Sheri WhiteFeather - Cheyenne Dad

Dakota patted the space next to him and grinned. “Right next to your husband, darlin’, like a good little wife.”

Annie blew an agitated breath. So Dakota had agreed to marry her and adopt the kids. That didn’t mean she had to offer herself to him like a sacrificial lamb.

She stopped pacing and stared down at him. There he was, his arms resting behind his head, looking like the King of Siam in her bed. She narrowed her eyes. “I should have found another Cheyenne to marry.”

He grinned back at her. “You don’t know any other Cheyenne men. Now quit acting like a baby and get in bed. I don’t bite.”

No, but he could turn her insides to mush with a kiss. Annie breathed deeply for strength and stepped toward the bed. Thank goodness she was no longer a crush-crazed teenager, marveling at his virility. So what was that fluttering in her stomach…and in her heart?

Dear Reader,

Silhouette is celebrating its 20 thanniversary throughout 2000! So, to usher in the first summer of the millennium, why not indulge yourself with six powerful, passionate, provocative love stories from Silhouette Desire?

Jackie Merritt returns to Desire with a MAN OF THE MONTH who’s Tough To Tame. Enjoy the sparks that fly between a rugged ranch manager and the feisty lady who turns his world upside down! Another wonderful romance from RITA Award winner Caroline Cross is in store for you this month with The Rancher and the Nanny, in which a rags-to-riches hero learns trust and love from the riches-to-rags woman who cares for his secret child.

Watch for Meagan McKinney’s The Cowboy Meets His Match—an octogenarian matchmaker sets up an ice-princess heiress with a virile rodeo star. The Desire theme promotion THE BABY BANK, about sperm-bank client heroines who find love unexpectedly, concludes with Susan Crosby’s The Baby Gift. Wonderful newcomer Sheri WhiteFeather offers another irresistible Native American hero with Cheyenne Dad. And Kate Little’s hero reunites with his lost love in a marriage of convenience to save her from financial ruin in The Determined Groom.

So come join in the celebration and start your summer off on the supersensual side—by reading all six of these tantalizing Desire books!

Enjoy!

Joan Marlow Golan

Senior Editor, Silhouette Desire

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Nikki WhiteFeather and his cousins:

Rachel McCafferty, Laicee Chandler, Miles McCullough,

Patrick and Parker Henry.

You are all great kids.

lives in Southern California and enjoys ethnic dining, summer powwows and visiting art galleries and vintage clothing stores near the beach. Since her one true passion is writing, she is thrilled to be a part of the Silhouette Desire line. When she isn’t writing, she often reads until the wee hours of the morning.

Sheri also works as a leather artisan with her Muscogee Creek husband. They have one son and a menagerie of pets, including a pampered English bulldog and four equally spoiled Bengal cats. She would love to hear from her readers. You may write to her at: P.O. Box 5130, Orange, California 92863-5130.

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

Epilogue

How many days had she pleaded her case? Begged Harold to change his mind?

Annie Winters sat at her desk in the back room of her retail store, cradling the phone to her ear. “Please, be reasonable.”

Harold’s breath rasped through the receiver. The eighty-six-year-old Cheyenne lived on a reservation in Montana, nine hundred miles away from Annie’s hometown in Southern California, yet he held her future in the flick of a ballpoint pen. She needed his signature. Desperately.

“My granddaughter was married,” he stated stoically. “She had a husband.”

Annie stared across the room, as an image of her dear friend came to mind. Jill with her shining black hair and crooked smile. Jill, the biological mother of the children Annie intended to adopt, the boys she had come to love with all her heart. Yes, Jill had been happily married to the father of her children until a car accident had taken both of their lives two years before, making orphans of their three young sons.

Annie sighed. “I don’t have a man in my life, Harold. I can’t just pull a husband out of a hat.”

“I won’t sign the adoption papers unless you get married. You can’t be both parents no matter how hard you try. My great-grandchildren need a father.”

Annie shifted the phone. After Jill’s death she had altered her life-style, knowing the children needed her. She’d started a new business, bought a new home, grieved with the boys, cradled them, kissed their skinned knees and watched them grow.

How could Harold expect her to survive without gap-toothed grins and sweet, warm hugs? Youthful chatter and jelly-stained clothes? “You can’t take them away from me. You just can’t.”

But he could, and they both knew it. Without Harold’s consent she would lose the children. Harold was their only legal living relative. He had the power to grant the private adoption she had been pursuing.

She squeezed her eyes shut, dreading her fate. Harold wasn’t insisting she marry just any man; he’d firmly stated that her future husband must be a registered Cheyenne, someone able to teach the children about that side of their heritage.

And there was only one man in her acquaintance who fitted that description.

Dakota Graywolf.

Drawing a deep breath, Annie opened her eyes. Dakota had scheduled a trip to see the boys. He’d be arriving within two weeks. That gave her fourteen days to muster the courage to propose to the last man on earth she wanted to marry.

Two weeks later, a single-lane highway led Annie to the Sleep Shack, a motel as tired and run-down as its name. The dilapidated pink structure sat on the outskirts of a dusty California town, blistering and peeling in the harsh desert sun.

Of the three trucks parked in the narrow lot, she recognized his immediately. He drove a bright-red pickup, an American-made model displaying generous mud flaps, squashed bugs on the windshield and wide tires with plenty of tread.

She exited her minivan and smoothed her blouse, straightening the embroidered collar. As she made her way to the motel door, the desert winds played havoc with her hair and billowed her ankle-length skirt, taunting yards of blue silk.

Annie knocked, and Dakota Graywolf flung open the door and stared down at her from his towering height. His black eyes sparked beneath even blacker brows before he offered a familiar greeting.

“Hey, squirt.”

She cringed at the nickname he wouldn’t allow her to outgrow, then tried to summon a smile. Dakota used to tease her unmercifully when they were kids, knowing full well she’d had a painful crush on him. And by the time they were both adults, he’d taken that crush and used it against her, smiling that rakish smile, undressing her with those ebony eyes. Of course, it was all a game, part of his flirtatious nature. Women, she surmised, were a form of entertainment to Dakota Graywolf.

Annie lifted her chin. He wasn’t exactly white-picket-fence material, but she didn’t have a choice. “Thanks for agreeing to see me.”