Tonight He’d Met The Most Beautiful Woman He’d Ever Seen In His Life.
A woman who looked totally out of place in Gamble, Wyoming. A woman whose voice alone could stir something deep inside of him.
A woman who was already taken.
There was no denying he was attracted to her, but wanting her was taboo. So why was he thinking about her even now? And why in the hell was he so eager to see her again tomorrow?
Dear Reader,
When I introduced the Westmorelands with Delaney’s story almost eight years ago, I never thought that it would go beyond the twelve stories that included Delaney and her eleven siblings and cousins. Then I introduced Uncle Corey and had to acquaint him with the triplets he never knew existed. Twelve books then became fifteen books.
And no, I’m not finished yet!
Meet the Westmorelands of Denver, Colorado, who are long-lost cousins to our Atlanta group. The men are just as hot and the women are just as stubborn. They are Westmorelands through and through, and I hope you have fun reading their stories and watching how they find true and everlasting love.
The oldest of the Denver clan is Dillon, a man who has tried marriage before, discovered it wasn’t for him and has no intentions of trying it again. At least that was his intent before he met Pamela Novak. He finds staying a bachelor is no longer an option, but he’s faced with numerous challenges before he can make her his. But this Denver Westmoreland won’t let anything stand in his way—not even Pamela’s fiancé.
Thank you for making the Westmorelands a very special family and I look forward to bringing you more books of searing desire and endless love and passion.
Happy reading!
Brenda Jackson
BRENDA JACKSON
WESTMORELAND’S WAY
To my husband, the love of my life
and my best friend, Gerald Jackson, Sr.
To everyone who enjoys reading a Brenda Jackson novel,
this one is for you!
Ponder the path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be established.
—Proverbs 4:26
Books by Brenda Jackson
Silhouette Desire
* Delaney’s Desert Sheikh #1473
* A Little Dare #1533
* Thorn’s Challenge #1552
Scandal Between the Sheets #1573
* Stone Cold Surrender #1601
* Riding the Storm #1625
* Jared’s Counterfeit Fiancée #1654
Strictly Confidential Attraction #1677
* The Chase Is On #1690
Taking Care of Business #1705
* The Durango Affair #1727
* Ian’s Ultimate Gamble #1756
* Seduction, Westmoreland Style #1778
Stranded with the Tempting Stranger #1825
* Spencer’s Forbidden Passion #1838
* Taming Clint Westmoreland #1850
* Cole’s Red-Hot Pursuit #1874
* Quade’s Babies #1911
* Tall, Dark…Westmoreland! #1928
One Night with the Wealthy Rancher #1958
* Westmoreland’s Way #1975
Kimani Romance
Solid Soul #1
Night Heat #9
Risky Pleasures #37
In Bed with the Boss #53
Irresistible Forces #89
Just Deserts #97
The Object of His Protection #113
Temperatures Rising #137
Intimate Seduction #145
Kimani Arabesque
Tonight and Forever
A Valentine’s Kiss
Whispered Promises
Eternally Yours
One Special Moment
Fire and Desire
Something to Celebrate
Secret Love
True Love
Surrender
BRENDA JACKSON
is a die “heart” romantic who married her childhood sweetheart and still proudly wears the “going steady” ring he gave her when she was fifteen. Because she’s always believed in the power of love, Brenda’s stories all have happy endings. In her real-life love story, Brenda and her husband of thirty-six years live in Jacksonville, Florida, and have two sons.
A New York Times bestselling author of more than fifty romance titles, Brenda is a recent retiree who worked thirty-seven years in management at a major insurance company. She divides her time between family, writing and traveling with Gerald. You may write Brenda at P.O. Box 28267, Jacksonville, Florida 32226, by e-mail at [email protected] or visit her Web site at www.brendajackson.net.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Epilogue
Prologue
“I know how much finding out everything there is about your grandfather means to you, and I wish you the best in that endeavor. If you ever need anything, you, your brothers and cousins should know that the Atlanta Westmorelands are here. Call on us at any time.”
Dillon Westmoreland drained his wineglass before meeting the older man’s eyes. He’d only met James Westmoreland eleven months ago. He had arrived in Denver, Colorado, with his sons and nephews, claiming to be his kin. They’d had the documentation to prove it.
“Thank you, sir,” Dillon said. Their unexpected appearance at the Shady Tree Ranch had answered a lot of questions, but generated even more. After years of thinking they had no living relatives outside of Denver, it was nice to know there were others—others who hadn’t hesitated to claim them as their own.
Dillon glanced around the wedding reception given for his cousin Reggie and Reggie’s wife, Olivia. Dillon and the other Denver Westmorelands had officially met Reggie with a bunch of other Westmorelands from Atlanta at the family reunion a few months before. All it took was one look to know they were related. Their facial features, complexions and builds were practically the same. No surprise, given the fact their great-grandfathers, Reginald and Raphel, had been identical twins.
Dillon now knew the story of how his great-grandfather, Raphel Westmoreland, had split from the family at the age of twenty-two. He’d left Atlanta, Georgia, with the wife of the town’s preacher. It had been considered a despicable act and Raphel had immediately become known as the black sheep in the Westmoreland family, never to be heard from again.
Many assumed he had died before his twenty-fifth birthday with a bounty on his head for wife-stealing. Few knew that Raphel had eventually made it to Denver, married and produced a son who had given him two grandsons, who in turn had blessed him with fifteen great-grands. Dillon was proud to say, at thirty-six, he was the oldest of Raphel’s great-grandchildren. That left the Denver Westmoreland’s legacy right smack on Dillon’s shoulders.
It hadn’t been easy, but he had done his best to lead his family. And he hadn’t done too badly. All fifteen of them were successful in their own right, even the three that were still in college. But then you had to really try hard to overlook his youngest brother, Bane, whose occasional brush with the law kept Dillon down at police headquarters more than he would have liked.
“Are you still determined to find out the truth about whatever happened to your great-grandfather’s other wives, or whether his previous relationships were even wives at all?” James Westmoreland asked him.
“Yes, sir. I’m taking time off from my company later this year, sometime in November, to travel to Wyoming,” Dillon said.
Through James Westmoreland’s genealogy research he had found D
illon’s family. Now it was up to the Denver Westmorelands to find answers to the questions that still plagued them about their ancestry. That was one of the reasons why the trip to Wyoming was so important to him.
“Okay, Dillon, Uncle James has had your ear long enough.”
Dillon couldn’t help but chuckle when his cousin Dare Westmoreland walked up. If there had been a doubt in anyone’s mind that the Atlanta and Denver Westmorelands were related, all they had to do was to compare him to Dare. Their features were so similar they could have been born brothers instead of cousins.
“I don’t mind,” he said truthfully. “I’m enjoying myself.”
“Well, don’t have too much fun,” Dare responded with a huge grin. “As soon as Reggie and Olivia leave for their honeymoon, we’re heading over to Chase’s Place for a game of poker.”
Dillon raised a brow. “The last time I played poker with you all, I almost lost the shirt off my back,” he said, unable to suppress a grin.
Dare gave him a huge pat on that back. “All I can say to that, Dillon, is welcome to the family.”
One
“H ave you totally lost your mind, Pam? No matter what you say, we can’t let you do it. You’ve given up so much for us already. We just can’t.”
Pamela Novak smiled as she glanced over her shoulder and saw the three militant faces frowning at her and quickly decided it would be best to give them her full attention. Drying her hands on a towel she turned away from the sink to face them.
She wondered what it would take to make her sisters see reason and understand that she had to do what she had to do. Not just for her own benefit but mainly for theirs. Fletcher was pushing for a Christmas wedding and here it was the first week in November already. So far they hadn’t set a date, but he would bring it up every time she saw him. He’d let it be known that he didn’t want a long engagement and, considering everything, a long engagement wouldn’t be in her best interest, either.
She nibbled on her bottom lip, trying to come up with a quick yet effective strategy. If she could convince her sister Jillian of the importance of what she had to do, then Paige and Nadia would quickly come on board. But convincing Jillian was the big challenge. Jill didn’t like Fletcher.
“And what makes you think it’s something I’m being forced to do, rather than something I want to do?” Pamela finally decided to ask the three of them.
Of course, it was Jillian who stepped out to speak. Jill, as she was called by most people in Gamble, Wyoming, at seventeen was a senior in high school and was a spitfire. She was also smart as a whip. It was Pam’s most fervent desire for Jill to leave Gamble next fall to attend the University of Wyoming in Laramie and pursue her dream of one day becoming a neurosurgeon.
And Paige, fifteen, and Nadia, thirteen, would soon be ready to pursue their aspirations. Pam wanted to make sure that funds were available for college when that time came. She also wanted to make sure that if her sisters wanted to return to Gamble, they would still have a home here. Pam felt certain that accepting Fletcher’s marriage proposal made those things possible.
“You’re sacrificing your happiness, Pam. We aren’t stupid. What woman in her right mind would want to marry a jerk like Fletcher Mallard?” Jill boldly said.
Pam had to fight to keep a straight face when she said, “He is not a jerk. In fact, Fletcher is a nice man.”
“When he’s not being obnoxious and arrogant, which is most of the time. Already he thinks he can run things around here. We’ve been doing just fine without him,” was Jill’s bitter response.
Jill took a quick breather and then went on to say, “We don’t care if we lose this house and it wouldn’t bother us in the least if we don’t get a college education. We refuse to let you marry the likes of that man to protect what you see as our bright futures. Speaking of futures, you should be back in California working on a real movie instead of spending your time teaching students at the acting school. You got a degree in drama, Pam. Being an actress has always been your dream. Your passion. You shouldn’t have given it up for us.”
Pam inhaled deeply. She had been through all of this before with her sisters. The problem was that they knew too much about the situation, something she wished hadn’t happened. Unfortunately for her, they had been home that day when Lester Gadling, her father’s attorney, had dropped by to deliver the bad news and they had overheard Lester’s words.
“But I’m not in California. I’m perfectly satisfied being here in Gamble and running the acting school, giving others the same opportunity that was given to me,” she countered.
She paused for a second and then said, “Listen, ladies, I’ve made these decisions because I love you.”
“And we love you, too, Pammie,” Nadia replied. “But we can’t let you give up the chance to one day meet a really nice guy and—”
“Fletcher is a nice guy,” she interjected. However, all she received for her effort were three pairs of rolling eyes.
“No, he’s not,” Paige spoke up to say. “I was in the bank one day when he went off on one of the tellers for making him wait in line for so long. He thinks he’s all that, just because he owns a chain of grocery stores.”
“Okay, you saw his bad side just that one time,” Pam said. “Deep down he’s a kind person. He’s willing to help us out, isn’t he?”
“Yes, but look what he’ll be getting. Our home and the most beautiful single woman in Gamble,” Jill pointed out.
“A single woman who isn’t getting any younger and who will be turning thirty in a few months. Don’t you think it’s time I get married?”
“Yes, but not to him,” Jill implored. “Anyone but him.”
Pam glanced at the kitchen clock that hung on the wall. Fletcher was coming to dinner and would be arriving any minute, and she needed to make sure her sisters put this behind them. They had to accept that she was now an engaged woman and move on.
She of all people knew that Fletcher had his flaws and could be arrogant at times, but she could deal with that. What she refused to deal with was letting her sisters lose the only home they knew and a chance to fulfill their dreams by attending the colleges they desired.
She couldn’t help but wonder what her father had been thinking to put a second mortgage on their home—a mortgage for which the full balance was due within a year of his death. There was no way she could come up with a million dollars. Fletcher, in the role of a friend, had made her an offer that she couldn’t refuse. It would not be a love match, he was fully aware of that. She would, however, as agreed, perform her wifely duties. He wanted kids one day and so did she. And Pam was determined to make the most of their marriage and be a good wife to him.
“I want the three of you to make me a promise,” she finally said to her sisters.
“What kind of promise?” Jill asked, lifting a suspicious brow.
“I want you to promise me that you will do everything I ask regarding my engagement to Fletcher. That, you will make me, as your oldest sister, happy by supporting my marriage to him.”
“But will you be truly happy, Pammie?” Paige asked with an expression that said she really had to know.
No, she wouldn’t truly be happy, but her sisters didn’t have to know that, Pam thought. They must never know the extent of her sacrifice for them. With that resolve in mind, Pam lifted her chin, looked all three of them in the eyes and told a lie that she knew was going to be well worth it in the end.
“Yes,” she said, plastering a fake smile on her lips. “I will truly be happy. I want to marry Fletcher. Now, make me that promise.”
Jill, Paige and Nadia hesitated only for a moment and then said simultaneously, “We promise.”
“Good.”
When Pam turned back to the sink, the three girls looked at each other and smiled. Their fingers had been crossed behind their backs when they’d made their promise.
It was probably inconsiderate of him to show up without calling first, Dillon thought, as he turned into
the long driveway that was marked as the Novak Homestead.
He had arrived in Gamble, Wyoming, earlier that day, with his mission on his mind. What had happened to his great-grandfather’s other four wives, the ones he had before he married Dillon’s great-grandmother, Gemma? According to the genealogy research James Westmoreland had done, Gamble was the first place Raphel had settled in after leaving Atlanta, and a man by the name of Jay Novak had been his business partner in a dairy business.
Dillon would have called, but he couldn’t get a signal on his cell phone. Roy Davis, the man who owned the only hotel in Gamble, had explained that was because Gamble was in such a rural area, getting a good signal was almost impossible. Dillon had shaken his head. It was absurd that in this day and age there was a town in which you couldn’t get a decent cell signal when you needed it.
He had finally gotten a signal earlier to contact his secretary to check on things back at the office. Not surprisingly, everything was under control, since he had hired the right people to make sure his billion-dollar real estate firm continued to be a success whether or not he was there.
Dillon parked his car behind another car in the yard and glanced up at a huge Victorian house with a shingle roof. It was very similar in design to his home in Denver and he wondered if that was a coincidence.
According to what he’d heard, four sisters occupied the house and the oldest was named Pamela Novak. He understood Ms. Novak had had an up-and-coming acting career in California but had moved back to Gamble upon her father’s death. She was now operating the drama school a former teacher had recently willed to her.
When Dillon got out of the rental car he took time to stretch his legs. Like most Westmorelands he was tall, and because of his height he’d always enjoyed playing basketball. He’d been set to begin a career in the NBA when he’d gotten word of the plane crash that had claimed the lives of his parents and his aunt and uncle, leaving fourteen younger Westmorelands in his care.
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