“You’ve changed your mind about marrying me,” Letter to Reader Title Page Dedication About the Author Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Copyright

“You’ve changed your mind about marrying me,”

Jake said quietly.

Josie’s initial answer was a small shrug and an even smaller nod. “Uh-huh. I mean, yes. That is, you do still need a wife in order to keep your land, don’t you?”

“Yes, I do.”

Her hand fluttered to her throat. “Thank God.” The flush climbing up Josie’s neck looked red-hot. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded,” she whispered.

Jake studied the woman who had just agreed to marry him. Her hair was. windblown, her face clean-scrubbed and youthful. He sensed she wasn’t a woman who was accustomed to asking for help. He knew the feeling. Yearning washed over him. Since he knew better than to allow himself to be distracted by romantic notions, he concentrated on the way he was responding physically, and pretended he didn’t notice the inkling of hope that seemed to have found its way into his chest....

Dear Reader,

Silhouette Romance blends classic themes and the challenges of romance in today’s world into a reassuring, fulfilling novel. And this month’s offerings undeniably deliver on that promise!

In Baby, You’re Mine, part of BUNDLES OF JOY, RITA Award winning author Lindsay Longford tells of a pregnant penniless widow who finds sanctuary with a sought-after bachelor who’d never thought himself the marrying kind...until now. Duty and passion collide in Sally Carleen’s The Prince’s Heir, when the prince dispatched to claim his nephew falls for the heir’s beautiful adoptive mother. When a single mom desperate to keep her daughter weds an ornery rancher intent on saving his spread, she discovers that McKenna’s Bartered Bride is what she wants to be...forever. Don’t miss this next delightful installment of Sandra Steffen’s BACHELOR GULCH series.

Donna Clayton delivers an emotional story about the bond of sisterhood...and how a career-driven woman learns a valuable lesson about love from the man who’s Her Dream Come True. Carla Cassidy’s MUSTANG, MONTANA, Intimate Moments series crosses into Romance with a classic boss/secretary story that starts with the proposition Wife for a Week, but ends...well, you’ll have to read it to find out! And in Pamela Ingrahm’s debut Romance novel, a millionaire CEO realizes that his temporary assistant—and her adorable toddler—have him yearning to leave his Bachelor Boss days behind.

Enjoy this month’s titles—and keep coming back to Romance, a series guaranteed to touch every woman’s heart

Mary-Theresa Hussey

Senior Editor

Please address questions and book requests to:

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McKenna’s Bartered Bride
Sandra Steffen

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For my agent, Robin Rue.

I love listening to your slant on writing and on life....

This one is especially for you, Robin....

You know why.

SANDRA STEFFEN

Her fans tell Sandra how much they enjoy her fictional characters, especially her male fictional characters. That’s not so surprising, because although this award-winning, bestselling author believes every character is a challenge, she has the most fun with the men she creates. Perhaps that’s because she’s surrounded by so many men—her husband, their four sons, her dad, brothers, in-laws. She feels blessed to be surrounded by just as many warm, intelligent and funny women.

Growing up the fourth child of ten, Sandra developed a keen appreciation for laughter and argument. Sandra lives in Michigan with her husband, three of their sons and a blue-eyed mutt who thinks her name is No-Molly-No. Sandra’s book Child of Her Dreams won the 1994 National Readers’ Choice Award. Several of her titles have appeared on national bestseller lists.

Chapter One

Jake McKenna felt a vibration beneath the soles of his worn cowboy boots. He lowered the tip of the pitchfork to the floor and held very still, his ears straining, his gaze trained on the patch of McKenna land visible through the wide barn door. The vibration increased. It was either a tornado, a stampede, or...

Aw, hell. He threw down the pitchfork and tore out of the barn. It was a storm, all right. A human cyclone. Sky Buchanan was racing up the lane on his horse, shoulders and head hunkered down, his hat whipping behind him, held to his body only by the cord around his neck.

Swearing under his breath, Jake rushed to the gate and swung it open five seconds before Sky rode through at breakneck speed. “Dammit all, Buchanan!” he growled as Sky pulled to a stop a few feet short of the broad side of the barn. “One of these days I’m not going to get here fast enough and I’ll end up scraping you off that wood with a chisel.”

Skyler Buchanan dismounted neatly, then turned on his heels in one fluid movement. Jake narrowed his eyes and sneered. “You ever decide to turn in your cowboy boots for ballet slippers, you got the turns down pat.”

Sky’s smile grated on Jake’s already frayed nerves. Leading his horse by the reins, Sky said, “You’re trying to pick a fight That means it’s either a day that ends in y, or the reading of your old man’s will didn’t go so well.”

Inside the barn Jake swiped his black Stetson off his head and kept the string of four-letter words running through his head to himself. Cramming his hat back on again, he retrieved the pitchfork and picked up where he’d left off.

“Jake?”

Jake’s reply had a lot in common with a snort.

“What did the will say?”

The barn was quiet except for the creak of leather, the scuffle of hooves and the scrape and rustle of straw.

“Well?” Sky prodded. “Did Isaac leave the ranch to you or didn’t he?”

Jake scooped up another forkful of straw and sent it sailing into one of the stalls. “More or less.”

A horse whinnied; a saddle creaked. Jake knew Sky was watching him, just as he knew his best friend wouldn’t ask any more questions until Jake was ready to answer. Where Sky had patiepce, Jake had purpose. Both would trust the other with his life.

When he’d worked the edge off his temper, Jake stuck the pitchfork into the pile of straw and looped his hands over the top of the handle. “It’s pretty much black-and-white.”

“Then why do you look as if you’re seeing red?”

Jake shrugged, scowled. “Got me. With the exception of the hundred acres that spans Sugar Creek, my father left everything to me.”

“What the hell do you—”

Finally Jake turned to face his friend. “The hundred acres that spans Sugar Creek will be mine. Providing I’m a married man by my next birthday.”

“And if you’re not a married man come July?”

Jake’s eyes darkened. “Then the most fertile soil on McKenna land will go to the O’Gradys.”

Sky rarely used four-letter words. He claimed he rarely needed to. He uttered one now. Jake thought it pretty much said it all. “Should have known the old cowpoke would find a way to run your life from the grave,” Sky insisted.

Jake squeezed his fingers so hard into fists his square fingernails dug into the calluses on his palms. The O‘Gradys owned the biggest spread in a two-hundred-mile radius and never missed an opportunity to remind the McKennas that theirs was second. Jake hated being second. In anything. But he hated being second to the O’Oradys most of all.

Jake looked over his shoulder. “Did you hear something?” he asked.

Sky made a show of listening intently. The ranch hands had all gone into Pierre to raise a little Friday night hell. A horse nickered, and the wind was picking up. The wind was always picking up in South Dakota. With a shake of his head, he primed the hand pump and said, “Are you trying to change the subject?”

Jake grunted.

“Relax. You’ve got some time here. It’s only the first of May. You take everything so seriously.”

“This is serious, dammit. Maybe you could try it yourself for ten seconds.”

“I’m plenty serious. About my horse. About that calf I just helped into the world. And I’m seriously glad Isaac McKenna wasn’t my rather.”

With the grace Skyler Buchanan had been born with and had learned to use to his best advantage years ago, he turned on his heel and headed for the door. Watching him saunter away, Jake called, “Where are you going?”

“Thought I’d mosey on up to the house and bring back some of your old man’s favorite rum While we polish off the bottle, we can come up with a plan.”

“Getting blind drunk isn’t going to make me a happily married man.”

“You didn’t say the will stipulated that you had to be happy. I’ll be right back with that bottle. I’d say you’ve earned it, wouldn’t you?”

Jake strode as far as the door. He could see the big house from here. Isaac McKenna had purchased it and the surrounding land right after he’d gotten married almost forty years ago. He’d added a wing and the porch ten years later, just before Jake’s mother had decided to run away with a man she liked better. Isaac had bought more land, but the house had remained the same as it had been for thirty years. There were no welcome mats by the doors, no flowers by the steps, no flowering bushes, nothing that added warmth or that said home.

It was Jake’s now, the house, the land, the animals. He would have to do something about the stipulation in his father’s will, but not tonight. Tonight, he and Sky would tie one on and try to forget about the rest

He walked around to one side of the barn. Hitching a boot on the lowest rung of the fence, he stared at the land he’d inherited. On the horizon a herd of some of the best cattle in the West moved toward the watering hole just over the hill where they would settle down for the night. The cows whose calves were old enough to wander lowed, their offspring bawling frantically until they were reunited with their mothers. In late summer when the clouds forgot how to rain, the herds would settle on the hundred acres that spanned Sugar Creek. The hundred acres that would belong to the O’Gradys unless Jake found a wife by July.

He hoped Sky got back with that bottle soon.

Swiping bis hat off his head, he let the wind blow through his hair. There were always fences to mend, machinery to fix, crops to tend. Branding was just around the corner. Except for fall, winter and summer, spring was the busiest time of the year out here. How in the hell was he supposed to free up enough time to find a wife?

Even if he had the time, Jasper Gulch had no single women. Or almost none. It wasn’t a new problem for the area. Women had started leaving Jasper Gulch fifty years ago. They’d been leaving in droves the past twenty. No one could blame them. Ranch life just couldn’t compete with the lure of the city and better job prospects. A few years back the town council had taken it upon themselves to advertise for women. Small newspapers had run the story. Larger papers had picked it up. Before long, Jasper Gulch had been dubbed Bachelor Gulch, and busloads of women had flocked here to check out the shy but willing men of Jasper Gulch. Most of those women had taken one look at the meager stores, the dusty roads and the even dustier ranchers and cowboys and had kept right on going. A few had stayed. Most of those had bit the dust in another way and were now married to a few of those former so-called eligible bachelors, the Jasper Gents.

Who was left?

Gravel crunched beneath Sky’s boots. Choosing a section of fence a foot from Jake’s elbow. Sky uncapped the rum and handed Jake a glass. “To Captain Morgan.”

Glasses clinked. Both men downed the first shot

Sky poured again. “To Isaac McKenna.”

This time Jake didn’t clink his glass against Sky’s. He didn’t waste his breath damning his father to hell, either. Surely Isaac McKenna had found his way there all by himself.

Taking the time to appreciate the slow burn that made its way to the bottom of his stomach, Jake held out his empty glass. Sky obliged him by filling it to the rim.

“I’ve been thinking,” Sky said.

“I’ll alert the press.”

“Be my guest.” Sky’s grin was downright wicked. “I always like a little publicity.”

“What have you been thinking, Buchanan?”

“This situation of yours isn’t as hopeless as you thought.”

“How do you figure?”

Jake was aware of the up-and-down look Sky cast him. “I don’t see it, myself,” the lanky cowhand with the shock of black hair and piercing green eyes said, “but women have been known to find you attractive. I’ve heard more than one woman say you wear your hair a little too long to be civilized. And they weren’t complaining. ’Course, there are those who think you’re coldhearted like your old man. I know better, but it would help if you smiled once in a while.”

“I smile.”

Sky stared straight ahead. “Sure you do.”

“I smile, dammit.”

“When?” Sky said quietly. “When was the last time you smiled and meant it?”

Jake stared at the liquid in his glass. “It’s been a while since I’ve had something to smile about, that’s all.”

Sky cocked one eyebrow just enough to make his point, and Jake said, “I think you’re wrong, Sky. I think the situation really is hopeless. And so am I.”

“Naw. There are still a handful of single women in Jasper Gulch.”

“A small handful.”

“There’s Crystal Galloway.”

“Crystal Galloway has as much use for men as she does for another degree.”

“That’s true,” Sky said thoughtfully. “I can’t figure that out, either. She’s a looker, that’s for sure. But why did she come to a town that advertised for women if she had no intention of looking for a man?”

“Who knows,” Jake answered. “You were saying?”

“Oh, yeah. There’s Tracy Gentry.”

“She’s barely out of diapers.”

“She’s twenty-one. For a desperate man, you’re mighty choosy, McKenna. I probably shouldn’t even mention Brandy Schafer, since lately she seems to have hooked up with Jason Tucker. There’s that gorgeous, far-removed relative of Wes Stryker’s, Meridith Warner, but to tell you the truth, I’ve been keeping my eye on her myself.”

Jake turned his head slowly. Or at least it felt that way to him. Ah, yes, the rum was doing its job. “You finished?”

“Not quite. I suppose I could be noble and give you first dibs on Meridith.”

Oh, no. Jake didn’t live by many rules, but an honorable man didn’t move in on another man’s territory. Besides, Jake happened to know that Meridith had been keeping an eye on Sky, too. “You want her,” Jake said slowly, “you go for her.”

Sky looked relieved. “There is one other single woman.”

“Who?” Jake downed another good portion of the spiced rum in his glass.

“Josie Callahan.”

“Jo—” Jake sputtered, choked and sputtered some more.

“Well looky there. You’re already out of breath just hearing her name.”

Jake wheezed. He coughed. “Josephine Callahan? That’s the best you can do?”

“What’s wrong with Josie Callahan?”

“She’s as shy as a church mouse and about as appealing. Besides, she’s been in Jasper Gulch for more than a year. If she wanted to be married, she would be by now.”

“Do you have a better idea?”

Jake thought about the pale little redhead who would sooner study her shoe than look at him. “Yeah,” he said, shoving his glass toward Sky. “As a matter of fact I do. Fill ’er up.”

Josie Callahan, indeed.

“Please let there be a mistake. Please.” Josie Callahan added the column of numbers in her ledger a second time. A third time. Figuring had always been her strong suit, and today was no exception. There was no mistake. Her income didn’t add up to her expenses. It was as plain as the freckles on her nose.

Shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot.

She squeezed the pencil and tried not to panic. There wasn’t going to be enough money to buy much food this month, let alone enough money to pay her rent and the rest of her bills. Josie could have gone hungry, but her little girl needed to eat. Kelsey also needed a roof over her head and security, something Josie had strived to give her daughter since she’d laid big, robust Tom Callahan to rest two years ago.

Think, Josie, think.

She was good at adding and subtracting. Planning was something else again. Tom used to tell her she planned with her heart, not her mind. That’s what had landed her at the altar when she was barely nineteen. It had brought her to this quaint little town in South Dakota a year ago, too.

She wasn’t sorry about either of those things. No sir, she wasn’t. Marrying Tom had been the best thing she’d ever done, unless she counted having Kelsey nine months to the day later. And moving to Jasper Gulch hadn’t been a mistake. It couldn’t have been.

“Isn’t that right, Tom?” she whispered.

That’s right, Josie.

She smiled the whole time she was wrapping up the loaves of homemade bread she’d baked earlier. She just couldn’t help it, Unlike other widows who grew sad because they couldn’t remember the sound of their husbands’ voices, Josie knew exactly how Tom’s voice sounded. She heard it all the time. Sometimes he only mumbled a word or two, but just the other day he’d gone on and on about how it was time for her to find another husband. He’d even told her he was going to help. She’d rolled her eyes toward the ceiling and told him she would prefer it if he would help her choose the winning lottery numbers. His laughter had carried to her ears all the way from heaven.

She was still smiling when she set the cellophane-wrapped loaves of bread in the window. Oh, she wasn’t sure it was possible for a man to help a woman find a new husband, especially from the other side. She didn’t want another husband, anyway. But darned if she hadn’t been watching the door to her little shop on Main Street more than usual these past two days.

Several people had stopped in. Unfortunately it seemed that most of the fine folks in Jasper Gulch only wandered into the combination dime store, bakery and flower shop to hear the floor creak. If only she could come up with a way to charge for that, she wouldn’t be in so much trouble right now. She’d waited on the fine folks, listened to the town gossip and tried not to worry about the future. She had to admit she’d rather enjoyed trying to figure out who Tom might pick out for her. Some of the people she’d waited on had been men. A few were even single men. But so far, not one of them was anybody she would want to marry—not that she wanted to marry anybody ever again.

The bell over the door jingled, and a broad-shouldered, muscularly built man paused just inside the door. Josie swallowed and quickly averted her gaze. She especially wouldn’t want to marry him.

Jake McKenna. His name was as hard as the rest of him; his eyes were dark brown, his hair darker still. Although he wore it a little longer than the other men in the area, it did nothing to soften his angular face. It did nothing to alleviate the nerves that crawled up her spine every time she came face-to-face with him, either.

“Afrernoon,” he said, tugging once on the brim of his black Stetson.

“Hello. Can I—” She cleared her throat quietly. “That is, can I help you?” she asked, sliding her accounting underneath the counter.

“As a matter of fact, I’m hoping you can.”

She didn’t know what made her more nervous: his answer or the fact that he was staring at her in a very deliberate, very assessing sort of way.

“What would you like?” she asked, striving for a cheery tone. “Something baked? A bouquet of flowers? Or something from the five-and-dime end of the store?”

What did he want? Jake thought, glancing around. Now there was a question. Stalling, he peered at the glass-fronted cooler where a few scraggly bouquets of flowers sat in glass pitchers. Next he cast a glance at the bread in the window, and finally at a bin at the end of the counter containing kites and rubber balls.

“Mr. McKenna?”

He eased closer and was about to try on the smile he’d been practicing when a young voice called, “I’m all done with my painting, Mama, what can I...”

A little scrap of a girl slipped around a curtain separating the back room from the rest of the store, her question trailing away the instant she noticed Jake. “Hello,” she said, smiling sweetly.

The girl looked about five or six. She wasn’t pretty, exactly, but she was female all the way down to the holes in her shabby tennis shoes.

“Mama,” she said without taking her eyes off Jake. “I have a joke.”

“I have a customer, sweet pea.”

The little girl all but batted her eyelashes. Jake knew women who could have taken lessons. One of them was in this very room.

“Wanna hear my joke, mister?”

Jake shrugged, and the little femme fatale sashayed closer. “What’s Irish and stays out all summer?”

“Kelsey, honey,” Josie admonished gently. “I don’t think Mr. McKenna has time for jokes.”

“Do you have time?” Kelsey asked.

“How long is your joke?” he asked.

“Not long.”

“Okay. What’s Irish and stays out all summer?”

“Patti O’Furniture.”

Kelsey raised her eyebrows in silent expectation. Jake felt a strange compulsion to laugh. He would have, too, if a deep, sultry chuckle hadn’t drawn his attention. Josie was bent at the waist, her face angled down toward her daughter, a shock of unruly red hair skimming her cheek. He’d thought she was shy and plain. Her laughter was neither of those things. It was uninhibited, and it filled the quiet store like a song, undiluted, marvelous, catching. A woman who could laugh like that could probably curl a man’s toes in bed.

He felt a tightening in his throat and a chugging in his chest Neither were particularly pleasurable sensations, but the strumming, thickening surge taking place slightly lower felt pretty damn good, so good in fact that he took a second look at Josephine Callahan. He still thought she was on the plain side, but now he wondered if it was the result of a lack of adornment. She wore no makeup, no jewelry, nothing that might call attention to the features of the woman inside the loose-fitting, faded dress. Her eyes were green and pretty enough, he decided, her hair a shade of red he’d never seen before. It was unusual, yes, but he’d be willing to stake his ranch that it was natural.

The ranch. That was why he was here. That, and the harebrained idea Sky had come up with to keep all of it in one piece. Suddenly it didn’t seem like such a harebrained idea after all.

Josie wasn’t sure why she was laughing. The joke had been silly, and yet it had struck her funny bone. Kelsey thought so, too, and was giggling for all she was worth. Her brown eyes were crinkled, her shoulders hunched forward, her head tipped back. Why, it was as if she believed the change in the atmosphere was all her doing.

The change in atmosphere? Josie straightened. The atmosphere in the tiny store had changed. She raised her eyes to Jaloe’s and caught him looking. She averted her gaze hurriedly, but it seemed her traitorous eyes had minds of their own. She found herself staring up at him. She swallowed and had to force herself not to take a backward step. He was looking at her as only a man could look at a woman. And she was responding to that look.

She wasn’t well.

In an attempt to tear her gaze away, she gestured to the baked goods on display beneath the glass-topped counter. “Can I interest you in a homemade pie, Mr. McKenna?”

He shifted closer. “Actually, I came in to talk to you about something.” His gaze settled to her mouth, to her neck, to her shoulders. “Something important.”

Josie’s breath hitched. She definitely wasn’t well.

“Well,” she said, clearing her throat of the bothersome little frog that seemed to have gotten stuck there. “I mean, what did you want to talk about?”

“It’s a private matter.”

She gestured to her empty store. “It doesn’t get much more private than this, Mr. McKenna.”

His gaze swung to Kelsey, and Josie understood. Trying on a smile that felt a little stiff, she said, “I’m afraid I don’t get complete privacy until after Kelsey goes to bed at eight.”

He gave her that assessing, calculated look again. And then he said, “I’ll come back later. After she’s in bed. You live in the apartment above the store, right?”

“Er, I mean, yes. Yes, I do, but I don’t think—” For heaven’s sake, she was staring into his eyes again, wondering if he ever smiled. Her cheeks grew warm. If she wasn’t careful, a blush was going to rise to her face. It might help if he would look someplace else.

As if in answer to her prayers, he reached into his back pocket and drew out his wallet. “I’ll take all four loaves.”

“Pardon me?”

“That homemade bread. It is for sale, isn’t it?”

Jasie came to her senses with a start. “Yes. Yes, of course.” She scrried around the counter and took the bread from the window display. Pleased to have something constructive to do, she placed the loaves in a bag and pressed the appropriate keys on her old cash register.

“That’ll be...”

He handed her a twenty before she could name the total. With a tug on the brim of his hat, he headed for the door.

“Don’t forget your change, Mr. McKenna.”

He tnrned around slowly, moving with an easy grace, a kind of loose-jointedness one automatically associated with a cowboy of old. Her breath hitched all over again.

“Keep it.”

He stood half in, half out of the store, his gaze holding hers. Josie had a feeling that somewhere in the dark recesses of his mind, he knew exactly what he was doing. It was disconcerting, because she didn’t have a clue.

His Stetson was well-worn and faded, and his boots looked as if they’d walked a thousand miles. Whether the man preferred to wear broken-in boots or not, they’d been expensive, and so was his hat. The McKennas could afford nice things. She couldn’t even afford to buy Kelsey a new pair of shoes. That didn’t mean she would accept charity.

“I can’t do that. It just wouldn’t be right.” Luckily she was good at math and was able to draw the correct change from the drawer. She hurried around the counter and handed him his money with nimble fingers, more careful than usual, to keep contact at a minimum. “Enjoy your bread. Good day, Mr. McKenna.”

“Bye, mister,” Kelsey called.

He glanced at the little girl as if he’d forgotten she was in the room. And then he did what Josie had wanted him to do. He smiled. It did crazy things to her heart rate, not to mention her breathing, but it did nothing to relieve the tension filling the store.

“I’ll see you later,” he said. “And call me Jake.”

Josie’s heart thudded once, twice, three times. As one second followed another, it seemed to stop beating altogether.

She didn’t know how long she stared at the door after he’d gone. She might have studied it forever if Kelsey hadn’t said, “Do you think that’s the man Daddy’s sending to be my new father?”

Josie swung around. Goodness gracious. She placed her hands on her cheeks and told herself to stop being silly. Wondering if it might have been wiser if she’d kept that particular tidbit of information from Kelsey until Josie had had more time to think about it, she glanced over her shoulder where she could see Jake McKenna pulling out of his parking space in front of her store.

His truck was black and shiny and expensive looking. She thought it suited him. He rested one arm along his open window and steered with the other hand, maneuvering out of the tight spot with ease. Josie turned her back on the view. He might have had the looks, the style, and oh, yes, the moves to unsettle a feminine heart, but that didn’t mean he had unsettled hers.

“Do you, Mama?” Kelsey prodded.

“I’m afraid not, sweet pea. Surely the man Daddy would like us to find will be more like Daddy.”

Kelsey stared into Josie’s eyes for a long time. Sighing, she lowered her chin forlornly and murmured, “I hope Daddy hurries.”

The nerves that had been clamoring the past few hours stilled. Tenderness filled her heart and thickened her throat. She and Kelsey might have been down on their luck. They might have even been a little desperate. But she thanked her lucky stars for her blessings, especially for this sweet, inquisitive, adorable child.

Josie reached beneath the counter for her ledger and quickly jotted down the amount of money she’d just received from Mr.—er, Jake McKenna. Maybe she couldn’t give her child another father, and Lord only knew what she was going to do about her bills, but she would use the money she’d just received to pick up a few groceries and prepare her daughter a nutritious meal.

That sense of calm had started to wane by seven-thirty. Now, an hour later, it was completely gone. Josie took a deep breath, trying to blame the queazy sensation in her stomach on the peanut butter sandwich she’d eaten when Kelsey hadn’t been looking. Josie strode to the refrigerator and peered inside. Even the sight of the half gallon of milk and the leftover spaghetti and meatballs Kelsey would eat tomorrow didn’t chase her unease away. This unease had nothing to do with money. It had to do with...

Josie gulped.

It had to do with the knowledge that Jake McKenna was due to arrive any minute. At the sound of footsteps on the stairs, her nerves clamored even more. Make that any second.

She knew the knock on her door was forthcoming. She still jumped when it sounded. She didn’t understand it. She was never this high-strung. Lifting her eyes to the ceiling, she whispered, “If this is your idea of a joke, Thomas Callahan, it isn’t funny.”

Waiting until the old clock that had belonged to her parents had finished chiming the half hour, she took a deep breath for courage and opened the door just in time to see Rory O’Grady stepping off the bottom step and Jake McKenna standing on the top one.

“Mr. McKen—”

“What the bell was he doing here?”

The anger glittering in Jake’s eyes sent her heart to her throat and her stomach into a tailspin. This time there was no stopping her backward step.

Pushing the door all the way open, he marched inside, turning the inch her tiny retreat had given him into a mile.

Chapter Two

Jake stormed past Josie so quickly the hem of her dress ruffled in his wake.

“Won’t you come in, Mr. McKenna?”

He got as far as the middle of her living room before he swung around and glared at her. At least her sarcasm hadn’t been wasted on him. She reached for the doorknob to close the door, glancing down the stairs at the last minute. Rory was looking up at her, a big old smile on his friendly face. Josie couldn’t help smiling right back. That smile slipped a full two notches when she turned her attention back to the angry man in her living room.

She didn’t have a lot of experience dealing with angry men. Her father had died when she was small, and Tom had had an easygoing, pleasant disposition. She folded her arms and stood as tall as her five-foot, three-inch frame would allow. “Would you like to sit down, Mr. McKenna?”

“I asked you to call me Jake.”

Josie met his stare head-on. “You told me to call you Jake.”

His eyebrows rose slightly, then lowered, a muscle working in his jaw. There was inherent determination in the set of his chin, and more than a hint of impatience everywhere else. As one second followed another, his expression changed in the subtlest of ways. He didn’t smile, exactly, but he unclenched his teeth and removed his hat.

“A friend of mine keeps telling me that my people skills need a little work.”

Josie tried to square her shoulders against his allure. It worked, for about five seconds, and then she had the most amazing urge to grin. She didn’t, of course. She’d read somewhere that loss and pain and suffering built character. At least it had been good for something.

“Would you mind telling me what Rory O’Grady was doing here, Josephine?”

His use of her given name was nearly her undoing. “I might, if you can show me what it has to do with you.”

Jake considered several replies, discarding them one after the other. For the first time since setting foot inside the apartment, he took note of his surroundings. Green curtains, the kind that never wore out, hung at the windows. The couch was threadbare, the pictures on the wall were cheap prints. Even the afghan folded over the back of the couch looked as if it had seen better days. The same could have been said for Josie’s dress. Shy, plain Josie Callahan. That was how people described her. She was quiet, he decided, not shy. And it was amazing how that little flare of temper transformed her common face into something so uncommon.

He placed his hat on the table and settled his hands on his hips. If his plan had a snowball’s chance in hell, he was going to have to make amends. It was something the McKennas had never been very good at. “Maybe it isn’t any of my business, but Rory O’Grady is a noted wonanizer, and you wouldn’t be the first woman he took for a ride.”

“I’m a grown-up,” she said, head held high. “Besides, something tells me I’m the first woman he’s asked to marry him.”

Jake blinked as if she’d flung ice water in his face. Outwardly he remained calm. Inside, his stomach roiled. Suddenly the noise he’d thought he’d heard Friday night and the fact that the drifter he’d hired last week hadn’t shown up for work on Saturday and was now working for O‘Grady made sense. The cowhand must have been eavesdropping and had run straight to O’Grady with his information. Damn. Jake had intended to ease into this, maybe take Josie out a few times, get to know her and vice versa before springing his marriage proposal on her. Leave it to that stinking O’Grady to beat him to it.

He hadn’t been aware that he’d paced to the window until he caught sight of his reflection in the glass. “Did you say yes?”

“I don’t even know him.”

He drew in a deep breath and forbade himself to appear too relieved. There wasn’t much he could do about the smug feeling of satisfaction settling in where his agitation had been. He turned slowly and said, “Of course you don’t.”

Josie regarded Jake quizzically for a moment. His voice had been calm, his gaze steady, but his smile made her suspicious. He wasn’t a man prone to smiling. In a strange way, she felt honored to be on the receiving end of such a rare occurrence. It forced her to take a closer look at him. On the outside he was all planes and angles and five o’clock shadow, but there was more to him than appearances. Underneath, he was a man. Not just any man, but a lonely one.

That got to her, because Josie Callahan was on a first-name basis with loneliness. However, it wasn’t loneliness that had her eyelids lowering, her breath catching in the back of her throat, and something she barely recognized shifting low in her belly. She bit her lip and tried to avert her gaze. Strangely, she couldn’t move.

“Would you have dinner with me tomorrow, Josephine?”

Nobody, but nobody, called her Josephine. She’d always hated her full name. And yet when he said it, it sounded sensual, feminine, alluring. “Dinner?” she heard herself asking.

“Yes. You do like to eat, don’t you?”

Her gaze caught on his mouth, and she found it wasn’t easy to speak. “I’ve already made plans to have dinner with Rory tomorrow night.”

The room, all at once, was very quiet.

Jake took a very large, very deliberate step toward her. “I thought you said you didn’t agree to marry him.”

“I said I don’t even know him. I didn’t say I wouldn’t have dinner with him.”

Jake’s face hardened, and suddenly Josie was glad she’d made other plans. Oh, she had a feeling he was right about Rory O’Grady. The man was smooth and attractive and just cocky enough to be a bit of a rogue. She wasn’t worried about handling him. Handling Jake McKenna would have been another story.

“You’re seeing O’Grady now, is that it?”

“Does that bother you?”

Bother him? He’d passed bothered the instant he’d met O’Grady on the stairs. Hell, Jake was well on his way to full-scale frustration.

“Now why on earth would that bother me?” He reached the table in three strides, cramming his hat on his head while he headed for the door. “Like you said, you’re a grown woman.”

And O’Grady was a grown man. Jake swore under his breath. At this rate, Rory was going to end up with Jake’s hundred acres and one of the few single women left in Jasper Gulch. Anger crashed through Jake, straight as a shot of whisky right out of the bottle. He supposed he could put up a fight, but he’d be damned if he would be second.

Josie watched him go, flinching when the door closed just short of a slam. Whew. She was lucky to have escaped without having her ears singed. She locked the door, then stood leaning against it, thinking. Jake McKenna was a very formidable, intimidating man. His face was too hard, and he smiled too little.

And he’d left without saying goodbye.

The crowd at the Crazy Horse Saloon was typical for a Tuesday night. It consisted of a dozen men who moved slow, drank slow, and were slowly driving Jake nuts. Their outlook was gloomy, their small talk annoying. Which was why he normally preferred to drink alone. He might have done that, too, if Sky hadn’t given him a lecture about the dangers of that kind of drinking and that kind of thinking

Sky Buchanan would make a good old woman. Unfortunately, or was it fortunately, Jake wondered, staring into his untouched beer, Sky was also the best cowhand he’d ever had, not to mention the closest thing to a brother Jake had had in a long, long time.

Jake had listened to Sky. As a result he’d wound up at a table for one in the Crazy Horse Saloon, nursing a beer and trying not to pay attention to the only topic of conversation the local boys seemed interested in. Josie Callahan and Rory O’Grady.

“I hear tell Rory sweet-talked her into having dinner with him in Pierre.”

“I know. And she agreed. Shoot. I shouldn’t have waited so long.”

“That Rory sure has a way with women.”

“That’s true, but I can’t quite picture him and Josie, eh, you know what I mean.”

Jake tipped his head back and let the beer drizzle down his throat, trying not to listen.

“You holler when you’re ready for another, okay sugar?” DoraLee Brown asked the instant he lowered the half-empty bottle to the table. He nodded, and she winked. Jake felt a little better. Leave it to DoraLee to know what he needed.

He’d always liked DoraLee. All the men in Jasper Gulch did. Most of them had had a crush on her at one time or another. Forget the fact that she was twenty years older than half the men in the room. There was just something about a voluptuous, bleached blonde serving up beer and whisky with a smile that instilled romance in the hearts of men of all ages. A couple of years back, one of those men, Boomer Brown, had finally talked her into romancing him. Boomer and DoraLee had eloped soon after, which was good for Boomer, and DoraLee had never looked happier. Now there was one less single woman in town.

“I don’t know,” Forest Wilkie complained from a table up front “Josie doesn’t seem like Rory’s type to me.”

Great. They hadn’t gone on to another topic.

“Every female is Rory’s type.”

DoraLee clucked her tongue. “Can’t you boys think about anything else?”

Yes, Jake thought, reaching for the ice-cold bottle of beer in front of him. That DoraLee was all right.

“What else is there?” Neil Anderson grumbled.

A few other men mumbled in agreement, and Forest continued in the same vein. “It’s just that Rory and Josie are complete opposites. I mean, nobody was surprised when our very own Melody McCully married Clayt Carson. ’Cepting maybe Clayt. And do you know why? Because they’re two peas in a pod.”

“Sometimes opposites attract,” Cletus McCully, Melody’s grandfather said, his thumbs hooked around his navy blue suspenders.

“That’s true,” Forest agreed. “Look at Lisa and Wyatt. He’s one of the leaders of our fine community, and he up and married a girl who had a reputation.”

“A reputation Lisa didn’t earn,” DoraLee admonished.

“Yes,” Forest said, “but Rory’s earned his. That man’s a hound dog if there ever was one.”

“Anybody hear a weather report lately?” Jake asked.

Forest looked at him in an abstract, absent sort of way. “There’s a chance of rain all week. The point I’m tryin’ to make is this.”

Jake scowled into his beer. Nobody took longer to make a point than Forest Wilkie.

“I can’t see Rory settling down with sweet, shy Josie Callahan. He’s sown some pretty wild oats, and—”

“He’s probably sowing a few more tonight,” Neil cut in.

Jake rose to his feet so fast his chair shot out behind him. He was aware of the gazes following him as he dropped a few bills on the counter and headed for the door. He’d reached the sidewalk out front when one of the other Anderson brothers’ voices carried through the open door.

“Guess we scraped a raw nerve.”

“It ain’t hard to do. Jake’s got more raw nerves than an open wound.”

Jake scowled as he opened the door on his truck. Hiking one boot on the dusty running board, he happened to glance up at the window over the dime store next door. The upstairs apartment was dark. Must be Rory and Josie weren’t back yet. Unless they were back and hadn’t bothered turning on the lights.

He hauled himself into his seat, slammed the door and started the engine. The patch of rubber he laid squealing away from the curb didn’t curtain his frustration in the least. He rounded the corner, opened his window and cranked up the volume on the radio. The village limit sign was up ahead. Beyond it stretched miles and miles of empty highway. He pressed his foot to the accelerator and headed for the open road where he could drive until he’d taken the edge off his agitation. He figured a hundred miles might do it.

The wind was warm, the music was loud, his truck was running like a well-tuned machine. Ah. This was more like it. Those rough edges were already starting to dissolve.

His mind wandered to the ranch, the herd, his horse, the conversation he’d overheard in the Crazy Horse. That man’s a hound dog if there ever was one. Jake imagined O’Grady putting the moves on Josie. Rory had always been a smooth talker. He’d been known to brag that he could get a woman out of her clothes in fifteen seconds or less. Jake imagined Rory trying to get Josie out of hers. He slammed on the brakes and made a U-turn before he could wipe the image from his brain.

He killed the radio and drove back into town in silence, his agitation mom prickly than ever. The first thing he noticed when he pulled into the alley that ran behind the buildings on the east side of Main Street was the shiny red truck parked near Josie’s back stairs. The second thing he noticed was the light in the window overlooking the alley. Had they just gotten back? Or had they just turned on the light?

Jake pulled into the shadows behind the Crazy Horse Saloon. Strumming his fingers on the steering wheel, he told himself he was only there to make sure O’Grady brought Josie home safe and sound.

He turned off the engine and heaved a deep sigh. He was no better at lying to himself than he was at lying to anybody else.

He and Rory had always been rivals. Jake didn’t know how it had started, but he distinctly remembered the day it had come to a head. He and Rory had both been twelve. They’d buried Jake’s brother a few weeks earlier, and Jake was feeling surly. Mrs. Fergusson had just announced that parents’ night was coming up. Rory had leaned over and whispered, “Guess your mother won’t wanna leave her rich boyfriend down in Texas to come. My father says a woman who takes money for sex is a whore whether she’s on a street corner or in a penthouse.”

Jake had gotten a week’s detention for breaking Rory’s nose. Neither of them had ever apologized, and they’d never been friends since.

Rory O‘Grady had always been cocky and arrogant and conceited. But he wasn’t an ax murderer or a rapist. The O’Gradys were braggarts, not bad people, annoying, but not evil. Jake peered at the lit window, uncomfortable, because that meant he couldn’t pretend that he was hiding in the shadows out of some noble responsibility to make sure Josie was safe. He couldn’t even blame it on his aversion to coming in second. Okay, part of it might have been jealousy. Most of it was Josie. That was where it got complicated. He hadn’t been able to get her out of his head ever since he’d heard her laugh. For crying out loud, he’d found himself saying her name every time he thought about those hundred acres over by Sugar Creek. It was almost as if someone was tampering with his thoughts.

Catching a movement out of the corner of his eye, he turned his head just as Rory ambled down the steps. He was whistling, but his steps didn’t appear any more jaunty than usual. Jake took that as a good sign.

While Rory got in his truck and drove away, Jake tried to decide what to do. There wouldn’t be any harm in sauntering on up to her place and saying hello. Jake peered around. The voice had been in his head, but it hadn’t sounded like his conscience. It was the damnedest thing. But it wasn’t a bad idea.

Maybe he and Josie could talk awhile. Maybe she would laugh again.

He eased out of the truck, looked all around and set off for the stairs. His tread was light, and a pleasant breeze wafted through his shirt as he raised his fist and knocked softly on the glass.

Josie was smiling when she opened the door. He could hardly blame her smile for slipping away. His arrival was a surprise.

“Evening, Josephine.”

“Jake!”

He noticed how nice she looked in her light green dress. “Nice night,” he said.

“Yes, I guess it is.” Her eyes were shining and her lips formed another smile, this one for him. It was amazing, the way she made smiling look so easy. She appeared to have had a good time with Rory. She didn’t, however, appear to have been kissed. It was a shame, too, because she had such a kissable mouth.

He would never know what made him swoop down, covering her mouth with his. Her lips parted on a gasp. He brought his hand to her face, threading his fingers through her hair. His mouth moved over hers even as he tipped her head back, deepening the kiss, her surprise slowly turning into pleasure. A soft groan sounded in her throat, and her lips opened beneath his. Lord, she tasted sweet, her lips moist and warm and giving.

Her fingertips fluttered to the back of his hand, brushing his knuckles. Her hand was small, her touch soft, her kiss so heady it was as if something that had been tightly coiled deep inside him was starting to unravel. Ah, Jake thought. He’d been too long without a woman.

Josie knew she should open her eyes, but she lacked the strength. All she could do was strain toward Jake’s warmth. One second his kiss was as tender and light as the summer breeze. The next it was deep and searing, lingering, savoring, devouring. She’d been kissed a thousand times, but she’d never been kissed quite like this.

Tom’s mouth had always become softer as he’d kissed her. There was nothing soft in this kiss. It was possessive, demanding, the tiniest bit savage. It made her feel naughty, and nice, and young, and free. And very, very single.

Shock ran through her, and she drew back, her eyes finally opening. Jake’s fingers were still tangled in her hair, his lips still wet from her kiss, his eyes clouded with passion. Her heart was hammering wildly, foolishly. “Wh-why did you do that?”

He took his time drawing away, letting his fingers comb through her hair. “There are sparks between us.”

“Spaf—Jake,” she said, feeling guilty. “What are you doing here?”

She’d called him Jake. She hadn’t intended to, but it had just slipped out. After that kiss, she didn’t see how she would be able to call him Mr. McKenna again.

While she was trying to regain her equilibrium, his gaze probed hers, then strayed to her mouth. “I didn’t plan this. The kiss, I mean. I wanted to see you, talk to you. May I come in, Josephine?”

She was feeling a little off-kilter and thought about telling him it was late. She was tired. But then she caught sight of his expression, at his lips that seemed so unaccustomed to smiling and the crease in one lean cheek, and she didn’t have the heart to turn him away. Drawing in a shaky breath, she gestured him inside.

It was very gentlemanly of him to remove his hat, but she thought it was at odds with the man, because there was nothing gentle about Jake McKenna. Not the way he looked, not the way he moved, certainly not the way he’d kissed her. He wasn’t like any other man she’d ever met.

“You wanted to talk to me?” she asked, averting her gaze.

“I find myself in a very precarious situation,” he said quietly.

She took a deep breath and let it all out “Precarious situations are best discussed sitting down.” Moving past him, she led the way to the sofa.

He lowered his frame into a threadbare, but cozy, overstuffed chair she’d picked up for a song when she’d first moved to South Dakota. It looked smaller with him in it. Her entire apartment felt smaller with him in it She tried to figure out why. He was tall, yes, but no seven-footer. His shoulders were broad, yet he was lean, his waist narrow, his arms and legs muscular. Her gaze strayed to his hands. Forget faces or physiques. It was a man’s hands she always paid attention to the most. After all, it was a man’s hands that put out fires, swung a hammer, wielded a rope, stroked a woman’s body.

And Jake McKenna had the most amazing hands. They were work roughened, right down to the tips of his long, slightly crooked fingers. There was strength in those hands. She wondered if there was gentleness, too.

Forget it, she told herself. She didn’t need to know why he made her apartment seem smaller. She had to put an end to this breathlessness, this feeling of wonder. She would hear Jake out, and then she would send him on his way.

“Does this have anything to do with the reading of your father’s will?” she asked.

His chin moved only a fraction of an inch. It was enough to alert her to his surprise.

“What do you know about my father’s will?”

There was no getting around the sharp edge in his voice or the ice in his glare. If Josie were able to see auras, she was sure his would have just changed colors. She slipped out of her shoes and drew her legs up, tucking her feet under her dress. “Rory mentioned a certain stipulation.”

“O’Grady talked to you about this?”

“He mentioned that one of his cowhands happened to hear about it.”

Jake sprang to his feet “Happened to hear it, my-eye. That cowboy might as well have bugged my barn.”

“It’s all right, Jake. Rory swore the other man to silence.”

Jake forced himself to take a calming breath. Rory had found out about that stipulation, and he’d told Josie about it. Jake didn’t know what Rory had up his sleeve, but it was up to Jake to salvage what he could. Since there was no use beating around the bush, he sat back down and laid his cards on the table. Steepling his fingers beneath his chin, he looked at Josie. “Did Rory explain that, in order to keep my land, I must be a married man by July?” He held her gaze for several seconds. When she shook her head he said, “I need a wife, Josie, and I need one soon.”

Josie made herself more comfortable in the corner of her sofa. She thought it was too bad there were so few women in Jasper Gulch. It made things difficult for all the men in the area. It made things especially difficult for a man who’d just admitted that he needed a wife, and soon. Aware of the silence filling the room, she glanced sideways at Jake. He was watching her, waiting in silent expectation.

“I wouldn’t expect to get something for nothing,” he said.

She smiled, closed her eyes, relaxing by degrees. “Of course you wouldn’t, Jake.”

He cleared his throat. “I’m willing to make it worth your while.”

“You’re willing to make it worth my—Are you telling me you want me to marry you?”

He nodded.

“Why me?”

“Who else is there?” Jake’s lips thinned, and he nearly blanched. Damn, he hadn’t intended to let that slip.

She lifted her hair away from her nape, letting the loose tendrils topple down her back once again. There was something about the way. she tipped her head back and closed her eyes, something feminine and appealing and arousing. For a moment he forgot why he was there. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded,” he said quietly.

“Don’t worry, Jake. Acquired a thick skin a long time ago. I heard through the Jasper Gulch grapevine that you paid a little visit to Crystal Galloway. I’m assuming she turned you down?”

It struck him that Josie wasn’t upset by his businesslike proposal. She didn’t even seem to be angry about the woman who was ahead of her on his list. It rankled. A woman, no matter how plain, should expect a man who was proposing to treat her as if she were the only woman in the world.

“Mama,” a small voice called before Jake had answered Josie’s question. “I’m thirsty.”

Josie rose to her feet instantly. “I’ll be right back.”

It was a relief to put a little distance between her and Jake. There was just something about him that left her feeling unsettled. She didn’t know how he did it, but he rattled her. It was more than that kiss. It was...everything. It was Jake.

She made a quick stop in the bathroom for a glass and some water. Slipping into Kelsey’s tiny room, she said, “Here ya go, sweet pea.”

Kelsey barely took a sip from the glass. “What’s that nice Mr. McKenna doing here, Mama?”

Jake McKenna, nice? “He just stopped in to say hello.” Now, to change to subject. “Did you and Savannah eat owl pills?” she asked around a smile. Kelsey was rarely wide-awake this time of night. “Do you want another drink of water?”

Kelsey was so intent upon asking questions, she seemed to have completely forgotten about her ruse to lure Josie into her room. She didn’t even bother shaking her head. Instead, she pushed the glass away and asked, “Do you like him, Mama?”

“I like most everyone,” Josie said, hedging.

Kelsey rolled her eyes expressively. “Do you like Rory butter?”

Josie considered the question. Rory was easier to be with, laugh with, talk with. But easier to like? “Go to sleep now.”

“But Mama, I hafta know.”

Kelsey’s theatrics were amazing. Josie had a feeling she was going to be in big trouble when her daughter hit puberty. “You have to know tonight?” she whispered.

The imp nodded vehemently.

“I like them both, Kelsey, but...”

“Haley says you’ve gotta be in love before I can get a new daddy. Do you think you could love one of them by the last day of school?”

So that was what this was all about. Josie placed the glass of water on the nightstand and smoothed the baby-fine hair away from her daughter’s face. Kelsey had been four years old when Tom had died. Now, two years later, her memories of her father were vague at best In some ways, Josie thought it was a blessing, because her little girl couldn’t miss somebody she couldn’t remember. But then Haley Carson, an older girl Kelsey met at school, had mentioned the annual family fun day that was held the last day of school each year, and how she and her father had won the three-legged race last year. Kelsey had been adamant about finding a new father ever since.

“Couldn’t you just try to love one of them, please?”

It made Josie feel sad, because she couldn’t give her little girl everything she wanted and needed. She tried to tell herself no parent could. “I love you enough for a hundred people, sweet pea”

“I love you, too, Mama.”

Kelsey’s sigh tugged on Josie’s heart strings and made her yearn to be everything to her child. “I’ll go with you on the last day of school.”

The little girl sighed again and quietly closed her eyes. Josie wondered if all mothers felt so inadequate and so full of love at the same time. If only Tom hadn’t died.

But he had, Josie told herself as she returned the glass to the bathroom. She stifled a yawn. Feeling blue, she assured herself she was just tired. She’d received two marriage proposals in one night from two different men, neither of whom so much as pretended to love her. No wonder she felt done in.

Kelsey was happy, most of the time. As long as it was truly what she needed, there wasn’t anything Josie wouldn’t do for her child. But she couldn’t many a man she didn’t love just so Kelsey had two parents to bring to the fun day at school.

Give the man a chance.

She smiled just as she always did when she heard Tom’s voice. Meeting her own gaze in the mirror, she whispered, “Which man, Tom? Rory or Jake?”

Her mind filled only with the sound of silence.

She pushed her hair away from her forehead and did an about-face, grumbling to herself that men who were angels answered questions about as well as husbands who were still human.

“Did you say something?”

Jake’s voice brought her out of her reverie. Pausing in the doorway, she said, “I guess I was talking to myself.”

“Is she okay?”

Josie almost said, “Who?” Luckily she caught herself before she could embarrass herself further. For heaven’s sake, what was wrong with her?

“Kelsey’s fine. She’s just a little wound up after spending the evening with her friend, Savannah Colter.”

Jake glanced from the woman in the photograph he’d been studying to the woman standing across the room. In the picture, Josie was laughing up at a young man who was laughing in return. It was an action shot, slightly out of focus, and had probably been taken with a cheap camera. The playfulness and happiness came through as clear as day. In comparison the woman across the room looked tired and pale.

“Is this your late husband?”

She strolled to him, turning his hand so she could see the photograph in the frame. “That’s him. Thomas Callahan. The big lug.”

Jake followed the course of her gaze to the ceiling. Other than a yellow water spot where the roof had leaked at one time or another, there was nothing to see.

She turned her attention to the photograph and so did Jake. “He was twenty when we got married. I was nineteen. His parents had big plans for their only child. I was poor. Trailer trash, they called me. Tom happened to overhear. His mother tried to cover up, but his father came right out and told Tom he was making the mistake of a lifetime. ‘Go ahead and bed her,’ he said. ‘But for God’s sake, don’t marry her.’ Tom told his father he loved me, and if they couldn’t accept that, they no longer had a son. It was the only time I ever heard him raise his voice.”

Jake studied Josie’s face. She was staring at the collar on his shirt, but he doubted it was what she was seeing. Her innermost feelings played across her features. Pride, fatigue, sadness. She’d loved the man in the picture. Jake wondered what it would feel like to be loved like that. Longing stretched over him, until it became all but impossible to fight his growing need to touch her. He almost reached for her hand, and Jake McKenna never reached for anyone.

“How did he die?” he asked quietly.

Her throat convulsed on a swallow, her eyes coming into focus. “We thought he had the flu. It was going around, but then, isn’t it always? Looking back, I should have known. But at the time I just never imagined he might be seriously, gravely ill. He had a headache, and he was weak. When he got worse instead of better, we went to the doctor. By then a week had gone by, and Tom was starting to babble, and it was hard for him to walk. The doctor took one look at him and put him right in the hospital for tests. Tom went into a coma later that night. He had brain cancer. People told us at the time it was a blessing that we hadn’t known, because it was incurable, fast growing and inoperable. At least Tom never had to deal with knowing he was going to die. But he never made amends with his parents, either. He died two days later. He was twenty-five.”

Her voice had dipped so low Jake could practically feel it brushing across the toes of his boots. Her husband had been young. Too young to die. She’d been young, too. She’d already had her fill of bad luck and bad news, of heartache and difficult decisions. No wonder she hadn’t jumped at the chance to many him. No matter how badly he needed to find a wife, she would be better off without his problems.

He took a backward step. “It’s time I was going.” He didn’t wait for her to say anything. Retrieving his hat on his way past the table, he crammed it on his head, opened the door, and walked through.

“What will you do?” she asked.

He was halfway down the stairs when he glanced up at her, longing stretching over him again. “Do?” he asked.

“About your land.”

He gave himself a mental shake and a mental kick. He really had been too long without a woman. “I honestly don’t know. But it’s not your concern.”

“I, er, that is, I’ve been wanting to see the countryside. I hear the pasqueflower is in bloom.”

They stood watching each other, neither speaking. Jake hadn’t noticed any flowers in bloom. But then, he rarely did. He knew a hint when he heard one, though. If he hadn’t seen the photograph of Josie and her husband, he would have seized the opportunity she was offering him. But he’d seen the love shining in her eyes for her dead husband, heard it in her voice.

He had to get out of there.

“If you leak that to the Jasper Gulch grapevine,” he said, “there’ll be fifty single men who are willing to show you the countryside lining up at your doorstep in no time at all. You’ll have to let me know how it turns out. Good night, Josephine.”

“I...you...” Her voice trailed away, only to resume with renewed vehemence. “Why, of all the nerve! I’ll have you know I’m not a charity case. I don’t want fifty men lining up on my doorstep, and I wouldn’t spend the day with you, Jake McKenna, if you were the last man on earth.”

It occurred to him as he stared at the color on her cheeks and the anger in her eyes, that she hadn’t answered his question regarding his marriage proposal. All in all he thought the loud slam of the door was a pretty good indication that the conversation had ended.

That, he thought to himself as he made his way to his truck, was why he didn’t make a habit of being kind. Chivalry was dead, they said. There was a good reason for that. A very good reason, indeed.

Chapter Three

“You went and made her mad?” Slappy Purvis griped. “Why on earth would you go and do a fool thing like that?”

“Yeah, Jake,” Buck Matthews grumbled around the cigarette he’d just lit. “I could’a given you a few pointers. All you had to do was ask.”

Teeth clenched, Jake surveyed a section of fence the herd had taken out the night before and did his best to ignore his hired hands. They didn’t seem to notice.

Slappy was close to sixty, but Buck and Billy were both in their early twenties. All three were single, got along better with horses than with people and had manners that needed work. If they had given him advice, Jake would have been hard-pressed to take it

Buck scratched at his three-day beard. “The moon was full last night It would’a been easy for a coyote or a wolf to see. Could be that’s what spooked the heid. Still, I always figured a full moon was a good time to kiss a gal, not make her mad.”

“Me, too,” Billy Schmidt, the youngest of the hired hands declared. “Kissin” em is a lot more fun than fightin’ with ’em.”

“Maybe Jake here don’t see it that way,” Slappy grumbled. “Either that or he kissed her first and made her mad second.”

Three pairs of eyes were suddenly on Jake. “Did you?” Billy asked. “Did you kiss her first?”

Jake clenched his teeth a little tighter. Somebody from the Crazy Horse had seen him leaving Josie’s place last night, but as far as he knew, his ranch hands weren’t aware of the stipulation in his father’s will. Which meant that their curiosity was coming from a male perspective, not worry about McKenna land.

Holding a board in place with his shoulder, he eyed his men. “Were you boys planning to earn your pay today?”

Slappy let out a snort that rivaled his horse’s. “We earn our pay every day. Oh, oh. You’re gettin’ that look on your face. You know, the one old Isaac wore most of the time. Now, before you go gettin’ all riled, I know how much you balk at the idea that you’re anything like your old man. If you ain’t careful, you’re gonna end up just like him. I’m afraid it takes a woman to bring out the best in most men. Which is why me and the boys are so interested in knowin’ what was all said betweenst you and the widow Callahan.”

Jake wrapped new wire around the board he’d replaced, but he didn’t reply. His expression must have been telling, because Billy grinned. “I knew it. He kissed her. Hey, Sky, get over here. Jake’s gonna tell us how he kissed Josie Callahan.”

Sky dropped an armful of lumber before sauntering toward them. “Come on boys,” he said, his lope easy, his expression friendly. “Leave the boss alone and get to work.”

That, Jake thought, as Buck, Slappy and Billy tramped over to a nearby section of fence, sputtering all the while, was why Skyler Buchanan was his right-hand man. The two of them went back a long way. Sky might have taken chances Jake didn’t approve of, and he offered advice when Jake didn’t want any, but he never so much as implied that Jake was anything like his old man. Jake was nothing like his mother, either. He was thankful for small favors. Nadine McKenna had left Isaac and her only two sons for a man who’d made it big in the oil fields down in Texas. She’d sent presents at Christmas and had visited him and his brother a few times at first The last time she’d come home had been after Cole had died. Her tears had seemed real enough, but Jake hadn’t been fooled.

She’d begged him not to hate her. Jake didn’t hate her. He wasn’t sure if he’d loved her by then, though. She was his mother. She was supposed to love him. She sure as hell wasn’t supposed to bustle right back to her rich Texan and leave her only surviving son with a man like Isaac McKenna. A man who pushed and pushed for the best and who never gave credit where credit was due. A man who didn’t like many people, not even his second son. Jake had tried at first After a while he’d figured out that it didn’t matter how hard he tried. He would never be able to take the place of Isaac’s firstborn.

Jake had never blamed Isaac for loving Cole. Jake had loved his older brother, too. The thing he remembered the most about his mother’s leaving was how quiet the house was after she was gone. It was nothing compared to how quiet it got after Cole died. Looking back, Jake wondered how he’d survived the rest of his childhood. The days had been lifeless and silent, the nights worse. And then one afternoon, the summer he turned seventeen, Skyler Buchanan drove up the driveway in a noisy, rusty pickup truck. He needed work, he’d said, and a roof over his head. Isaac had hired him on the spot, and the ranch hadn’t been quiet since.

“I talked to Boomer Brown a little while ago,” Jake told Sky. “He says he has some lumber he can spare. How’s the fence look down that way?”

Sky moved a blade of prairie grass from one side of his mouth to the other. “Not as bad as this section, but it’s still gonna have to be reinforced. So, was she a good kisser?”

Jake shot Sky a silencing look. Sky’s grin broadened. “Well?”

“I suppose.”

“If you tried really hard, McKenna, you might be able to work your way up to vague. I suppose doesn’t tell us a whole helluva lot, does it, boys?”

Billy, Buck and Slappy shook their heads from their positions several feet away.

“I kissed her. There. Are you satisfied?”

“The question is,” Sky said, “are you?”

Buck, Slappy and Billy all raised their eyebrows in silent expectation. Jake recalled the way Josie’s voice had risen when she’d told him she wouldn’t spend the day with him if he were the last man on earth. That hadn’t been particularly satisfying. With a scowl hot enough to scorch the rich prairie grass, he turned on his heel.

“Where are you going?” Sky called to his back.

“To Boomer’s to get that lumber. In case you haven’t noticed, we have fences to mend.”

Jake was too far away to hear Sky’s reply, but in his head, a voice whispered, There’s more than one kind of fences in need of mending today, my friend.

That voice. It was driving Jake crazy. What did it mean friend? He’d never considered his conscience his friend.

Cussing under his breath, he climbed into his truck and sped down the lane.

“How long before we get there, Mama?”

Hoping Kelsey didn’t notice how tightly her mother was clutching the steering wheel, Josie answered in the middle of the invocations and supplications she’d been reciting to herself since she’d first noticed the engine light come on a couple of miles back. “Ten more miles, sweet pea, and we’ll be home.”

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