Stella Bagwell - Her Texas Ranger

He didn’t hesitate. “To see you. To ask you about having dinner with me tonight. Just the two of us.”

Her heart leaped with unexpected pleasure, yet she was careful to hide it in her words. “I had dinner with you last night.”

“What does that hurt?”

She decided to be truthful with him. “Seth—after last night—I don’t think it would be wise to go out with you.”

His hand tightened on hers. “Don’t be scared, Corinna,” he said gently. “Last night was nice. Very nice. And you know it.”

Yes, she did know it, and everything inside of her wanted to experience it all again, to be with this man that had lingered in her thoughts for nearly two decades.

“I can see why you became a Texas Ranger,” she commented wryly. “You like to live dangerously.”

Dear Reader,

We’re smack in the middle of summer, which can only mean long, lazy days at the beach. And do we have some fantastic books for you to bring along! We begin this month with a new continuity, only in Special Edition, called THE PARKS EMPIRE, a tale of secrets and lies, love and revenge. And Laurie Paige opens the series with Romancing the Enemy. A schoolteacher who wants to avenge herself against the man who ruined her family decides to move next door to the man’s son. But things don’t go exactly as planned, as she finds herself falling…for the enemy.

Stella Bagwell continues her MEN OF THE WEST miniseries with Her Texas Ranger, in which an officer who’s come home to investigate a murder finds complications in the form of the girl he loved in high school. Victoria Pade begins her NORTHBRIDGE NUPTIALS miniseries, revolving around a town famed for its weddings, with Babies in the Bargain. When a woman hoping to reunite with her estranged sister finds instead her widowed husband and her children, she winds up playing nanny to the whole crew. Can wife and mother be far behind? THE KENDRICKS OF CAMELOT by Christine Flynn concludes with Prodigal Prince Charming, in which a wealthy playboy tries to help a struggling caterer with her business and becomes much more than just her business partner in the process. Brand-new author Mary J. Forbes debuts with A Forever Family, featuring a single doctor dad and the woman he hires to work for him. And the MEN OF THE CHEROKEE ROSE miniseries by Janis Reams Hudson continues with The Other Brother, in which a woman who always counted her handsome neighbor as one of her best friends suddenly finds herself looking at him in a new light.

Happy reading! And come back next month for six new fabulous books, all from Silhouette Special Edition.

Gail Chasan

Senior Editor

www.millsandboon.co.uk

In memory of my father, Louis Copeland Cook,

a believer in doing things right. I hope he thinks I have.

sold her first book to Silhouette in November 1985. More than forty novels later, she still loves her job and says she isn’t completely content unless she’s writing. Recently, she and her husband of thirty years moved from the hills of Oklahoma to Seadrift, Texas, a sleepy little fishing town located on the coastal bend. Stella says the water, the tropical climate and the seabirds make it a lovely place to let her imagination soar and to put the stories in her head down on paper.

She and her husband have one son, Jason, who lives and teaches high school math in nearby Port Lavaca.

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

“One riot, one Ranger. Isn’t that the reputation you Rangers have down in Texas?”

The question prompted Seth Ketchum to cast a wry glance at his younger brother, Ross, who was standing just to the right of his chair.

Seth had almost forgotten what it was like to be back on the T Bar K with his family. Two years had passed since he’d seen his brother and sister. The time had slipped up on him and now as they crowded around him in the living room of the ranch house, he realized just how much he’d missed his siblings.

“That’s what the saying is—one riot, one Ranger,” Seth responded to his brother’s comment. “But I’m not a superhero, Ross.”

Ross reached down and slapped his brother proudly on the back. “That’s right, Seth. You’re better than a superhero. You don’t have to waste time racing into a telephone booth to change out of your boots and hat.”

A few feet away, from her seat on a leather chester-field couch, their sister, Victoria, groaned. “Ross, this mess isn’t funny. I don’t know how you can joke at a time like this.”

Ross chuckled as he continued to squeeze Seth’s shoulder. “Who’s joking?” Ross retorted. “Company D down in San Antonio would fall apart without Seth.”

The two men were dressed similarly in boots and jeans and long-sleeved cotton shirts. As far as resembling each other, Seth was a fraction shorter and more solidly built than his six-foot brother. Where Ross’s hair was nearly black, Seth’s was a dozen shades of brown, ranging from light to dark. But the most striking difference in the men was in their demeanor. Ross was normally all grins and teasing laughter whereas Seth had always been a quiet, serious man.

“Ross, your confidence in me is a little exaggerated,” Seth countered. “At least my captain would say so.”

Grinning, Ross waved away his older brother’s modest remark.

“You’re already a sergeant. Before long you’ll be a captain.”

Seth grimaced. Ross was still, in many ways, just like their late father, Tucker. He’d believed all Ketchums were meant to go straight to the top of the ladder.

“I don’t want to be a captain,” Seth said while gazing absently at the glass of iced tea he was holding. “I like the position I’m in just fine.”

“Seth, you—”

“Ross, will you let it rest?” Victoria interrupted. “Seth isn’t telling you how to run the ranch. And he’s only been home a few minutes! Why don’t you let him catch his breath?”

Seth glanced gratefully at Victoria. She was not only a beautiful woman, she was also a damn good doctor and as far as he was concerned, she’d always been the most levelheaded of the four Ketchum siblings. After all these years of her being single, he found it hard to believe that she and Jess Hastings had mended their differences and were now married and expecting a child. Yet that wasn’t nearly the shock he’d received when he’d heard that his playboy brother had tied the knot with Isabella Corrales, a beautiful lawyer from the Jicarilla Apache reservation.

But romance and weddings hadn’t been the only things taking place on the T Bar K. Jess, his new brother-in-law and undersheriff of San Juan County, had been shot and nearly killed. Thankfully, that case had been solved and the ranch hand that had committed the crime was now serving time behind bars. However, there was still the mystery of the murdered foreman, Noah Rider, to unravel and everyone in the family was now looking to Seth, expecting him to work a miracle in a case that, frankly, had been cold from the very beginning.