Meagan McKinney - The Cowboy Claims His Lady

Bruce stared at her in the darkness of the paddock. She couldn’t read his expression at all.

“It would delight me to no end to prove her and her wicked matchmaking ways wrong. Would you go along with the gag?”

He stepped toward her, tall and intimidating, masculine and domineering.

“I’ll go along with it. How far are we going?”

“Well—not far enough for me to be a notch on your bedpost,” she confirmed nervously.

“I’d rather you be tethered to my bedpost.” He pressed his long, lean body against hers.

She looked up at him, wondering how feminine wiles could ever tame such a male animal. Against her will, her breath quickened. She was no match for him when his very nearness caused her to tremble and melt.

“This is just to fool Hazel,” she said. “I’m not really going to try to seduce you. You do understand that, don’t you?”

He nodded.

Then, in a harsh whisper, he said, “I know. ’Cause I’m going to seduce you….”

Dear Reader,

In honor of International Women’s Day, March 8, celebrate romance, love and the accomplishments of women all over the world by reading six passionate, powerful and provocative new titles from Silhouette Desire.

New York Times bestselling author Sharon Sala leads the Desire lineup with Amber by Night (#1495). A shy librarian uses her alter ego to win her lover’s heart in a sizzling love story by this beloved MIRA and Intimate Moments author. Next, a pretend affair turns to true passion when a Barone heroine takes on the competition, in Sleeping with Her Rival (#1496) by Sheri WhiteFeather, the third title of the compelling DYNASTIES: THE BARONES saga.

A single mom shares a heated kiss with a stranger on New Year’s Eve and soon after reencounters him at work, in Renegade Millionaire (1497) by Kristi Gold. Mail-Order Prince in Her Bed (#1498) by Kathryn Jensen features an Italian nobleman who teaches an American ingenue the language of love, while a city girl and a rancher get together with the help of her elderly aunt, in The Cowboy Claims His Lady (#1499) by Meagan McKinney, the latest MATCHED IN MONTANA title. And a contractor searching for his secret son finds love in the arms of the boy’s adoptive mother, in Tangled Sheets, Tangled Lies (#1500) by brand-new author Julie Hogan, debuting in the Desire line.

Delight in all six of these sexy Silhouette Desire titles this month…and every month.

Enjoy!

Joan Marlow Golan

Senior Editor, Silhouette Desire

is the author of over a dozen hardcover and paperback historical and contemporary women’s fiction novels. In addition to romance, she likes to inject mystery and thriller elements into her work. Currently she lives in the Garden District of New Orleans with her two young sons, two very self-entitled cats and a crazy red mutt. Her favorite hobbies are traveling to the Arctic and, of course, reading!

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

“Get over here and give this old cowgirl a hug!”

Melynda Clay laughed at the greeting. She heard the familiar voice before she could even glance across the small airport terminal of Mystery, Montana.

“Hazel!”

Tugging her wheeled luggage behind her, Lyndie headed toward the petite older woman with the elegant silver-chignoned hair. Her great-aunt was the same old contradiction in terms Lyndie remembered. The handsome cattle baroness also wore faded jeans tucked into dusty cowboy boots and a smart alligator-band Western hat.

“So how is my notorious great-aunt?” Lyndie asked with laughter and a hug.

“Right as rain on a wood duck! Never better!”

Lyndie had to agree. Hazel McCallum didn’t look a day over sixty but the matriarch was well into the next decade.

All that clean-living and fresh mountain air, Lyndie mused. Certainly it was the opposite of the life she’d been living recently, bent over accounting books, worrying and biting her nails in the back of her little French Quarter shop in New Orleans.

“Lands, let me look at you!” Hazel exclaimed, holding Lyndie out at arm’s length. “Hon, I love what you’ve done with your hair. Last time I saw you, you were just graduating college and you practically had a buzz cut, remember?”

“Remember? Are you kidding? You kept asking me if I’d joined the Marines!”

“Well, the shoulder length and the blond streaks are perfect for your McCallum good looks,” Hazel said approvingly, still admiring her. “You’ve got my daddy’s sapphire-blue eyes. My gosh, you’re a regular traffic hazard.”

Hazel narrowed her own Prussian-blue eyes as if seeing more than Lyndie wanted her to. Lyndie wondered if her great-aunt was taking note of the signs of chronic strain and worry molding her features these days, especially the dark circles under those “sapphire-blue eyes.” The smudges betrayed the days of endless fretting and the sleepless nights.

“Well, c’mon, city slicker,” Hazel said, taking Lyndie’s free hand and pulling her toward the parking lot. “I’m parked right out front. You’ll find no chauffeur-driven Jaguars around here. Just my dusty old Caddy with tumbleweeds stuck in the grill and longhorns for a hood ornament.”

“Chauffeur-driven Jaguars?” Lyndie repeated, gasping. “Aunt Hazel, I’m not doing that well.”

“Oh, cowplop! Your mom tells me you’re getting ready to open your second store. That lingerie empire of yours is practically now a conglomerate. I’m proud of you, sweetie. I guess there’s two sharp business tycoons in this family. So don’t you let those cowhands of mine tease you mercilessly about those underwear shops.”

“‘All for Milady,’” Lyndie replied, hamming it up for her favorite relative and quoting from the advertising copy Lyndie had written herself, “‘offers a complete line of women’s intimate apparel, the latest in fit and luxury for the discriminating woman.’”

Hazel rolled her eyes. “Oh, brother! Intimate apparel? All my cowboys know about a ‘teddy’ is that he was once the president.”

They emerged into the sun-drenched late afternoon, a gorgeous June day. Lyndie was amazed that Hazel had meant it literally when she said she was parked right out front. Her cinnamon-and-black Fleetwood sat only about ten feet from the front doors. The small parking lot was almost empty.

“The only reason they call this paved pasture an airport,” Hazel informed her niece as they stored her luggage in the trunk, “is that we get a few flights from Helena. You’re in back of beyond now, girl. And I still say it’s just what you need. Your mom Sarah’s been telling me you’ve been working from get-up to go-to-bed, seven days a week.”

Lyndie managed a woeful smile. “I’m glad to be out west, Aunt Hazel, and to see you. But I confess I’m not so sure about this dude ranch of yours. That part is a little off-kilter right now.”

“Land sakes, why?”

“Oh, you know…I’m not really in the mood to be bonding with a bunch of tourists—”

“Oh, pouf! Besides, Bruce will keep all of you so dang busy there won’t be much time for idle jawboning.”

“Bruce?”

“You remember, I mentioned him to you on the phone? He trains and breeds horses for all us ranchers in Mystery Valley. During the summer he also runs Mystery Dude, from May to September. With some help, of course.”