Sarah Anderson - What a Rancher Wants

the one that made Chance want to haul her off that horse and kiss her until they both felt like whooping and hollering.

Yeah, he knew what Gabriella was playing at. He was only too happy to play along.

The moment that thought crossed his mind, it dragged a different thought along for the ride. What if this—the sob story about her mom, the smiles, especially the kiss—all of it was just playing? What if she was playing him?

He’d thought her brother had been one of his best friends—a man he could trust with his life. Where had that gotten him?

What if she was just trying to muck up the works with her bright smiles and warm looks and sweet, hot kisses? What if she was trying to get him distracted or off balance?

What if she was using him?

But why? That was the question he couldn’t answer.

He wanted to protect her, by God.

But who would protect him from her?

* * *

What a Rancher WantsTexas Cattleman’s Club: The Missing Mogul novel —Love and scandal meet in Royal, Texas!

What a Rancher

Wants

Sarah M. Anderson

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Award-winning author SARAH M. ANDERSONmay live east of the Mississippi River, but her heart lies out West on the Great Plains. With a lifelong love of horses and two history teachers for parents, she had plenty of encouragement to learn everything she could about the tribes of the Great Plains.

When she started writing, it wasn’t long before her characters found themselves out in South Dakota among the Lakota Sioux. She loves to put people from two different worlds into new situations and to see how their backgrounds and cultures take them someplace they never thought they’d go.

When not helping out at her son’s school or walking her rescue dogs, Sarah spends her days having conversations with imaginary cowboys and American Indians, all of which is surprisingly well-tolerated by her wonderful husband. Readers can find out more about Sarah’s love of cowboys and Indians at www.sarahmanderson.com.

To Amy, who always appreciates a good Texasism—and a good Texan! The best kinds of friends are the ones where it doesn’t matter how long it’s been or where you are—you’re always able to pick up right where you left off.

Contents

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

Excerpt

One

“¡Dios mío!” Gabriella del Toro hissed under her breath. Blood welled up from the cut she’d inflicted upon herself with the can opener. She sighed. As if anything else could have gone wrong.

From his seat at the breakfast table, Joaquin, her bodyguard, looked up from his tablet. “I’m fine,” she said, answering his unspoken question. “Just a cut.”

She looked down at the injury. She had not anticipated that fixing some broth and toast for her brother, Alejandro, would be so difficult. But then, everything was difficult right now. While she had spent time in the kitchen back at Las Cruces, the ancestral del Toro estate west of Mexico City, she’d never actually prepared anything more than tea and coffee. Their cook had thought that preparing meals was beneath the lady of the house, even if the lady had been only twelve. No one had thought to teach Gabriella the first thing about cooking since...her tía had tried to show her how to make tortillas from scratch.

Gabriella had been seven the last time Papa had taken her and Alejandro to see their mother’s sister. A full twenty years had passed since then.

As Gabriella rinsed the cut under the faucet and wrapped her wounded finger in a towel, she mentally bemoaned how this must look. She was the daughter of Rodrigo del Toro, one of the most powerful legitimate businessmen in all of Mexico. She was one of the most sought-after jewelry designers in Mexico City. She regularly transformed hunks of metal and pieces of rock into wearable art with a Mayan influence.

But at this moment, she was every heiress stereotype rolled into one. She couldn’t even open a can of soup.

The bleeding staunched, she went looking for a bandage. She heard Joaquin stand and trail her out of the kitchen, although he kept a polite distance. She’d rarely been apart from the large, mostly silent man since her father had hired him to protect her when she had been thirteen. She was now twenty-seven. Joaquin Baptiste was nearing forty, but he had showed no signs of slowing down. Secretly, Gabriella hoped he never would. He was far more concerned with her happiness than her father—or even her brother—had ever been. That, and he had never let any harm befall her. Even if it did make dating...challenging.

She walked to the bathroom and found a box of bandages in a cabinet, mentally cursing her clumsiness the whole time. The cut was on the edge of her index finger. It would make holding pliers while she shaped wire almost impossible.

Gabriella caught herself. Her pliers were not here, nor were any of her other jewelry-making supplies. It had not been possible to pack up all her tools. Besides, she had been under the impression that they would only be in America long enough to collect Alejandro.

Her poor brother. Her poor father, for that matter. The del Toro family was forever haunted by the specter of abductions, but they’d all thought Alejandro would be safe in Texas. Kidnappings for profit weren’t nearly as common in America as they were in Mexico, Alejandro had argued when Rodrigo had hatched this scheme to send him north to America to “investigate” an energy company he wanted to acquire. Alejandro had refused to bring Carlos, his personal guard. He had told Rodrigo he would not go if he weren’t allowed to do things the American way.

The thing that Gabriella still could not believe was that their father had relented and Alejandro had been allowed to live alone, as an American would. Alejandro had assumed the identity of Alex Santiago and come north alone a little more than two years ago.

Gabriella had suffered a bout of jealousy at that. She longed to be free to come and go as she pleased, but her father would not hear of it. She had stayed at Las Cruces, under constant watch of Joaquin—and Rodrigo.

At least, she had been jealous—until Alejandro had been kidnapped. However, the kidnappers had not demanded an exorbitant ransom, as was the usual custom. Instead, there had been no word from them—or Alejandro, until he had been found in the back of a coyote’s truck. Coyotes smuggled immigrants. Alejandro, the son of Rodrigo del Toro, had been thrown in with the poor things desperate to start a new life in America.

The kidnappers had not treated Alejandro well. Although his wounds were healing, he had no memory of the attack, which meant he had no information to give the law-enforcement officers who occasionally checked on him. The case had stalled. Alejandro had returned, mostly whole, to his home in Royal, Texas. Now that his life was no longer in immediate danger, Gabriella had gotten the sense that the police weren’t as dedicated to finding the criminals who had abducted him in the first place. Still, they were “requesting” that Alejandro remain in the country. Truthfully, Alejandro had showed no signs of wanting to go. He stayed in his room, resting or watching football—what the Americans called soccer.

Alejandro showed almost no signs of memory, except his love of football. He didn’t seem to remember her, or Papa. In fact, the only reaction they’d gotten out of him beyond a mumbled thank-you when she brought him his meals was when Papa had announced they would be returning to Las Cruces within the week. Only then had Alejandro sparked to life, insisting that he was not going anywhere. Then he had locked himself in his room.