The Ranch Was Not Going To Be The Same During Carlyâs Visit, And There Was No Pretending Otherwise.
But that was something heâd known before her arrival. What he hadnât anticipated or foreseen was the heart-pounding, throat-drying, gut-wrenching awareness in his own system caused by this woman. Not that he would do anything about it even if he wanted to, which, for his own peace of mind, he didnât. But she was his bossâs daughter, for crying out loud, and even if he were the most dedicated of womanizersâas heâd once beenâhe would not touch his employerâs daughter.
But oh, how he wanted to!
Dear Reader,
Silhouette is celebrating its 20>th anniversary 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 whoâs 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 McKinneyâs The Cowboy Meets His Matchâan 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 Crosbyâs The Baby Gift. Wonderful newcomer Sheri WhiteFeather offers another irresistible Native American hero with Cheyenne Dad. And Kate Littleâs 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 sideâby reading all six of these tantalizing Desire books!
Enjoy!
Joan Marlow Golan
Senior Editor, Silhouette Desire
The long-distance telephone conversation began as usual; Stuart âStuâ Paxton, calling from his home in New York, asked how things were going at his ranch in Wyoming. What was unusual was the reply of the ranch manager, Jake Banyon. âIâm afraid we have a problem, Stu. A strange stallion has been gathering himself a harem of our mares. He collected one the other night and two more just last night.â
âA strange stallion, Jake? Iâm not following.â
âNeither am I,â Jake said grimly. âTruth is I have no idea where he came from or who he belongs to. If he belongs to anyone, that is. He appears to be completely on his own.â
âSurely youâre not thinking heâs a wild horse,â Stuart said, sounding skeptical.
âItâs not impossible, Stu, though to be perfectly honest he has the conformation lines of good breeding. Course, Iâve only seen him once and that was from a distance.â
âAnd he just showed up? A full-grown stallion? Jake, he had to come from somewhere. With the ranch being so isolated and all, I mean, he didnât just trot over from a neighborâs field.â
âExactly. Iâve put an ad in the Tamarack newspaper describing him. If anyone in this county owns him, theyâll be calling. In the meantime, Iâve got men out every day trying to locate his lair. Iâd like to get those mares back.â
âAnd if you manage to capture him?â
âThatâs hard to say without getting a closer look at him.â Jake was intimating that if the stallion did belong to someone, the horse might be carrying tattoos or brands identifying his owner.
Stu grasped the concept at once. âMakes sense. Well, let me know what happens.â
âWill do.â Jake then started talking about other events on the 4,000-acre Wild Horse Ranch, owned by the Paxton family for almost a century. Stuart hadnât taken to the isolation and business of raising cattle, as his ancestors had, and heâd left the ranch right out of high school and, to this day, only went back two or three times a year. Since his fatherâs death ten years before, Stuart had relied entirely on hired help to keep the place going. Even though he didnât want to live in Wyoming, he couldnât bring himself to sell his birthright. Heâd run into some bad apples posing as ranch managers, however, and now claimed to be extremely fortunate to have a man of Jake Banyonâs knowledge and expertise at the helm. During their four-year working relationship, the two menâ even though Stuart was twenty years older than Jakeâhad formed a durable bond of mutual respect.