“What do you want from me?”
Luke’s eyes gleamed. “Now there’s a question I don’t think I want to answer right here and now.”
The color rose in Charlotte’s face. “If you aren’t very careful, you’ll get caught in the cross fire.”
“Which one? The one between our families? Or the one between you and me?”
She couldn’t breathe. “There isn’t anything between you and me.”
He looked at her. Just looked at her. And made her heart stop with the expression in those brown eyes. “You may not be a thief--but you have turned into a charming little liar.” His fingers lightly brushed her cheek. “Strange. I thought I hated lady liars. But I don’t seem to mind at all when it’s you.”
Her lips felt full. He was going to kiss her. She wanted to feel his mouth on hers, wanted to feel his hands on her body.
Once she’d trusted him with her life. Could she still?
Dear Reader,
Whether or not it’s back to school--for you or the kids-Special Edition this month is the place to return to for romance!
Our THAT SPECIAL WOMAN!, Serena Fanon, is heading straight for a Montana wedding in Jackie Merritt’s Montana Passion, the second title in Jackie’s MADE IN MONTANA miniseries. But that’s not the only wedding this month—in Christine Flynn’s The Black Sheep’s Bride, another blushing bride joins the family in the latest installment of THE WHITAKER BRIDES. And three little matchmakers scheme to bring their unsuspecting parents back together again m Daddy of the House, book one of Diana Whitney’s new miniseries, PARENTHOOD.
This month, the special cross-line miniseries DADDY KNOWS LAST comes to Special Edition. In Married.. With Twins!, Jennifer Mikels tells the tale of a couple on the brink of a breakup—that is, until they become instant parents to two adorable girls. September brings two Silhouette authors to the Special Edition family for the first time. Shirley Larson’s A Cowboy Is Forever is a reunion ranch story not to be missed, and in Ingrid Weaver’s latest, The Wolf and the Woman’s Touch, a sexy loner agrees to help a woman find her missing niece—but only if she’ll give him one night of passion.
I hope you enjoy each and every story to come!
Sincerely,
Tara Gavin,
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 Ene, Ont. L2A 5X3
A Cowboy is Forever
Shirley Larson
This book is dedicated to Kara, my daughter and good friend who believes in rainbows, katydids and true love; to Ed and Dawn, the newest members of the Larson clan; to Margaret, who can say “I love you” just when it’s most needed; and to Pat—again.
Books by Shirley Larson
Silhouette Special Edition
A Cowboy Is Forever #1055
Silhouette Romance
A Slice of Paradise #369
Silhouette Desire
To Touch the Fire #131
SHIRLEY LARSON
was born on an Iowa farm on April Fools’ Day. Her first love was music; she sang in the chorus and played trumpet in the band.
Don Larson played tuba in that same organization. It was on a high school band trip that Shirley decided he’d be a good man to marry. But it wasn’t until Don returned from the army and Shirley earned a college degree in music education that they were wed. Don took a position with Eastman Kodak and, soon after, three children were born: Kris, Kara and Keith. Shirley worked in several positions before deciding that what she really wanted to do was to write a romance. Since then she’s published twenty-four books, including two historicals. She lives in the Finger Lakes area of New York, and directs a church choir and teaches voice and piano.
Chapter One
If there was a smaller, colder, more desolate town on the map than Two ‘Trees, Montana, Charlotte Malone couldn’t imagine where it was. Behind her, the Mission Mountains were frosted with snow, even though it was the twenty-sixth of May. The main street was like a wind tunnel, and the arctic breeze rattled a vacant store front window in a forlorn little tat-a-tat. Half the little businesses in town had been abandoned due to lack of interest, money, people, or all three, including a restaurant building Charlotte owned and neglected in favor of her ranch. Saying a prayerful thanks to a munificent heaven that there weren’t a lot of folks around to witness her lapse in successful ranching, Charlotte hustled along the deserted street, searching for her straying cow.
“Princess!”
No answer from the cow who would be a free spirit.
The wind reached greedy fingers into the hair Charlotte had tied too quickly and carelessly into a knot, liberating the black, silky strands and tossing them like froth around her head. She shivered and stuck her bare hands as far as they would go into the pockets of her dad’s old sheepskin coat. There was nothing like the feel of cold fingers curling into palms to remind a woman she was heading toward hypothermia. If she didn’t find Princess soon, Charlotte would freeze, and if that ornery cow was foraging in Sam Sandler’s trash cans again, the unforgiving owner of the Silver Branch Saloon might just “shoot that straying bovine relic on sight,” as he’d promised.
“Princess! Where are you?”
The cow her father, Sean Malone, had raised as a pet knew better than to bawl an answer when away without leave in enemy territory.
A setting sun flashed gold fire on the half block of empty store windows. Ever the optimist, Charlotte felt her spirits buoyed by that glint of gold. It was an omen. Just around the bend, something good awaited her. She’d find Princess. Henry Steadman would call off his suit. She’d find a million dollars lying in the street.
Well, one out of three wasn’t bad.
“Princess!”
At least Sam wasn’t out loading his gun. Charlotte could see him through the window of the bar, serving drinks to Mike Hallorhan and Harry Foote. Mike’s green two-ton Chevy pickup with glistening chrome and four antennas sat parked in front of the saloon, beside Harry’s big old black Lincoln. No sneaking around in this town; everybody knew everybody else’s car.
The distinctive growl of an expensive motor sounded out of place in the lonely chill of the late afternoon. A sleek sports car, black as the devil’s heart, rolled down the street. Here was a car she didn’t know, not in Two Trees, not in this life.
The car came closer, a low-slung silhouette against the orange-streaked sky. The headlights gleamed in the dusky light, popped up and out in that way that was supposed to be European and sexy. The fenders were one long black satiny curve, chrome discreetly and sparingly used. The car cut into a parking place on the opposite side of the street and stopped just short of the high curb, as if the driver had parked in Two Trees a thousand times. The motor died, and dust spiraled up and around the red taillights.
The door opened. The wind stopped and the sun stopped and the earth stopped.
The driver untangled himself from the torturous-looking seat and stood up on legs about as long as forever, dwarfing the car. She knew whose legs those were. She’d have known them if they came walking out of a spaceship.
The chills dancing up her spine doubled, trebled, then were suddenly vanquished by a blast furnace of heated excitement exploding inside her. She was taking a breath to give Luke Steadman a big old Montana hello when he turned his back to her and slammed the car door shut.
His casualness threw her off balance. She’d thought he’d recognize her as instantly as she did him. Obviously, he hadn’t.
Recently the town had come to life with incessant buzzing about Luke’s divorce. She hadn’t believed the rumors. No woman in her
right mind would let Luke go. When the gossip had flown a second time, about his dismissal from his father-in-law’s legal firm and his loss of his home, Charlotte couldn’t take any more. She’d told everyone who’d listen that it couldn’t possibly be true. Didn’t they all remember what a winner he was? Luke hadn’t changed, could never change. He’d always be Luke—honest, steadfast, and totally successful at everything he did.
Now he walked toward her, and she knew she’d been wrong and the townspeople right. The set of his mouth and jaw told Charlotte that Luke Steadman had taken a harder fall in New York City than the one in the Cheyenne rodeo ring that had left him with a broken left femur, tibia and elbow.
He hadn’t buttoned his coat, and the wind caught one side of the soft cream-colored suede. He didn’t seem to notice the blast of cold that must be slamming against his chest. He strolled toward her with a walk as smooth as silk. He was a good athlete, the town’s golden boy, the first quarterback to turn the hometown football team’s losing streak into a string of wins. He’d gone to Iowa University on a scholarship he didn’t need, graduated with honors from Harvard Law School, and married another law student who was beautiful, rich and smart. He’d had everything…till now.
The post office flag snapped and writhed, a sparrow started to sing and stopped abruptly. From the other side of the Silver Branch, Princess bawled. Charlotte didn’t, couldn’t, move.
He was all grace and manners, and that lean hand came up to whip off his hat the moment he saw her. There was a courtliness in his approach to her that was unmistakably Luke, but when the wind ruffled his hair, his face took on a kind of hard impatience that she’d never seen before. His eyes were the same beautiful dark brown, but there were fine lines of fatigue around them, as if he hadn’t had a good night’s sleep for a long while.
Not fair. Not fair to see Luke like this, to see his body resonating with a finely drawn tension he held under control with the practice of a soldier home from the wars.
“Hello,” he said. His voice was husky, more adult than she remembered it; deeper…harder.
“Hello yourself.” The throatiness in her own voice unnerved her.
“I…” He stopped speaking, his eyes wandering over her face. “Charlotte? I almost didn’t recognize you. You’ve changed. You look…older. Very much like your mother.”
Nothing she wanted to hear more than that she looked…older. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“That’s certainly the way I meant it. I…Looking at you makes me feel…so old. Older. Makes me feel much…older.”
“When you get to ‘ancient,’ you can stop.”
She smiled at him; she couldn’t help it. She hoped he’d smile back at her, but instead, he frowned and began to apologize.
“I’m sorry. That was most thoughtless of me.”
“You’re forgiven,” she said easily. “We’ll cut some slack in your rope, since you’re from out of town.”
He smiled. “Thank you very much.”
“You’re welcome very much.”
This woman he knew and yet didn’t know was studying him with blue eyes that looked like crystals lifted from a diamond-clear lake. He’d forgotten the intensity of country people, the instinctive determination to purloin every detail from the surrounding territory and the people in it. Once upon a time, his basic survival had depended on that ability. Now his own keen senses had been dulled by his time in the city. “Do you know if Ed still serves food till seven?”
At the moment, she wasn’t sure of her own name. Even big-city cynicism looked wonderful on Luke. He was dressed casually in that suede coat that whispered, “lots of money here,” and he wore a black knit shirt with a collar underneath it. No belt on his jeans. No, don’t look at his lean hips, his hard thighs. Nevermind. Behave yourself. “It’s not Ed anymore, it’s Sam. And yes, I think he might be able to conjure up a burger and fries for you.” Luke the lawyer wore brand-spanking-new big-city boots that had hardly been walked on, much less worked in, and it occurred to Charlotte that he probably only ate clams on the half shell these days. “If you want anything fancier, like good food and entertainment with your meal, you’ll have to drive to Whitefish.”
“A hamburger and fries sounds fine.”
In the little silence that followed, she swiped at her hair yet again, and felt the roughness of her work-familiar hands. She must look like a complete mess to him. “I’ll say bon appetit, then.”
“How very continental of you.” He lifted a brow, his wonderful mouth slanting in a faintly urbane smile. He thought she was trying to impress him. He should live so long.
“Oh, we’re very continental here. Now, if you’ll excuse me…”
“Wait. I didn’t mean…” Dammit, he’d hurt her. Incredible. He’d known her all his life, until he went away, and now he didn’t know how to talk to her. The child he remembered was there, lurking in that lovely mouth and those enticingly beautiful blue eyes, but there’d been too many late nights in the walnut offices of Goodman, Goodman and Harris, too many days of playing maneuver-and-thrust with his father-in-law, for Luke to recall how to handle straightforward honesty. “I didn’t realize I’d become such a condescending ass…”
“The things we learn about ourselves are the most valuable.”
“I thought I’d had a major education in my own asinine behavior just recently. I guess I need to finish the course. Maybe you could help me.” He smiled, and that smile was no less charming for being deliberate.
“You’ve never been an ass, Luke. You wouldn’t know how.”
She’d always been his staunchest defender. Odd, the feeling that gave him. “You’d be surprised what I know,” he murmured.
It was obvious to him she was that one-in-a-million person who had no taste for mucking about in his disastrous past. So there she stood, in her too-big jacket, looking self-conscious and adorable all at the same time, standing on those willowy legs and using one of those capable, long-fingered hands to push a floating streamer of that luxurious hair out of her eyes.
“You should wear a hat,” he said, and wondered where the words had come from. He’d thought he’d been thoroughly cured of feeling protective toward a woman.
“I ran out of the house before I had time to grab one. I wanted to find my cow before she got herself shot—by Sam. He’s threatened to. Shoot her, that is.”
“I see.” He didn’t want her to go. Amazing. He thought he’d given up the habit of wanting a woman’s company. “Your cow is here in town?”
“It’s her favorite place. Especially the garbage cans behind Sam’s saloon. She has—eclectic taste in forage.”
“I see,” he said again, thinking that he was enjoying himself a great deal, just listening to her, watching her. Now that he thought about it, he’d always liked listening to her and watching her, even when she was a kid.
“It’s hard to believe you’re all grown up, running your dad’s ranch.”
“It’s my ranch now.”
“I know.” He had that dark, watchful look in his eyes that made Charlotte feel uncomfortable, as if he could see straight through to her corpus callosum. He said, “I was…very sorry to hear about your folks.”
“Your wife sent a card. It was a very nice card. Expensive.” Hastily she added, “I thought it was considerate of her, since she really didn’t know me.”
“I should have written something on it.”
“It would have been nice to hear from you. But I knew you must be very busy.”
His face darkened. “Distracted might be more accurate. Will you forgive me for being so thoughtless?”
She gave him one of those straight, blue-eyed looks that made him realize she’d grown up to be every bit as beautiful as he’d predicted she would. “There’s nothing to forgive. Really.”
“We’ll be friends again,” he said, taking his glove off and sticking out his hand, smiling at her with disarming frankness.
She looked down at his hand and then up i
nto his face. A mixture of emotions softened her mobile mouth, gleamed in her eyes, but he couldn’t read them. Regret, almost. Friendliness. Not anger. He was thankful she wasn’t angry. He’d had enough anger to last him a lifetime.
Luke looked so vulnerable, standing there with his hand out and that careful smile on his face. She couldn’t care about the pain he’d suffered, the mistakes he’d made. They weren’t kids anymore. She had to be cool, reasonable, calm, and treat him like the stranger he was.
“Oh, Luke,” she said softly, and stepped straight into his arms to give him a quick hug that shocked them both. “I’m so sorry you’ve come home like this…but I’m so glad to see you.”
She felt him tense. She’d made a mistake. He didn’t move away from her touch, but in that split second, she saw that he’d grown accustomed to having women come on to him, and even more accustomed to putting them off.
She withdrew instantly, a mixture of emotions tumbling through her—regret over her impulsiveness, and something almost like grief. So much lost. “I’m sorry. I—thought…I’m sorry.”
For Luke, the sense of loss was palpable. He’d been surprised by her embrace and he’d thought no one could surprise him in this world, ever again. His guard had come up automatically, and before he could relax and raise his arms to catch her close, she had slipped away.
Her coat was redolent of all the old familiar scents of home, alfalfa hay, good leather saddles, horses and mountain air. Somewhere deep inside his soul, an emotion stirred that he’d thought was completely dead. An aching longing for something he’d never get back again. “I…just…I keep seeing you as a little kid. It’s hard to believe you’re…a woman.”
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