandboon.co.uk

Betrayed Birthright Betrayed Birthright By

About the Author Sheri WhiteFeather lives in Southern California and enjoys ethnic dining, attending powwows and visiting art galleries and vintage clothing stores near the beach. When she isn’t writing, she often reads until the wee hours of the morning. Sheri’s husband, a member of the Muscogee Creek Nation, inspires many of her stories. They have a son, a daughter and a trio of cats – domestic and wild. She loves to hear from her readers. You may write to her at: PO Box 17146, Anaheim, California 92817, USA. Visit her website at www.SheriWhiteFeather.com.

Map

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Mistaken for A Mistress

About the Author

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Condition of Marriage

About the Author

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Epilogue

Copyright

By

Sheri WhiteFeatherlives in Southern California and enjoys ethnic dining, attending powwows and visiting art galleries and vintage clothing stores near the beach. When she isn’t writing, she often reads until the wee hours of the morning.

Sheri’s husband, a member of the Muscogee Creek Nation, inspires many of her stories. They have a son, a daughter and a trio of cats – domestic and wild. She loves to hear from her readers. You may write to her at: PO Box 17146, Anaheim, California 92817, USA. Visit her website at www.SheriWhiteFeather.com.

1983

Damn David for dying. And damn him for marrying an Indian woman.

Spencer Ashton gazed out the windshield, then blew a frustrated breath. He’d just spent a grueling weekend in Nebraska, taking care of family business. But what choice did he have? Who else would pick up the pieces of David’s crumbled life and offer his half-breed kids a better existence?

That squaw wasn’t fit to raise David’s offspring, and there was no way Spencer would allow her to take them to her freeloading, war-whooping reservation. It was bad enough they’d lived on a farm that had

never prospered, a farm Spencer had helped David buy long before he’d married Mary Little Dove.

But in the end, David had been too proud to admit that he and his family were starving.

Spencer flipped the sun visor, squinting into the afternoon light. He was on his way home from the airport, heading to Napa Valley, California, where he owned a thriving winery and a twenty-two-thousand-square-foot mansion. The boy and girl he’d acquired—his dead brother’s children—sat next to him in the front seat of his luxury sedan.

He glanced over and saw that three-year-old Charlotte was still behaving like a lost bird. She even chirped every so often, grating on his nerves. He’d tried to put her in the backseat, but she wouldn’t leave her big brother’s side. Spencer had no use for wounded creatures, but what could he do? She was David’s daughter.

The eight-year-old boy, on the other hand, had already garnered Spencer’s respect. Walker held his head high. The kid had moxie. Balls. He deserved to be an Ashton.

Too bad he was part Indian.

But Spencer would find a way to get past that. Not that he favored children, Lord knew he had enough of his own. He even had another baby on the way, but Walker was different. He would probably prove to be better than any of Spencer’s kids.

Charlotte made another nervous sound, and Spencer gripped the steering wheel.

“She’s scared,” Walker said.

“Yes, of course. Your parents are gone.” Or so they had been told. Their mother was still alive, but that was Spencer’s secret. Everyone, except his lawyer, had been fed the same story: Mary Little Dove had died from injuries she’d sustained in an automobile accident, just like David.

Spencer and his attorney had strong-armed her into giving up her kids, but it had been the right thing to do.

Walker was proof. The boy looked dapper in the clothes Spencer had purchased for him. And he hadn’t balked about getting his hair cut, either. Spencer wasn’t about to take the kids home looking like a couple of ragamuffins.

He turned to study the boy’s posture. Although he protected his sister, keeping her close, he still had an air of independence. His mother had called him a warrior. A Sioux at heart. But Spencer sensed otherwise. This kid should have been white.

“I was poor when I was young, too,” Spencer said. “But I wanted something better.”