Wes Stryker's Wrangled Wife

Jayne was perfect for him. Letter to Reader Title Page Dedication SANDRA STEFFEN Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Copyright

Jayne was perfect for him.

She could match his wit, and give snide comment for snide comment. She could kiss like a dream. Hell, she could even swear. There was only one little problem. She wasn’t ready for children.

And Wes Stryker had just petitioned for custody of not one, but two.

Thank goodness he hadn’t already fallen in love with her, he told himself. He just had to put her out of his mind.

He’d put women out of his mind before. He could do it again.

By the time he’d pulled his truck between the fence posts lining his driveway, he’d decided it was a good thing he’d discovered this now. A good thing, hell. If it was so good, why did he feel like starting a fight? And why could he still smell the heady scent of her perfume?

Dear Reader,

This April, Silhouette Romance showers you with six spectacular stories from six splendid authors! First, our exciting LOVING THE BOSS miniseries continues as rising star Robin Wells tells the tale of a demure accountant who turns daring to land her boss—and become mummy to The Executive’s Baby.

Prince Charming’s Return signals Myma Mackenzie’s return to Silhouette Romance. In this modem-day fairy-tale romance, wealthy FABULOUS FATHER Gray Alexander discovers he has a son, but the proud mother of his child refuses marriage—unless love enters the equation.... Sandra Steffen’s BACHELOR GULCH miniseries is back with Wes Stryker’s Wrangled Wife! In this spirited story, a pretty stranger just passing through town can’t resist a sexy cowboy struggling to raise two orphaned tykes.

Cara Colter revisits the lineup with Truly Daddy. an emotional, heartwarming novel about a man who learns what it takes to be a father—and a husband—through the transforming love of a younger woman. When A Cowboy Comes a Courting in Christine Scott’s contribution to HE’S MY HERO!, the virginal heroine who’d sworn off sexy, stubborn, Stetson-wearing rodeo stars suddenly finds herself falling hopelessly in love. And FAMILY MATTERS showcases Patti Standard’s newest novel in which a man with a knack for fixing things sets out to make a struggling single mom and her teenage daughter His Perfect Family.

As always, I hope you enjoy this month’s offerings, and the wonderful ones still to come!

Happy reading!

Mary-Theresa Hussey

Senior Editor, Silhouette Romance

Please address questions and book requests to:

Silhouette Reader Service

U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269

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For Sally Bulgarelli:

You give great advice. Better yet, you listen (sometimes)

to my great advice. We laugh at the same jokes, cry at

the same injustices and know what’s important. Were we

sisters in another lifetime? Maybe. Friends in this one?

Certainly. I’m so glad.

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 awardwinning, bestselling author believes every character is a challenge, she has the most fun with the men she creates, whether they’re doctors or cowboys, toddlers or teenagers. 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 in a family of ambitious and opinionated people, she developed a keen appreciation for laughter and argument, for stubborn people with hearts of gold and intelligent people who aren’t afraid of other intelligent people. 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

Wes Stryker spread the crinkled sheet of paper out on the small table in front of him. The words, written in fountainpen ink in an old woman’s shaky scrawl, swirled before his eyes. He blinked to bring them into focus, although he knew them by heart. Annabell wanted him to take the kids. Kate and Dusty’s kids. The thought of Kate and Dusty, and the accident that had taken their lives, sent a stabbing pain all the way through him.

The blinking lights on the Christmas tree in the corner reflected off his glass of beer. Very festive. Ho. Ho. Ho. Wes folded the letter and very carefully slid it into his pocket. Now and then one or two of the local ranchers who were huddled in the bar made an attempt at small talk, and every five minutes Forest Wilkie deposited more coins in the jukebox. Wes wondered how many times he’d heard Elvis Presley’s rendition of “Blue Christmas” tonight. Five? Six? It didn’t matter, because he was pretty sure that if he heard it one more time, he was going to have to hit somebody.

“Slow night,” Butch Brunner mumbled from a table nearby.

Wes acknowledged the statement, but he didn’t look up from the beer in front of him. It was a slow night, all right. Christmas Eve. The longest, slowest, dreariest night of the year.

“Snow’s really coming down out there.”

Wes cast a cursory glance out the window. “Yeah.”

“You doin’ anything tomorrow?”

“Nope. You?”

“Nope.”

Silence. Ah, blessed silence. Unfortunately, it only lasted until Forest deposited more coins.

“For cryin’ out loud,” one of the other area ranchers grumbled. “Can’t you play anything else?”

Ignoring the criticism, Forest settled himself back at his table. Wes continued staring into his beer, wondering what a down-on-his-luck ex-rodeo champion with a bum knee could offer his dead best friends’ kids. Children, especially orphaned children, needed a woman’s touch, didn’t they? He could think of at least one down-on-his-luck ex-rodeo champion who could have used the same thing.

All in all, he figured he’d done a halfway decent job reminding himself that life wasn’t so bad. So what if the woman he’d set his sights on had just married somebody else? He liked Louetta Graham. He’d even go so far as to say he liked her a lot, but he hadn’t been in love with her. Good ol’ Louetta. had known it and had proceeded to let him down in a manner that had left his pride intact. And so what if his rodeo days were over? He’d given bronco riding everything he had. The last couple of years, that had become harder and harder to do. Wes knew timing was everything—it was one of the reasons he’d taken so many trophies over the years. And it had been time to get out. Start over. Come home.

That was what he’d done.

It wasn’t as if he didn’t have anything to come home to. He had the ranch, such as it was. Aside from stiff joints and a limp that probably wouldn’t be getting a whole lot better, he had his health. He supposed he might as well be thankful that he had the town of Jasper Gulch to come back to, not to mention the Crazy Horse Saloon where he could nurse a beer along with a handful of other men who had no better place to be on Christmas Eve. Now, if Forest would stop playing that danged song, they all might make it through the long, gloomy night.

With that in mind, Wes picked up his beer and downed a good portion of it. Wiping his mouth on the back of his hand, he realized that what he needed was some excitement. A barroom brawl or a warm, willing woman. An intense game of poker or a warm, willing woman. Unfortunately, women were hard to come by in Jasper Gulch, South Dakota. Since the men weren’t in the mood to play poker, and the fact that Forest had played “Blue Christmas” seven—good grief, make that eight—times in a row wasn’t really a good enough reason to start a barroom brawl, Wes placed his glass on the table and continued to stare into what was left of his beer.

Suddenly the sleigh bells, hanging from the back of the door, jangled up a storm. It wasn’t surprising that every man in the room glanced up at the commotion, and it stood to reason that each and every one of those men would perk up considerably. After all, the person who’d entered was a woman, and a damned attractive one, at that. Wes, however, was the only man in the room who didn’t duck back behind the safety of his beer. He happened to think their reactions were mighty interesting, not to mention worthy of a little healthy speculation on his part. Evidently the area bachelors knew something he didn’t.

Mighty interesting, indeed.

Wes waited to rise to his feet until after the woman had read the card the bar’s owners had left on the counter, a card wishing everyone a merry Christmas and a drink or two if they wanted to help themselves. Hooking his fingers loosely over the top of his glass, he moseyed a little closer, reaching the row of bar stools about the same time the woman carried a long-necked brown bottle to the counter and started to wiggle out of her coat.

Holy-moly. Now there was a sight for sore eyes, not to mention a sure cure for boredom. And this was a lot better than a game of poker or a barroom brawl.

He’d seen women in leather coats and suede coats with fringe. He’d seen them in plastic rain slickers and wool and fleece and down-filled jackets. Once he’d even kissed a woman who-was wearing mink from head to toe, but he’d never seen a coat quite like the one sliding from this woman’s shoulders. He couldn’t tell what it was made of. This close, he only knew it was fuzzy looking and had what appeared to be red and purple reindeer, some upside down, some right side up, prancing across it.

She hooked a foot on the bottom rung of the bar stool closest to her and hoisted herself onto the seat. Like a man in a trance, Wes watched as she made herself comfortable. He had a hazy impression of long legs encased in dark brown jeans, ankle-high boots, slight hips and round breasts, recently chilled. In his younger days, Wes would have been tempted to chew on his fist. At thirty-five, he realized there was more to a woman than a good body. It just so happened that once a man got past this particular woman’s truly amazing body, he could spend an equal amount of time on her face, which was exactly what he was doing when he found himself looking into electric blue eyes that were looking right back at him.

Coming to his senses enough to realize that it wasn’t polite to stare, and because he still considered himself a gentleman, no matter where his gaze had gotten stuck and his thoughts had wandered, he removed his cowboy hat with his left hand and said, “Evening, ma’am.”

The only indication she gave that she’d heard him was a slight lift of one perfectly arched black eyebrow. Since it was all the encouragement he needed, what with the way the blood was zinging through his body, he sidled a little closer. “Mind if I sit down?”

She took her time looking him up and down. Seemingly altogether unfazed by his rapt attention, she raised the beer bottle halfway to her lips. “On one condition,” she said, holding the bottle in midair.

Wes hitched his weight to one foot and settled his hand, hat and all, to one hip. He waited as long as he could and finally said, “You care to name your condition, or do you want me to guess?”

She eyed the tilt of his head and the half-empty glass held loosely in his right hand, only to catch him red-handed, or red-eyed, or whatever a woman called it when she caught a man peering below her shoulders. Shoot. He wouldn’t blame her if she gave him the boot. “Sorry, ma’am. I don’t mean to stare. It’s just that I don’t believe I’ve ever laid eyes on a woman as exotic looking as you.”

She appeared totally unaffected by the compliment Worse, she looked bored, but she did finally say, “Take a picture. It’ll last longer. For the record, in order for me to be exotic looking, my eyes would have to be green, not blue.”

Wes disagreed, but was too intrigued to argue. “About that condition you mentioned.”

With a shudder, she motioned toward the jukebox. “If you’d ask that man in the brown cowboy hat to play something other than ‘Blue Christmas,’ you’d be doing me a huge favor. I mean, isn’t Christmas depressing enough?”

Wes felt a hundred-watt grin coming on. A woman after his own heart. Placing his beer and cowboy hat in the empty space next to her, he turned on his heel and dug deep into his pockets for change.

Jayne Kincaid lowered her beer to the counter, untouched. She didn’t mind the curiosity coursing through her, but she had a far-too-difficult time dragging her eyes away from the seat of the cowboy’s pants. Rats. Her peace of mind was in serious trouble. The man would have been on the tall side even without the scuffed heels of his worn cowboy boots. He was wearing a plain green shirt, the cuffs rolled up, the collar open. Like most of the other men she’d met out here, he wore very little in the way of adornment. No gold chains, certainly no earrings. This cowboy didn’t even sport the usual eighteen-pound belt buckle. His belt was plain brown leather, and held up a pair of low-slung blue jeans. At least they’d probably been blue once. Now they were faded, the knees and fly nearly white. For heaven’s sake. What was she doing looking at his fly?

Until she’d arrived in this godforsaken town, where her brother had chosen to set up his new medical practice, she hadn’t given much thought to cowboy brawn. But she couldn’t help wondering where this particular cowboy had gotten the little hitch in his stride. Not that she was interested. Oh, no. She didn’t care if his hair did have at least four shades of brown, every one lighter than the last, or that his voice held just enough Western drawl to be interesting. She’d sworn off men for good this time, and from the looks of things, in the nick of time.

She forced her eyes away about the same time coins jangled into the jukebox. Within seconds the twangiest country-western song she’d ever heard wafted through the air.

“Better?” he asked, joining her at the bar.

“Whoever that musician is, I’m a huge fan.”

He slid onto the stool with the ease of a man who was accustomed to spending time in bars. “This guy’s been dead for twenty years, but I’m a fan of the yodel, myself. You really are a woman after my own heart.”

Through the mirror behind the bar, she assessed the other patrons sitting at various tables throughout the room. It didn’t take long to size them up as lonely hearts, not troublemakers. The man sitting next to her wasn’t quite so easy to categorize. She lifted the bottle to her mouth and took a small swallow. Licking the taste of foam and barley from her lips, she said, “I’m not after your heart, cowboy. I’m not after anything, not from you, not from anyone.”

Wes took a moment to digest the information, then slowly extended his right hand. “You can call me cowboy if you want to, but my name’s Wes Stryker.”

“I know.”

“You know?”

She took another drink, shrugged. “Cletus McCully pointed you out to me at Burke and Louetta’s wedding earlier. You owe the man a dollar for all the praises he sang. Unfortunately he wasted his breath. Oh, my name’s Jayne Kincaid.”

“I know.”

She watched him closely, then slowly shook her head. “Cletus McCully?”

Wes rested his forearms along the bar’s smooth surface, swirling the beer in his glass while thoughts swirled in his head. Leaning closer, he whispered, “It seems he sang a few of your praises to me, too. He mentioned that you like men with blue eyes. Forgive me for pointing out the obvious, but mine are blue.”

Jayne would have liked to be able to dismiss the whole topic with a quick, unaffected glance at his face. But his wasn’t the kind of face that allowed easy dismissals or quick glances. His four-shades-of-brown hair was brushed straight back. There were two long lines in his forehead, from concentrating or scowling, she couldn’t tell. His eyebrows were thick and had been bleached nearly blond. And he was right. His eyes were blue, and it just so happened that they were the kind of eyes a woman could lose herself in if she wasn’t careful. From now on Jayne planned to be very careful.

“Look,” she said. “You seem like a nice enough guy, but you’re wasting your time. I was partial to blue eyes . once. My ex-husband has blue eyes.”

Jayne watched for a sign that he’d accepted the fact that she just plain wasn’t interested. He appeared to be studying the warm beer in his glass. After a long stretch of silence, he cupped his chin in his hand and turned to look at her. Touching his glass to her bottle of beer, he said, “To blue eyes, yours and mine, and to Christmas Eve.”

“Christmas Eve,” she said with a shudder. “The longest night of the year.”

Wes saw a spark of some indefinable emotion in Jayne’s eyes. It hinted of battle scars and kindred spirits, and it made him even more curious. “You don’t have much in the way of family, either?” he asked. Why else would she be spending Christmas Eve in a hole-in-the-wall bar with a garish Christmas tree in one corner and a mechanical bull strung with white lights in another?

To his surprise she said, “Oh, I have tons of family. Besides my brother, Burke, and my brand-new sister-in-law, Louetta, and little Alex, I have one half brother, two half sisters, oodles of stepbrothers and stepsisters, two parents, several sets of stepparents, one—” she cocked her head at him “—blue-eyed ex-husband and a partridge in a pear tree.”

She lifted her beer to her lips again, shrugging as if her brand of humor wasn’t unusual. In actuality, there was nothing ordinary about her. Her hair looked thick, the tendrils surrounding her face blunt-edged, the rest unruly. The style shouldn’t have looked so damned pretty, when pretty was the last word he would use to describe her Exotic, gorgeous, sexy. Now those were words that were synonymous with Jayne Kincaid. He noticed that her hands were soft and smooth looking, and he wondered what she did for a living. She knew her way around a bar, but she was no barfly. And no matter how much family she claimed to have, she didn’t have any better place to be on Christmas Eve than he did.

“Do you want to get out of here?” he said. “Maybe go for a drive?”

Or back to my place? went unsaid between them.

Jayne came out of her double take shaking her head. She was thirty-two years old, and she’d been away from the game for a long time. She was rusty, and she planned to stay that way. “Look,” she said, “I don’t mean to sound cold or impersonal, but I’m not looking for a relationship. I’m not even looking for a fling. I’m finished with men.”

“You’re going to let one loser taint your view of all men?” he asked.

“First of all, my husband wasn’t a loser. And secondly, my view of men isn’t tainted.” Jayne nearly bristled. She hadn’t meant to sound as if she wasn’t completely over Sherman. Maybe she wasn’t, but she didn’t want anybody’s pity.

“Then you don’t really dislike us?” he asked with a half smile.

Good grief. She couldn’t believe she was having this conversation. All she’d wanted to do was get out of the house for a little while. Oh, Burke and Louetta. had both assured her that she was welcome to spend the evening with them, but this was their wedding night, and there were just some things that sisters, particularly newly divorced sisters, were better off not witnessing or hearing or imagining.

“Look,” she futally said, “I dislike a few, but no, I don’t dislike all men. I’m just not going to get attached to any more of you, that’s all.”

“You’re not?”

“No, I’m not.” Raising one hand, she began listing on her fingers all the benefits to remaining single. “No more wondering if a man is really attending a business meeting at 1:00 a.m. No more picking up heavy suits from the dry cleaners. No more rushing home from work to spend time with a man who’s made other plans for the evening. No more trying to appease an unappeasable man, or understand an irrational one, or try to plan a meal around a picky man’s tastes. I can eat chicken seven days a week if I want to. I can sleep in the middle of the bed, and there are no whiskers in my sinks. I don’t need a man to define me, and I can open my own jars, thank you very much. And perhaps best of all, the toilet seats are always down.”

Jayne almost felt smug. Festive, that’s what she felt. Buoyant. She’d never put it into words before, and it sounded good. It felt good. She truly didn’t dislike men. At least not most of them. She loved her brother, her half brother and stepbrothers and nephew, and her father, and stepfathers, although she had issues with a few of them. Men had interesting voices and broad shoulders and comical habits. But she didn’t need a man to define her. She didn’t need a man for anything.

“Jayne?”

She turned her head at the sound of her name. While she’d been lost in thought, Wes had inched closer. She could see the tiny lines feathering his eyes, the crease lining one lean cheek, the light brown whisker stubble on his cheeks and jaw. His eyes held her spellbound, his gaze dipping to her mouth and back again as he said, “What about sex?”

The song on the jukebox ended, causing the entire room to become so quiet a person could have heard a pin drop. All Jayne could hear was the pounding in her ears, and the catch in her voice as she asked, “What about it?”

He leaned in, slow and easy. “Are you planning to do without that for the rest of your life, too?”

The deep timbre of his voice reminded her of a guitar string stretched tight and slowly strummed. She had no doubt the man could sweet-talk with the best of them. She should know. She’d been sweet-talked by pros. She’d also been lied to and cheated on and tossed aside, and not only by her ex-husband.

In the background, coins jangled into the jukebox. Within seconds the first strains of “Blue Christmas” started all over again.

She could feel Wes Stryker’s eyes on her. She knew she could have said something blunt and sassy to put him in his place, but for some reason she didn’t. It was his eyes. The rest of him exuded smugness, but those blue eyes of his were tinged with sadness. The man had troubles, and she didn’t see any reason to add to them. She picked up the bottle in front of her and took a hardy swallow.

“Well?” he prodded.

“Sex,” she said, reaching for her coat and sliding off the stool, “is highly overrated.”

She held up her hand, anticipating his protest. “Trust me on this, Wes. Or simply agree that we disagree. Oh, and merry Christmas.” Without another word she walked to the door, gave it a yank and strode out into the cold.

The room remained quiet until the last bell hanging on the hook on the back of the door had stopped jingling. And then it seemed that every spectator had something to say.

“Oooo-eee,” Butch Brunner exclaimed. “That woman’s definitely an eyeful.”

“She is that,” Forest agreed. “But she’ll give you an earful without even trying.”

“Why,” one of the other men said, “she practically singed the hair in the ears of every man in the diner the first time she set foot in the place.”