Jeanne Allan - One Bride Delivered

“I’m not hiring you to baby-sit. “I’m not hiring you to baby-sit. “I want you for my wife,” Thomas continued. “Maybe you ought to spell out exactly what my duties as your wife would entail,” Cheyenne said. “This isn’t about duty.” “All right Function. Expectations What would you expect from me?” “You know, the usual.” For the first time, a hint of discomfort crept into Thomas’s manner. “The usual. Ironing your shirts? Fixing meat loaf?” “You’re being deliberately obtuse.” “You’re being deliberately vague. You want me to take care of your nephew and you expect ‘the usual.’ Would you sign a contract that used such ambiguous terms?” “All right,” he ground out. “I would expect to sleep with you.” Letter to Reader Dear Reader, Sitting in my red-wallpapered office, I’m surrounded by family photographs. I love seeing my husband as a baby, my father as an adolescent and my daughter at age four holding her new baby brother. For better or worse, we all have families. I didn’t plan to write about the Lassiter family, but as Cheyenne Lassiter formed in my mind I realized I was dealing with more than one woman, and her sisters, Allie and Greeley, came into being. Then their older brother demanded his story be told, and who can say no to a sexy man like Worth Lassiter? What started as one book had suddenly become four. I hope you enjoy reading about the Lassiter family and the strong men—and woman!—who match them. Love Four weddings, one Colorado family Title Page One Bride Delivered Jeanne Allan www.millsandboon.co.uk CHAPTER ONE CHAPTER TWO CHAPTER THREE CHAPTER FOUR CHAPTER FIVE CHAPTER SIX CHAPTER SEVEN CHAPTER EIGHT CHAPTER NINE CHAPTER TEN EPILOGUE Copyright

“I’m not hiring you to baby-sit.

“I want you for my wife,” Thomas continued.

“Maybe you ought to spell out exactly what my duties as your wife would entail,” Cheyenne said.

“This isn’t about duty.”

“All right Function. Expectations What would you expect from me?”

“You know, the usual.” For the first time, a hint of discomfort crept into Thomas’s manner.

“The usual. Ironing your shirts? Fixing meat loaf?”

“You’re being deliberately obtuse.”

“You’re being deliberately vague. You want me to take care of your nephew and you expect ‘the usual.’ Would you sign a contract that used such ambiguous terms?”

“All right,” he ground out. “I would expect to sleep with you.”

Dear Reader,

Sitting in my red-wallpapered office, I’m surrounded by family photographs. I love seeing my husband as a baby, my father as an adolescent and my daughter at age four holding her new baby brother.

For better or worse, we all have families. I didn’t plan to write about the Lassiter family, but as Cheyenne Lassiter formed in my mind I realized I was dealing with more than one woman, and her sisters, Allie and Greeley, came into being. Then their older brother demanded his story be told, and who can say no to a sexy man like Worth Lassiter? What started as one book had suddenly become four.

I hope you enjoy reading about the Lassiter family and the strong men—and woman!—who match them.

Love

Four weddings, one Colorado family

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHAPTER ONE

Need wife to take kare of a little kid. Has to bake cookys, read storys and smile a lot. No hitting. Room 301, the St. Christopher Hotel, Aspen, Colorado.

THE advertisement leaped out at Cheyenne Lassiter as she sat at the breakfast table, and her spoon clattered down. Grabbing the newspaper with both hands, she reread the ad. The cantaloupe in her mouth lost all flavor. Cheyenne pushed the newspaper across the table to her younger sister. “Read this.”

Allie scanned the ad. “A unique way to meet women.”

“You think that’s what it is?” Cheyenne hesitated. “It doesn’t read to you as if a child had written it?”

Allie read the ad again. “Maybe. You’re worried about the ‘no hitting’ part, aren’t you?”

“Yes.” Cheyenne took back the paper. “I know you all think I see a child-abusing parent on every corner, but...” Her voice died away.

“Michael is safe now,” Allie reminded her. “Safe and happy living with his aunt and uncle.”

“How could I have blindly ignored the way he’d never look me in the eye when he’d mumble he’d fallen down stairs or run into a door? But his mother volunteered in my classroom, and Mr. Karper showed such interest in his stepson’s progress.” Cheyenne stared at the ad with unseeing eyes. “I’ll always wonder if I would have guessed the truth earlier if Michael had been poor and dirty.”

“No one suspected Michael’s stepdad knocked the poor kid around. Quit beating yourself over the head with it. The minute you suspected what was going on, you went to the authorities. If it weren’t for you, Michael might still be living with his mother and her husband. Or dead.”

“Michael must have despaired of being helped.” Cheyenne rolled up the newspaper section. “I promised myself I’d never again shut my eyes to something right in front of me.” Her gaze slid past her sister. “I don’t meet the Brownings until ten.”

“Which means you think you have time to check out what’s going on in Room 301 at St. Chris’s.” Allie tore a hunk from her bagel and handed it to the greyhound standing expectantly beside the table. “No one appointed you to save the world.”

“You’re not supposed to feed the dogs at the table.” Cheyenne pushed back her chair, carefully avoiding Allie’s three-legged cat.

Allie tore off another hunk of bagel. “One of these days you’re going to stick your nose into someone else’s business and get it bit off.”

“All I’m doing is dropping by the hotel to say hi. If there’s a problem, I’ll notify the proper authorities. I have no intention of getting personally involved.”

“If I’m disturbed by one more female pounding on my door, I’m going to fire the entire staff.” Thomas Steele slammed down the telephone receiver in the middle of the hotel manager’s stammered apology.

The first woman had banged on the door of his hotel suite shortly after 6:00 a.m. Groggy with sleep, Thomas had snarled at her and the plastic bag of cookies he assumed she was selling. Before he could summon the manager for an explanation on exactly why solicitation was allowed to take place in a Steele-owned hotel, another woman had knocked on the door, followed by a procession of women, all shapes, sizes and ages, most bearing cookies, and all grinning like Cheshire cats.

Thomas rubbed a hand over his unshaven chin and considered the possibility that getting into his suite was part of a twisted game of scavenger hunt. McCall, the hotel’s manager, claimed he knew nothing. One woman had garbled something about a newspaper. Thomas should have demanded an explanation before shutting the door in her face, but he wasn’t at his best before coffee in the morning.

Slight stirrings came from an adjoining room. The boy was awake, but he wouldn’t get out of bed until Thomas told him to. His nephew tiptoed around, obviously fearing the sky would fall if he even looked at his uncle. Thomas ran his fingers through his hair, knowing he’d brought this on himself. For a second, back in New York, he’d looked at the boy and seen someone else, and before he knew it, he heard himself saying he’d take the boy to Aspen. Now he was damned if he knew what to do with him. Thomas Steele, CEO of a chain of exclusive hotels, buffaloed by a six-year-old boy.