Rio: Man Of Destiny

“I’m Your Lover And I’m Going To Be Your Husband.” Letter to Reader Title Page About the Author Dedication Prologue Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Epilogue Copyright

“I’m Your Lover And I’m Going To Be Your Husband.”

Rio’s outrageous claim took Paloma’s breath away. But an anger she never released sprang to life, tearing through her until she shook. How dare he? “Not likely,” she managed to say.

Rio’s black eyes flashed. “A man likes to come home to a woman with a kiss on her lips, not sass. Come here and give me one of those mind-blowing kisses, and we’ll talk about the babies we’re going to make. The Blaylocks are prone to boys, but I’d like a sassy little blue-eyed daughter, just like you.”

“I’m going to give you something, Rio, but it isn’t a kiss,” Paloma said, when visions of a family with Rio stopped dancing in her head. The man was wearing down her defenses—and if she wasn’t careful, she’d be in his bed in five minutes.

Dear Reader

Silhouette Desire matches August’s steamy heat with six new powerful, passionate and provocative romances.

Popular Elizabeth Bevarly offers That Boss of Mine as August’s MAN OF THE MONTH. In this irresistible romantic comedy, a CEO falls for his less-than-perfect secretary.

And Silhouette Desire proudly presents a compelling new series, TEXAS CATTLEMAN’S CLUB. The members of this exclusive club are some of the Lone Star State’s sexiest, most powerful men, who go on a mission to rescue a princess and find true love! Bestselling author Dixie Browning launches the series with Texas Millionaire, in which a fresh-faced country beauty is wooed by an older man.

Cait London’s miniseries THE BLAYLOCKS continues with Rio: Man of Destiny, in which the hero’s love leads the heroine to the truth of her family secrets. The BACHELOR BATTALION miniseries by Maureen Child marches on with Mom in Waiting. An amnesiac woman must rediscover her husband in Lost and Found Bride by Modean Moon. And Barbara McCauley’s SECRETS! miniseries offers another scandalous tale with Secret Baby Santos.

August also marks the debut of Silhouette’s original continuity THE FORTUNES OF TEXAS with Maggie Shayne’s Million Dollar Marriage, available now at your local retail outlet.

So indulge yourself this month with some poolside reading—the first of THE FORTUNES OF TEXAS, and all six Silhouette Desire titles!

Enjoy!

Joan Marlow Golan

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

Cait London

Rio: Man of Destiny

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CAIT LONDON lives in the Missouri Ozarks but loves to travel the Northwest’s gold rush/cattle drive trails every summer. She enjoys research trips, meeting people and going to Native American dances. Ms. London is an avid reader who loves to paint, play with computers and grow herbs (particularly scented geraniums right now). She’s a national bestselling and award-winning author, and she has also written historical romances under another pseudonym. Three is her lucky number; she has three daughters, and the events in her life have always been in threes. “I love writing for Silhouette,” Cait says. “One of the best perks about all this hard work is the thrilling reader response and the warm, snug sense that I have given readers an enjoyable, entertaining gift.”

Thank you, dear readers, for asking for

more of the Blaylocks after Midnight Rider

and The Seduction of Jake Tallman.

I hope you enjoy Rio’s story.

Prologue

In the city of Jasmine’s old feed store, Boone Llewlyn watched his grandaughter. His ten grandchildren thought of him as a friend who kept them safe while their mothers were away; they didn’t know he was their grandfather. He’d been too ashamed of failing them and his scheming sons. The eight-year-old girl bore the Llewlyn stamp—a gangling rawboned body, an angular jaw and black gleaming hair. Paloma’s sky-blue eyes came from her great-grandmother, a St. Clair. Dressed in bib overalls and a warm flannel shirt, she crouched beside the baby chicks in the feed and seed store, cradling them in her hands. This was her favorite place, where gardeners came for seed and ranchers for livestock needs. And every spring, the baby chicks would arrive—the store was a place that began, nurtured and sustained rural life in the Wyoming valley.

Boone was old now, worn by life and his sons. As a young man, Boone had been in love with Garnet Holmes Blaylock, but he’d wanted to seek out the riches of the world and she’d stayed in Jasmine. Still in love with Garnet, Boone had married Sara, a cold woman but one with skills to help him in his search for money and power.

In his search for money, he’d forgotten his two sons needed him. They were weak men now, and bigamists, using different names to marry several women. Boone had bought his sons free of the legalities, of course, but his grandchildren had paid a heavy price. Their mothers were as immoral and hard as his wife. Boone still loved his sons, but he kept them from his cherished Llewlyn land; he feared they would destroy everything he loved. Lacking a love of land and heritage, and easily bought, they stayed away.

Boone had stayed out in the world for thirty years, then returned to Llewlyn House to live, near Jasmine. The Llewlyn Ranch, all ten thousand acres, was for his grandchildren, these small perfect bits of his parents.

“You look lonely, Boone.” Paloma came to him then, easing the soft, fluffy chicks into his scarred hands. She leaned against him, a small girl bearing his mother’s scent after trying on the old dresses. They were too large for Paloma, and safely packed away until one day when they would be hers. In his heart, Boone knew that he would never see the woman she would become, but he could see that she would be strong and tall and straight and her heart would be pure. She’d love the land, his land, homesteaded by Llewlyns—because she was his blood, his past and his future.

“I’m glad you’re my friend, Boone,” she said. “I’m glad you let me stay with you...when my mother lets me.” She wiped a tear away from his weathered cheek and she whispered, ”Don’t cry, Boone. When we get home, I’ll play the best music you’ve ever heard. That old music that your mother used to play, and we’ll have tea in your mother’s china cups.”

Boone studied the girl’s vivid sky-blue eyes. He raised his gnarled hand to stroke her gleaming blue-black hair. She was a part of his mother, of him and the Llewlyns. Though he couldn’t tell her that he was her grandfather now, one day she would come back, he hoped, to find how much he loved her and the land he wanted her to inherit.

One

Rio Blaylock: ladies’ man. Paloma Forbes knew who he was, the tall lean cowboy striding toward her, the Missouri January wind whipping his straight, shaggy black hair. Minutes before dawn, Rio had stepped into the lighted parking lot. He looked like a hunter on the scent of his prey. And she knew he’d come for her.

Rio’s flashing smile and exciting, careless arrogance drew women to him. He resembled all the Blaylocks Paloma remembered from her visits with Boone Llewlyn. Bred from tough, rangy mountain men, the Blaylocks were tall and angular, with sleek black Native American hair, and skin as dark as their conquistador ancestors’, despite the sturdy pioneer Scots and English stock thrown into the mix. Paloma had been just thirteen when she’d first seen Rio at a community hall dance, a flamboyant, fascinating male at seventeen; he’d been flashing his full dazzling charm to a girl. She later left the dance with him. Another time at a rodeo, he’d been surrounded by gids, dazzling them by lariat tricks, and eventually one of them ended up encircled by his arms and was drawn to him for a sizzling kiss. Then, later in the year, while chasing a puppy, Paloma had seen him lying in the meadow with yet another girl, the grass hot and flattened around them. “Get out of here, kid,” he’d said quietly, scowling fiercely at her and shielding the rumpled, giggling girl with his rangy body, sheathed only in jeans.

The other Blaylock boys—Roman, James, Dan and Tyrell—were adorable, but according to Jasmine’s gossip, Rio was the charmer of the clan. Though now he was older, tougher than when she’d seen him at seventeen surrounded by his harem of adoring females, Rio’s rugged face had weathered into the features of a determined man. His black eyes pinned her, the hard line of his jaw, covered by a dark shadow of new beard, and the muddy black pickup with Wyoming license plates told her that he’d hurried to catch her.

Paloma didn’t want anyone catching, pinning her. She’d had enough boxing in as a child. With a do-this, do-that demanding mother, who used a dark, locked closet as a goad, Paloma had been freed to practice and perfect her piano lessons. If she performed poorly, the closet waited. She survived and no one would push her again. Grown now, “Mother’s Little Money Maker” didn’t know if she wanted music in her life—

She glanced at Rio, who was striding toward her, and frowned. She’d had a taste of a ladies’ man and that was enough to last her a lifetime—at twenty she hadn’t known that men played games. Now she knew that the romance she had dreamed had been of her own making. A virgin and sexually inexperienced, she’d dived into the affair, desperate to be loved for herself rather than her talent She hadn’t come up for air until reality slashed her—Jonathan hadn’t wanted her at all. She’d merely been a celebrity trophy in his quest to prove himself to his buddies. Jonathan had moved on to woo another inexperienced girl, and Paloma had pulled her defenses around her, never trusting a man again.

She smiled tightly as Rio Blaylock strode toward her like a dark warlord, his long legs sheathed in jeans, his black leather jacket hunched up at the collar. The burgundy colored ski sweater emphasized his dark looks. Or was it his dark mood? She hadn’t exactly jumped at his offers to buy her half of the feed store. She corrected her last thought Rio had come to grasp her last bit of Boone Llewlyn, the man she’d loved desperately, her childhood protector. Boone was gone now, and she had inherited his half of Jasmine’s feed and seed store. Rio was now her partner, but in the year and a half since Boone’s death had repeatedly tried to buy her share. And Rio was pushy, a man who always got what he wanted

Not this time, not her half of the feed store. She was keeping what she had of Boone, the man whom she resembled strongly, the man she suspected was her father. He’d kept her safe—when he could-from the selfish mother, who demanded too much of her only child. Boone. Big, strong, sweet, loving. She wouldn’t be pushed into selling her only tie to Boone. Paloma inhaled the crisp cold air, the smell of the idling bus, the excitement of the elderly women on their way to play bingo. Paloma was their driver, and for a time, she would enjoy caring for them.

She kicked a tire with the experience of a woman who had rented vehicles that had been improperly serviced. Satisfied that the air and tread were proper, Paloma turned slowly to the tap on her shoulder. “Yes?”

“I’m Rio Blaylock. I’d like to talk with you.”

The demand in his raspy low voice nettled her. Or was it the intimate tone he’d used so often as he built his smoothtalker, easygoing reputation? A sexy-looking cowboy package, Rio reportedly knew “how to treat a lady.” Paloma was no lady; she had been toughened, stripped away from childhood and feminine pleasures and had managed to survive. Thanks to her mother, Paloma had been forced into the role of child prodigy and had seen too much of life and sex. At thirty-four, Paloma had little use for men like Rio. He had that datk, edgy look her mother requited in her own lovers.

Paloma didn’t intend to make the purchase of her share easy for Rio Blaylock, not when she hadn’t resolved how she felt about Boone. Questioning the identity of her father, she asked her mother, who refused to answer. She looked like Boone—was Boone her father? Would she ever know? Why hadn’t he claimed her as his daughter?

Paloma pushed away the searing pain of rejection from a loved one—the pain always came with the questions that had plagued her for years, and turned to meet a man she already thoroughly disliked.

He’d finally cornered her, but she was ignoring him. “My bus is idling, sucking expensive fuel and I don’t have time to chitchat. I do this gig once a year...rent and drive a bus of seasoned women bingo players from Missouri to Oklahoma. We dnve down, they bingo day and night until we leave. We all have fun and everybody comes back happy. Now, if you’ll excuse me—” Paloma Foxbes’s husky voice lashed with impatience as she brushed by Rio to help an elderly woman into the tour bus.

Rio stood still; he pushed down his rising temper. When he’d last seen her, leaning against Boone as though he were her only lifeline, Paloma had been a tall, gangling, rawboned girl. There had been a beaten look in her thin face then that had bothered Else, Rio’s sister, now the matriarch of the extensive Blaylock family.

Impatient from worn nerves, Rio ran his hand through the straight black hair that wind had whipped at his face. He was bone tired and laden with sleepless, haunted nights. He seemed always to be searching—he’d spent a lifetime looking for something that had always eluded him...and then there was the boy who died—the ten-year old’s frail body haunting Rio’s nightmares. Perhaps he had inherited more from his mountain man ancestors than he knew—this need to hunt, to search for something, someone. He shrugged mentally. He couldn’t control that restless need, but he could keep the feed store safe. This woman wasn’t getting away—Paloma Forbes had been avoiding his business offer for a year and a half already. And now he had her.

Rio Blaylock held out his hand to help a frail lady with a cane onto the bus. He smiled at her tightly. If Paloma managed to pull grace out of her six-foot body when she performed in piano concerts around the world, she wasn’t sparing him a drop. Dressed in a black heavy sweater, black jeans and truck ers’ boots, Paloma Forbes’s body wasn’t curved or graceful, rather efficient and powerful as she hefted multiple overstuffed bags into the bay of the bus. She resembled more of a trucker now, packing her product for a fast run, than a world-class pianist. There was just that small odd gait to her fast stride, and he noted that she protected her hands with leather gloves and her wrists with elastic supports.

Rio forced himself not to let her word, “chitchat,” offend him. But it did. “I don’t ‘chitchat,’” he informed her. “Fact is, you own half the Jasmine feed store. I own the other half. I want to buy you out. It’s that simple.”

Standing beside the tour bus in a freezing January dawn, he eyed an elderly gray-haired woman; in passing, she had just slipped a stealthy pat on his jean-clad rear. While light snow curled around the collar of his leather jacket, he tried not to crush the “good luck” rose-decked hat another woman had thrust under his arm while she rummaged for her ticket. Another woman tucked a pink satin pillow under his free arm. Rio closed his eyes, took a deep breath and continued his battle.

“Did you get my letters?” he asked Paloma, determined to finally pin his silent partner into facing his offer to buy her out. From what he knew of Paloma’s life, she lived out of a suitcase. She hadn’t come to Boone’s funeral, nor had she returned to Jasmine—all indications that she did not value land or history...or Boone, who had apparently loved her.

“The letters weren’t returned to you, were they?” she clipped, nudging him out of the way with her shoulder. “Gee, that must mean I got them, huh.”

Riding on no sleep, coffee and determination, Rio really resented taking that step back on her direction, but he obliged to allow an elderly woman to board the bus. He smiled briefly as the woman’s lips formed a kiss. then he refocused on Paloma. “I just wanted to be certain-”

“I got your letters and don’t have time for this.”

“It’s a historic landmark. I’d like to see it preserved—”

“Sure, buddy. You’re all heart and I’m certain there’s a dollar in there somewhere for you. Now step out of the way.” Delight and warmth curled around Paloma’s tone as she grinned at a matron with a blond Dolly Parton wig. “Hi, Vandora. T’m so glad you could come this year.”

Vandora’s bright brown eyes peered at Rio. “Is this gorgeous hunk yours, Paloma?”

“He’s not my type.” Paloma’s flat denying snort didn’t soothe Rio’s taut senses. Not that he wanted to appeal to the rangy six-foot woman who had just nudged his chest with her shoulder again.

This time, Rio stood still and simply looked down at her. When she glanced at him, he smiled again, slowly, and Paloma’s blue eyes narrowed dangerously. “I won’t be pushed into anything sudden,” she said “And I’m immune to ladykilters.”

Rio dismissed the taunt, he had business to do. “You inherited Boone’s half of the feed store over a year and a half ago. I started trying to make contact with you then.”

“I’ll get back with you at a later date. Meanwhile, get out of my way.”

“When I’m ready.” Rio spaced his words firmly. He didn’t like orders. He’d had enough of them in the military. “It makes sense to sell. You don’t know the business.”

Paloma’s blue gaze lasered at him and locked, darkening into a deep, rich blue like the evening sky before it filled with thunderstorms. Good, he thought. Payback time. I’m getting to her—at least I have her attention.

Hurrying by him, another kindly matron plucked the pink satin pillow from beneath his arm. She reached to pat the stubble on his set, angular jaw. “Thanks, sonny. You’re gorgeous. Hope you’re coming with us to play bingo for two days. You could be my good luck charm. I just adore big, dark and dangerous cowboys—that shaggy-and-stubbled look really makes my motors purr.”

With the ease of a woman who took care of herself, Paloma hefted an overstuffed tote bag into the side bay of the tour bus. Her constant movements said she wasn’t waiting for him...or anyone.

Rio studied the woman who had inherited Boone Llewlyn’s half of Jasmine’s historic feed store; she hadn’t even bothered checking on the landmark property since she’d inherited Boone’s partnership.

In an efficient movement, she tipped her face upward, her mirrored sunglasses sliding to shield her piercing blue eyes. She tilted her face up the four inches to his as if she was considering how to handle a man of his size—should she have to remove him from the area. Dawn softened her strong, slant ing cheekbones, and a silky strand of black hair swept across her pale, angular jaw. She swept it away impatiently. Her generous mouth pressed into a firm line, and, in contraist, a shy dimple appeared on her left cheek. If Rio had been looking at her as an interesting woman, instead of as an obstacle, he might have appreciated the odd mix of angles and softness in her face—the slight slant to her eyes, the gleaming sweep of high cheekbones.

Paloma jammed her worn truckers’ boot on the first step into the bus, which was filled with elderly ladies, all excited about a two-day bingo trip to another state. Their driver wasn’t wasting time talking to Rio. “This is a nonstop trip—down, then back. No hotel or sleeping arrangements, If you want to talk with me, you’ll have to get on the bus, Blaylock. Otherwise, step back”

Rio wasn’t stepping back. He’d just dug two spoiled teenagers riding on snowmobiles from a Wyoming snow avalanche, saving their lives. Once he’d decided to take a course, little stopped him. His brother Roman, executor of Boone’s estate, had pinpointed Paloma’s whereabouts. Lou, her booking agent, had said she was performing at a senior citizens’ get-together the night before driving the bingo bus. Without sleep, Rio had driven his pickup tuck for eighteen hours through snow to catch her. He hadn’t wanted to risk coming by plane—with bad weather possibly grounding his flight, she could easily get away. Paloma wasn’t an easy woman to catch, always on the move. He had her now—not a mailbox or a message machine, but the woman, up-front and personal, and he wanted the full title to the feed store. He locked his boots to the pavement, legs braced, and pasted his best slow smile on his face. “We need to talk.”

Paloma Forbes’s cool sky-blue eyes ripped down Rio’s body with an “I know exactly what you are clear through, mister, and I don’t like you a bit” look. The impact sent an unexpected jolt down his body. There was just that 8ick of contempt that said she thought his tired look was from too many women and too many bars.

Rio inhaled in an effort to keep his smooth smile despite her unspoken taunt. He rolled his left shoulder, his taut body regretting the eighteen-hour drive from Jasmine, Wyoming, to the small town in Missouri. On the other hand, his nerves resented the woman who had not answered his letters, his calls.

Her impatient, darkening blue glance whipped at him again. “All aboard?”

With an expert athletic move, Paloma leaped onto the first step of the bus and slid into the driver’s seat. Her leather gloved hand rested on the door handle, ready to swing it shut. Her cool look said she’d rather he took his day-old beard and hiked back to Wyoming. The curve of her lips wasn’t sweet, rather suggesting a woman who knew when she had the upper hand. “Look. Make it easy on yourself and go home, okay? When I get time, I’ll review those letters. Wherever they are.”

Excitement from the elderly ladies filling the bus almost concealed the too-sweet “I’ve got you now, babe” tone of her_ voice. That purr rasped up the back of Rio’s neck and he swung up onto the bus’s steps.

“All I’d like to know is if you want to sell your half of the feed store. You’re not going to make this easy, are you?” he asked, resenting her smirk. She was enjoying his discomfort, forcing him to either ride the bus or let her escape; Rio didn’t like being pushed, or challenged, by a woman who obviously disliked him.

“You got it. Pm keeping my share. Get used to it. Take your seat.” With her waist-length hair in a single thick braid, her willowy body sheathed in a black sweater, long, tight jeans and truckers’ boots, Paloma Forbes did not in the least resemble a concert pianist.

“Fine.” Rio stepped up into the bus, ripped off his leather jacket and stuffed it in the overhead compartment He sprawled into the seat behind the driver.

In the bus’s rearview mirror, her glasses glinted at him. She looked down at the legs and boots he had just crossed on the floor beside her seat. Her mouth tightened as she sent out a boot to push his away. “Comfy?”

Rio really enjoyed that little edge to her voice that proved he’d gotten to her. The lady liked her space, and he wasn’t giving her peace until he got what he’d come for. He placed his hands behind his head, leaned back and smiled slowly into her mirror. “I’m ready whenever you are.”

The lady could drive. Paloma expertly wheeled the tour bus over the winding, hilly road and onto the interstate as morning slid through the tinted windows. The excited passengers chattered and sang and debated their favorite bingo games—Dot’s winning streak was unequaled and the last bingo caller, a youth of seventy-five, had a thing for Bev. Mavis needed to remember to turn up her hearing aid and Martha wasn’t happy about anything. Linda forgot her good luck set of dentures with the gold tooth, and Totie brought snore-quelling nose patches for everyone because she hated bus snorers.