The Rancher's Bride
twins on the doorstepRose Murdock had married the most handsome rancher in town, but love hadn't gotten Harlan Hamilton to the altar. They'd struck a dry-eyed deal to live together in holy matrimony, and Rose knew the tall, dark and irresistible man was her husband in name only….Harlan had thought his lovely bride wanted this marriage to be strictly business. But the beguiling glow in Rose's eyes made this rugged cowboy wonder if his feelings of passion were returned. Could the woman who'd become such a loving mother to his little girl also become his wife…in every sense of the word?twins on the doorstep. Those little babies lead the Murdock sisters straight to love!
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Table of Contents
Harlan wanted her to be his wife!
What was she going to do? What did she want to do?
“Rose?”
She heard him coming up behind her. Quickly she sucked in several breaths of cool night air.
His fingers touched the back of her neck and she wilted inside.
“I know this is very sudden for you,” he murmured. “But please don’t say no.”
Her throat grew tighter. “Just what sort of marriage would this be?”
“What do you mean?”
She glanced over her shoulder at him. He was such a strong, handsome man. A man made to love a woman. He didn’t need her for a wife. He needed someone who would be not only a companion and friend, but also his lover. If he didn’t realize that, she certainly did.
“I mean—” Oh, how could she do this? She turned to face him. “Are you expecting us…to have a sexual relationship?”
Dear Reader,
Love is always in the air at Silhouette Romance. But this month, it might take a while for the characters of May’s stunning lineup to figure that out! Here’s what some of them have to say:
“I’ve just found out the birth mother of my son is back in town. What’s a protective single dad to do?”—FABULOUS FATHER Jared O’Neal in Anne Peters’s My Baby, Your Son
“What was I thinking, inviting a perfect—albeit beautiful—stranger to stay at my house?”—member of THE SINGLE DADDY CLUB. Reece Newton, from Beauty and the Bachelor Dad by Donna Clayton
“I’ve got one last chance to keep my ranch but it means agreeing to marry a man I hardly know!”—Rose Murdock from The Rancher’s Bride by Stella Bagwell, part of her TWINS ON THE DOORSTEP miniseries
“Would you believe my little white lie of a fiancé just showed up—and he’s better than I ever imagined!” —Ellen Rhoades, one of our SURPRISE BRIDES in Myrna Mackenzie’s The Secret Groom
“I will not allow my search for a bride to be waylaid by that attractive, but totally unsuitable, redhead again!”—sexy rancher Rafe McMasters in Cowboy Seeks Perfect Wife by Linda Lewis
“We know Sabrina would be the perfect mom for us—we just have to convince Dad to marry her!”—the precocious twins from Gayle Kaye’s Daddyhood
Happy Reading!
Melissa Senate
Senior Editor
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
To Charles and Denise, for their appreciation of the great West and its cowboys. Love ya.
STELLA BAGWELL
lives in the rural mountains of southeastern Oklahoma, where she enjoys the wildlife and hikes in the woods with her husband. She has a son, a wonderful daughter-in-law and a great passion for writing romances—a job she hopes to keep for a long time to come. Many of Stella’s books have been transcribed to audiotapes for the Oklahoma Library for the Blind. She hopes her blind audience, and all her readers, will continue to enjoy her stories.
Rose Murdock reined the sorrel alongside the fence and stared in shocked dismay. Each of the six strands of barbed wire had been cut, then carefully twisted back together.
Quickly, she stepped down from the saddle and examined the ground on both sides of the fence. The soil was crusty and dry from a drastic lack of rain. Even so, Rose managed to pick up the faint marks of hoof tracks. Too many to count!
Leading the sorrel, called Pie, behind her, she followed the tracks down a long slope of land until she reached the river. The hoof prints stopped at the watering hole, then turned and headed back the way she’d come from the cut wire.
Someone had cut the fence to water their cattle on Bar M land! Who would have done such a thing, then fixed the fence neatly back in place? The cattle were obviously not on her land now. She’d ridden out this whole pasture today and not seen one stray.
Sighing, Rose pushed the gray cowboy hat off her head. Its stampede string caught at the front of her neck, preventing the hat from falling further than the middle of her back.
Sweat glistened on the soft features of her face. She mopped it away with the back of her denim sleeve, then carefully scanned the horizon to the east.
Across the barbed wire fence lay Harlan Hamilton’s ranch, the Flying H. From what she could read of the tracks, the cattle had come from that direction. But she couldn’t imagine the man doing such a thing without notifying her or her sisters first. Open range in New Mexico had come to an end a long time ago. No one with any courtesy or respect would drive their cattle onto another rancher’s land without asking permission first.
But then, she didn’t really know Harlan Hamilton. At least, not personally. She’d seen him maybe three separate times, the last being almost a year ago when he’d stopped by the ranch to visit her late father, Tomas.
The two of them had been friends and Tomas had spoken highly of Harlan. Yet Rose had never done more than say a polite hello to the man. Not because she had anything against the rancher next door. Saying hello was as far as she went with any man.
