Vicki Thompson: Wild at Heart

New York Times bestselling author Vicki Lewis Thompson is back in the Blaze ®lineup for 2013, and this year she’s offering her readers even more…

Chance isn’t just the last name of these rugged

Wyoming cowboys—it’s their motto, too!

Saddle up with

I CROSS MY HEART (June)

WILD AT HEART (July)

THE HEART WON’T LIE (August)

And the first full-length

Sons of Chance Christmas story

COWBOYS & ANGELS (December)

Take a chance…on a Chance!

New York Times bestselling author VICKI LEWIS THOMPSON’Slove affair with cowboys started with the Lone Ranger, continued through Maverick and took a turn south of the border with Zorro. She views cowboys as the Western version of knights in shining armor—rugged men who value honor, honesty and hard work. Fortunately for her, she lives in the Arizona desert, where broad-shouldered, lean-hipped cowboys abound. Blessed with such an abundance of inspiration, she only hopes that she can do them justice. Visit her website, www.vickilewisthompson.com.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To the dedicated folks who devote endless hours and abandon creature comforts so that our precious wildlife is protected. Thank you!

July 3, 1984, Last Chance Ranch

ON PRINCIPLE, ARCHIBALD CHANCE approved of getting the ranch house gussied up for the Independence Day festivities. He was as patriotic as the next man. But the excitement of an impending party had transformed his usually well-behaved grandsons into wild things. From his position on a ladder at the far end of the porch, he could hear all three of them tearing around inside. He hoped to get the red, white and blue streamers tacked up before any of them came out.

That hope died as the screen door banged open and a bundle of two-year-old energy with a fistful of small flags raced down the porch toward him. The kid was more interested in who was coming after him than looking where he was going. A tornado in tiny cowboy boots.

“Nicky!” The screen door banged again as Sarah, Archie’s daughter-in-law, dashed after him.

Giggling, Nicky put his head down and ran as fast as his little legs would carry him. With no time to climb down, Archie dropped the bunting, tossed the nails into the coffee can and braced himself against the ladder as he shouted a warning.

Fortunately Sarah was quick. She scooped up both boy and flags a split second before he smashed into the ladder. “Those are for the table, young man.”

“I gots flags, Mommy!” the little boy crowed.

“Yes, and they have pointy ends. Don’t run with them, Nicholas.” Sarah glanced up at Archie. “Sorry about that.”

“Gabe gots flags, too!” Nicky announced.

Sarah wheeled around, and sure enough, there was little Gabe, not yet two, motoring toward them with a flag in each hand.

“I wager somebody’s supplying them with those,” Archie said.

“Yes, I wager you’re right. And his name is Jack. Excuse me, Archie. I have a five-year-old who needs a reminder about the dangers of giving pointy objects to little boys.” Confiscating the flags from both toddlers amid wails of distress, she herded them back inside.

“You’re doing a great job, Sarah!” Archie called after her. He never missed an opportunity to tell her that. She’d given birth to only one of those kids, baby Gabriel, and she’d inherited the other two as part of the deal for being willing to marry Jonathan Chance. She loved all three kids equally, and she loved their father with the kind of devotion that made Archie’s heart swell with gratitude.

As he turned back to his bunting chore, the screen door squeaked again, signaling another interruption. He’d oil those hinges today. He hadn’t realized how bad they were.

Glancing toward the door, he smiled. This was the kind of interruption he appreciated.

Nelsie approached with two glasses of iced tea. “Time for a break, Arch.”

“Don’t mind if I do.” Hooking the hammer in his belt, he carried the coffee can full of nails in the crook of his arm as he descended the ladder to join his wife. “How’re things going in there?”

“Not too bad, considering. I’m glad we decided to host the after-parade barbecue this year, but we didn’t factor in the dynamics of having both babies able to walk and Jack putting them up to all manner of things. They’ll do anything he tells them, especially Nicky.”

Archie put down the hammer and nails before accepting a glass of tea and settling into the rocking chair next to her. They’d bought several rockers to line the porch, which would come in mighty handy during the barbecue. “Those boys are a handful, all right.” He took a sip of tea. “Wouldn’t trade ’em for all the tea in China, though.”

“Me, either, the little devils.” Nelsie chuckled. “Oh, you know what? I saw a bald eagle fly over early this morning. Forgot to tell you that.”

“Huh. Wonder if there’s a nest somewhere.”

“Could be. Anyway, I thought it was appropriate, a bald eagle showing up so close to the Fourth. Maybe he, or she, will do a flyover tomorrow for our guests.”

“I’ll see if I can arrange it for you.”

She smiled at him in that special way that only Nelsie could smile. “If you could, I believe you’d do it, Archie.”

“Yep, that’s a fact.” They’d celebrated their forty-seventh anniversary last month, and he loved this woman more every day. He would do anything for her. And to his amazement, she would do anything for him, too.

He was one lucky cuss, and he knew it. His father used to say that Chance men were lucky when it counted. In Archie’s view, finding a woman like Nelsie counted for a whole hell of a lot.

Present Day

FROM A PLATFORM twenty feet in the air, Naomi Perkins focused her binoculars on a pair of fuzzy heads sticking out of a gigantic nest across the clearing. Those baby eagles sure had the cuteness factor going on. If they lived to adulthood, they’d grow into majestic birds of prey, but at this stage they were achingly vulnerable.

Blake Scranton, the university professor who’d hired her to study the nestlings, was an infirm old guy who was writing a paper on Jackson Hole bald-eagle nesting behavior. He expected her firsthand observations to be the centerpiece of his paper, which would bring more attention to the eagle population in the area and should also give a boost to ecotourism.

Lowering her binoculars, she crouched down to check the battery reading of the webcam mounted on the observation-platform railing. Still plenty of juice. As she glanced up, a movement caught her eye. A rider had appeared at the edge of the clearing.

In the week she’d spent monitoring this nest on the far boundary of the Last Chance Ranch, she’d seen plenty of four-legged animals, but none of the two-legged variety until now. Standing, she trained her binoculars on the rider and adjusted the focus. Then she sucked in a breath of pure feminine appreciation. A superhot cowboy was headed in her direction.

She didn’t recognize him. He wasn’t one of the Chance brothers or any of their longtime ranch hands. Her eight-by-eight platform, tucked firmly into the branches of a tall pine, allowed her to watch him unobserved.