From beloved author Sandra Chastain comes the story of an unconventional arrangement between a willfully independent rancher and the headstrong hired hand who shows her the pleasure of losing control.
With the breeding season on the horizon at Silverwild Ranch, Rusty Wilder is in a pickle. To be taken seriously in the business community she needs a husband. But what Rusty really wants is a man who can stand back while she runs Silverwild her way. But it turns out that the guy who answers Rusty’s Help Wanted ad is just too assertive, too untamed, and too handsome to keep from turning her entire life upsidedown.
Desperate to provide for his daughter as a single dad, Cade McCall ends up at Silverwild Ranch, where Rusty offers him a deal that seems too good to be true: a home and a job with “no experience necessary.” Cade soon realizes that “no experience necessary” means that Rusty will be calling all the shots. If Cade can check his pride, he may have just landed in paradise. But controlling his desire for the feisty green-eyed rancher will take all the strength he has in his broad shoulders and hungry heart.
Includes a special message from the editor, as well as excerpts from other Loveswept titles.
Release date:
September 9, 2013
Publisher:
Loveswept
Print pages:
192
* BingeBooks earns revenue from qualifying purchases as an Amazon Associate as well as from other retail partners.
Rusty Wilder peeled off her dusty black Stetson and slapped it against her thigh as she entered the Salt Lake City airport. Her nerves were tied in knots over the coming meeting with Cade McCall.
She was late. And she wasn’t at all certain that the choice she’d made had been wise. She’d had a number of replies to her advertisement. Many of the applicants were obviously not the caliber of man she was looking for. They were eliminated right away. Three possibles she’d turned over to a detective agency in Salt Lake City for investigation. Cade McCall, the man she was meeting, was the best of the respondents.
Rusty took a deep, ragged breath. She felt cold, even inside the heated airport. She knew the icy spot she felt in the pit of her stomach was from the nagging doubt that she might be making a mistake. She was about to take the biggest gamble of her life. From the outside, she appeared to be a tough, self-sufficient woman, but deep inside she was scared to death.
The only thing she was sure of was that it was March, the start of the breeding season on Silverwild Ranch, when a rancher counted the calves born during the past winter and made plans for the coming year.
By fall a new bull, imported from Africa, would be changing the future of her herd. And if today’s meeting went right, she would have a husband by her side, changing the future of Silverwild.
If Walt Wilder were alive, Rusty was certain that he’d disapprove of his daughter running an ad to find a man. But Rusty knew what she was doing. Oh, there’d been plenty of men willing to marry Walt Wilder’s daughter ten years ago, and even more now, eager to marry Ben Middleton’s widow.
But none of them met her criteria. Silverwild was hers, and she intended to run it her way, without interference from anyone—including a husband. Her father had told her often enough that she would never be a beauty queen but she could be the best rancher in the state. She’d believed him on both counts, even if he had doubted her in the end. Well, she’d show him. She’d show them all.
On his deathbed, Walt Wilder had asked for two promises from Rusty, his only child. The first was that she would marry his partner, Ben. The second, that she’d have children.
Rusty had tried to keep those promises. The marriage, however, had been a mistake. Ben tried to be a real husband to her, but he could never see her as a woman or grant her an equal voice in running Silverwild. To Ben, Rusty had always been Walt’s girl, practically his own. But the worst part for Rusty had been Ben’s limited imagination and his reluctance to take chances. Their eight-year marriage had left Silverwild stagnant and Rusty childless.
A husband like Cade McCall would solve both her problems, Rusty reasoned. He’d father her children and stand between her and the other ranchers who derided her unconventional ideas. Yet Cade McCall would be an employee, with no say in running the ranch.
Granted, McCall or one of the other candidates was being hired for more duties than the typical wrangler. But her business was breeding cattle, and she tried to think of the arrangement strictly in those terms. McCall was a man, of course, and not a prize bull. The end result, however, would be the same. And quickly, she hoped. At thirty-two, Rusty had started to think about her biological clock running out.
Could McCall turn her down? Maybe he’d take one look at her and run the other way. She’d neither sent a picture nor asked for one in return. She had meant to clean herself up for their first meeting, but tending a sick cow all morning had left her no time to change her clothes or wrestle with her hair. But perhaps it was better to meet him looking this way, leaving the man no illusions.
She knew by now that her looks didn’t exactly inspire male fantasies. She was too tall and too outspoken. Her red hair was wild, and her long, lean body not quite the softly curving female ideal men desired. Ben had been her only real lover. Then, after about a year of marriage, his heart trouble put an end to their infrequent sessions of lovemaking.
Rusty just didn’t know how to play man-woman games and didn’t intend to start learning now. McCall didn’t have to fall in love with her, she reasoned. He didn’t even have to like her. All he had to do was agree to her proposition. What red-blooded oil-field roustabout would pass up a chance to marry one of the wealthiest women in Utah and own twenty-five percent of the biggest cattle ranch in the state?
Not Cade McCall. She’d be willing to bet on it. His reply to her ad had been short and to the point. He needed a job and a home for the daughter he was raising on his own. Beyond that, Rusty knew only that he was thirty-seven years old and in good physical health. Raised in Tennessee, he had enlisted in the coast guard out of high school. He was stationed in South Carolina and Washington State. After the service, he worked his way to Alaska, ending up with a job on the pipeline.
He’d never been to Utah and knew nothing about ranching—a definite plus in Rusty’s book. His six-year-old daughter, Pixie, was also an unexpected bonus. Rusty was sure McCall would see that Silverwild was a wonderful place to raise a child.
Cade McCall would not turn her down. She would explain it all to him in just the right way. Even the part about giving her children. She would deal it straight to him. The winning cards were all in her hand, she reminded herself. She was the one in control here.
She swallowed hard and studied the few people milling around the airport waiting room. Where was he?
We hope you are enjoying the book so far. To continue reading...
Please log in to recommend or discuss...
