Real Marriage Material
WIFE FOR HIRE?Country bachelor Jeb Albright was in trouble. What did he know about little girls? So when his orphaned niece came to stay, he treated her like one of the guys. But now social services wondered how she'd become such a tomboy?Enter elegant and refined Mariah Duncan. She was perfect to show Robin how to be a lady. But she was not the type Jeb would choose for a wife! He needed someone who could see beyond his rough exterior to the caring man inside.Then one day Jeb saw Mariah looking at him–and realized she not only saw the man he was, but the husband he could be!
Читать Real Marriage Material онлайн беплатно
Table of Contents
“So you think we should take the plunge and get married?”
Jeb asked sarcastically. “You’ll be my barefooted fishwife and I’ll be your redneck lover—”
“Don’t!” she cried. “You’re not a redneck good ol’ boy, Jeb Albright.”
“And I wonder if you have any genuine idea what you’re offering…or what you’d be getting.” He bent, and before she knew what was happening, Jeb had swung her into his arms in one effortless movement. “You need to know exactly what you’re getting. Exactly.” At the base of her throat he slid a finger under the strand of pearls nestled there. Lower he went, as he trailed his fingertips through the valley between her breasts. His hands drifted lower still….
Mariah moaned softly as she surged against him in silent invitation. Yes, she thought. He was made of the stuff that endured and lasted a lifetime. And this was what she needed, more than life.
In 1993 beloved, bestselling author Diana Palmer launched the FABULOUS FATHERS series with Emmett (SR#910),” which was her 50th Silhouette book. Readers fell in love with that Long, Tall Texan who discovered the meaning of love and fatherhood, and ever since, the FABULOUS FATHERS series has been a favorite. And now, to celebrate the publication of the 50th FABULOUS FATHERS book, -Silhouette Romance is very proud to present a brand-new novel by Diana Palmer, Mystery Man, and Fabulous Father Canton Rourke.
Silhouette Romance is just chock-full of special books this month! We’ve got Miss Maxwell Becomes a Mom, book one of Donna Clayton’s new miniseries, THE SINGLE DADDY CLUB. And Alice Sharpe’s Missing: One Bride is book one of our SURPRISE BRIDES trio, three irresistible books by three wonderful authors about very unusual wedding situations.
Rounding out the month is Jodi O’Donnell’s newest title, Real Marriage Material, in which a sexy man of the land gets tamed. Robin Wells’s Husband and Wife.. Again tells the tale of a divorced couple reuniting in a delightful way. And finally, in Daddy for Hire by Joey Light, a hunk of a man becomes the most muscular nanny there ever was, all for love of his little girl.
Enjoy Diana Palmer’s Mystery Man and all of our wonderful books this month. There’s just no better way to start off springtime than with six books bursting with love!
Regards,
Melissa Senate
Senior Editor Silhouette Books
Please address questions and book requests to: Silhouette Reader Service
U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325. Buffalo, NY 14269 Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3
My thanks to Don Anderson, owner of Don’s Guide Service on
Lake Texoma, for keeping me straight on striper fishing, and to Larry Martin, for filling me in on adoption procedures in Texas. My thanks also to Alyson Brown for keeping me legal. Any errors concerning these areas are entirely my fault.
JODI O’DONNELL
grew up one of fourteen children in small-town Iowa. As a result, she loves to explore in her writing how family relationships influence who and why we love as we do.
Jodi is a two-time National Readers’ Choice Finalist and winner of Romance Writers of America’s Golden Heart Award. She’s married to the hometown boy she has known since fifth grade and lives near Dallas in a ninety-five-year-old Victorian home with her husband, Darrel, and two dogs, Rio and Leia.
How positively…uncivilized, Mariah Duncan decided as she followed the directions that took her out of Sherman and into the brushy country surrounding Lake Texoma. Wildflowers of every color rioted along the roadside, rousing banners for a bright new season that dressed up the overgrown bracken behind them.
It had always intrigued her that one could leave any metropolitan area in Texas and within minutes be virtually in the wild. Not that Texoma was inordinately remote. Still, it occurred to her that, should she take Wiley Albright on as a client, she’d be making this rather rugged journey regularly.
Spying a landmark, Mariah braked gently, tires bumping over the patched asphalt. Now came the tricky part, following the kind of instructions true locals gave. “Keep on a-goin’ till you pass the picnic area on your right,” Mr. Albright had told her. “There’s a gravel road just beyond, but don’t take it, just slow down a bit, ‘cause there’s a hump comin’ up that’ll put your stomach up ‘round your tonsils if you ain’t lookin’ for it. Then I’d say maybe a mile, mile and a quarter farther, you’ll see a sign for Bubba J.’s Everything For Fishing And Camping. Can’t miss it. Turn left past Bubba J.’s and take the lane behind the store on down the hill. The house there—that’s the place.”
And so it was. The house sitting among a stand of pecan trees was actually an older-model mobile home. A skirt of flashing rimmed the bottom in the same beige as the trailer’s siding. Upon the attached porch, its floor and steps covered in green artificial turf, sat a well-used barbecue and a couple of blue-and-white-webbed lawn chairs. Past the mobile home, the lane continued down to the shore of the lake, where there was a private boat ramp and both a small boat house and a U-shaped dock. Incongruous with the rest of the modest surroundings, a sleek and expensive-looking boat, secured in the narrow slip formed by the dock, bobbed in the water under the shade of a weeping willow.
