A Wedding for Maggie

by ALLISON LEIGH,

  “Are you running, Maggie Mae?” Daniel asked, blocking her.

  Letter to Reader

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Books by Allison Leigh

  About the Author

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Teaser chapter

  Copyright

  “Are you running, Maggie Mae?” Daniel asked, blocking her.

  “Don’t, Daniel.”

  “Don’t what?” His big hand cupped the back of her neck. Strong and so incredibly warm. Alive. “You remember the first time I called you that?” he murmured.

  “Daniel. Please.”

  She knew what was coming.

  “Stop,” she whispered.

  He paused, his jaw tight. “Really?”

  Maggie knew he would. That it would only take one word. Daniel Clay was an honorable man. If he weren’t, he would never have stopped at one kiss three years ago. He would have taken what she’d been so close to giving him. But he hadn’t.

  He’d left his home and family instead.

  An explosion of heat engulfed her. It had been so long, so very, very long since Maggie had felt a strong male body pressed against hers. “What are we doing?”

  His hands pulled her up hard and tight against him. “Finishing what we couldn’t before,” he finally gritted.

  Dear Reader,

  Special Edition is pleased to bring you six exciting love stones to help you celebrate spring...and blossoming love.

  To start off the month, don’t miss A Father for Her Baby by Celeste Hamilton—a THAT’S MY BABY! title that features a pregnant amnesiac who is reunited with her long-ago fiancé. Now she must uncover the past in order to have a future with this irresistible hero and her new baby.

  April offers Western romances aplenty! In the third installment of her action-packed HEARTS OF WYOMING series, Myrna Temte delivers Wrangler. A reticent lady wrangler has a mighty big secret, but sparks fly between her and the sexy lawman she’s been trying very hard to avoid, the fourth book in the series will be available in July. Next, Pamela Toth brings us another heartwarming story in her popular BUCKLES & BRONCOS miniseries. In Buchanan’s Pride, a feisty cowgirl rescues a stranded stranger—only to discover he’s the last man on earth she should let into her heart.

  There’s more love on the range coming your way. Finally His Bride by Christine Flynn—part of THE WHITAKER BRIDES series—is an emotional reunion romance between two former sweethearts Also the MEN OF THE DOUBLE-C RANCH series continues when a brooding Clay brother claims the woman he’s never stopped wanting in A Wedding For Maggie by Allison Leigh. Finally, debut author Carol Finch shares an engaging story about a fun-loving rodeo cowboy who woos a romance-resistant single mom in Not Just Another Cowboy.

  I hope you enjoy these stirring tales of passion, and each and every romance to come.

  Sincerely,

  Karen Taylor Richman

  Senior Editor

  Please address questions and book requests to:

  Silhouette Reader Service

  U.S.- 3010 Walden Ave., PO Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269

  Canadian. P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3

  ALLISON LEIGH

  A WEDDING FOR MAGGIE

  For Amanda and Anna Claire.

  I love you.

  Books by Allison Leigh

  Silhouette Special Edition

  *Stay... #1170

  *The Rancher and the Redhead #1212

  *A Weddrng for Maggie #1241

  * Men of the Double-C Ranch

  ALLISON LEIGH

  cannot remember a time when she was not reading something, whether cereal boxes or Hardy Boys mysteries. It seemed a natural progression that she put her own pencil to paper, and she started early by writing a Halloween play that her grade-school class performed for her school. Since then, though her tastes have changed, her love for reading has not. And her writing appetite simply grows more voracious by the day.

  Born in Southern California, she has lived in eight different cities in four different states. She has been, at one time or another, a cosmetologist, a computer programmer and an administrative assistant.

  Allison and her husband currently make their home in Arizona, where their time is thoroughly filled with two very active daughters, full-time jobs, pets, church, family and friends. In order to give herself the precious writing time she craves, she bums a lot of midnight oil.

  A great believer in the power of love—her parents still hold hands—she cannot imagine anything more exciting to write about than the miracle of two hearts coming together.

  Prologue

  It wasn’t easy for him to leave his home.

  The only way Daniel, managed it was to throw the essentials into a duffel, announce that he was going and walk out the door. No warning. No preparing anyone. He just did it. Given a chance, they’d try to talk him out of going. So he left the only way he knew.

  He’d hitched up the horse trailer and was loading Diablo when he saw Maggie.

  The setting sun behind her made her look like an angel. Then she took a step forward, leaving the golden-red aura behind as she entered the shadow cast by the big barn. “You’re really going, then.”

  Her voice, low and husky, caressed. Beckoned his thoughts down dangerous paths. He slammed down the latch on the trailer as surely as he slammed down a wall on impossible dreams. Diablo snorted and shifted inside. “I told you I would.” She was hugging herself, her slender palms smoothing over the arms of her ivory sweater. His eyes followed the movement

  “You shouldn’t—”

  “I have to.” He reached for his duffel and yanked open the pickup door, shoving the bag across the bench seat.

  “It’s your home,” she protested, following him to stand on the other side of the opened door. “I’ll—”

  They’d already had this argument The facts hadn’t changed. He cut her off. “You need it more than I do. You. The new baby—” His throat closed.

  Maggie made a soft, distressed sound. “Where will you go?”

  Daniel shrugged. It wouldn’t matter how far he went. The pain would just go with him But as long as he knew there was an end in sight, he could survive.

  Her lashes swept down, hiding her glistening blue-green eyes. “Will you come back?”

  The question seemed to hang suspended for a long moment before echoing into the twilight.

  He could have told her he’d be back in a heartbeat if she gave the signal. He could have told her he would give them six months. Half a year. But to say the words would put pressure on a situation that wouldn’t tolerate any more. He couldn’t do that to her. Wouldn’t do that to her.

  So he climbed into his truck, and she pushed the door until it latched with a quiet click. They stared at each other through the closed window, words wanting to be spoken, yet remaining unsaid.

  She brushed a hand across her cheek and looked away. A reddish ray of sunset glinted on the narrow gold band on her finger.

  Knowing he shouldn’t, he rolled down the window, anyway, and hooked his palm gently behind her neck. Her hair felt like satin against his callused skin. She stepped closer to the truck, moistening her lips. “I wish...oh, Daniel. You shouldn’t—”

 
“Don’t.” He shook his head slightly. He knew all about shouldn‘ts. Talking about them wouldn’t change them. He brushed his thumb over her lips, not sure if he was silencing more words from her or not.

  Maybe he just couldn’t help himself from touching her lips.

  The truth was he couldn’t help himself. So he had to go. Pure and simple.

  Maggie caught his wrist between her hands, her thumb rubbing over his knuckles. Once again he dragged his attention from the glint of gold surrounding her ring finger, only to get snagged in the wet depths of her turquoise eyes. Six months, he reminded himself, grimly hanging on to the thought Six months ought to be long enough. To accept what was and what wasn’t. To adjust.

  Six months. Then he’d come back and stake his claim. No matter what.

  Her eyes widened as if she’d caught a glimpse of his thoughts. She moistened her lips, averting her gaze. Then drove a knife into his gut when she pressed an unexpected kiss to his knuckles before stepping away from the truck. “Take care of yourself.”

  All he could do was nod. She was stronger than he was, because words for him wouldn’t come anymore. Daniel was leaving her with everything that mattered to him His family. His ranch. Though he was determined to do it because it was the only thing he could do, he’d wanted to hear her ask him to stay. Not because this was his home. His family. But because she wanted him to.

  He’d wanted to hear her tell him he was wrong and that she didn’t need space. Time. But she didn’t.

  He started the truck, thinking stupidly that the sound of the wheels crunching over the gravel was about the most damned depressing thing he’d ever heard.

  He watched her in the rearview mirror as he drove away.

  No. It wasn’t easy leaving his home.

  But leaving her just might kill him.

  Chapter One

  Three years later

  “Mama, is we gonna see Unca Matt?”

  For what seemed the tenth time, Maggie Greene nodded at her daughter’s question. She turned from the airplane window where she’d been studying the rugged landscape so far below, trying to ignore the tightening knots in her stomach. She looked at the small photo album that J.D. held on her lap. It held a dozen photos, and the pages were worn at the corners from J.D.’s constant handling.

  Maggie tapped her finger on the photo of her brother-in-law, big and brawny and blond next to his slender, auburn-haired wife. “You remember Uncle Matthew. He and Auntie Jaimie and Sarah visited us earlier this year.”

  J.D. nodded, her shoulder-length blond curls bouncing. She flipped another page, skipping right over the photo of her father, who was nothing but a photo to her despite Maggie’s careful explanation that very morning. She stopped on the picture of Matthew—Unca Matt—and another man, each holding their young daughters on their shoulders.

  “Whozzat?” J.D. pointed at the second man, who was more leanly built than Matthew, but no less an imposing figure with his carved features and his thick long hair pulled back in a low ponytail. The family resemblance between the two men was striking.

  Though Maggie had explained before, J.D. was just now beginning to recognize the differences between the Clay brothers portrayed in these photos that Maggie’s sister-in-law, Jaimie, had sent to J.D. a few months ago. “That’s Uncle Matthew’s brother Jefferson. He is Leandra’s daddy. Remember?”

  “I’m bigger than ’Andra. And Sarah.”

  “Yes,” Maggie agreed absently, her eyes straying out the window again. She lifted her plastic cup and sucked the last few kernels of ice into her mouth, chewing furiously. She wasn’t used to flying. At all. But she knew by her plain wristwatch and by the change in pitch of the engines that they were nearing their destination.

  “And that’s Twistin and that’s...I forgot, Mama.”

  “Tristan,” she corrected. She looked again at the photo that she knew to be well over three years old. Because it was the last time all five of the Clay brothers had been at the family’s Wyoming cattle ranch, the Double-C, at the same time. She touched the photo, indicating the man J.D. couldn’t identify. “Sawyer, remember?”

  “Is he bigger than Unca Matt?”

  “Older, yes. But Sawyer won’t be at the ranch, munchkin. He lives somewhere else. And Tristan is the youngest.” She tapped her finger over the tallest man in the group, who looked head-on into the camera with a wicked grin.

  “And that’s Dannl.” J.D. rubbed her little thumb over the face of the man in the center of the photo.

  Maggie’s fingers tightened around her empty cup. “Mmm-hmm.”

  “Why he don’t gots light hair like Unca Matt and Jefferman?”

  “Jefferson. Daniel’s hair is more like his father’s used to be,” Maggie murmured. She turned her eyes out the window again, blind to the soaring view. “Darker blond.” Liquid butterscotch. Shot through with lighter strands of gold whenever he spent time in the sun. And his eyes had been silvery gray, while his four brothers had eyes of varying shades of blue.

  She looked down in surprise when the plastic cup she held cracked under her too-tight grip. Sighing, she set it on the tray table in front of her.

  “Why I don’t gots a picher of Unca Matt’s mommy?”

  Maggie’s eyes returned to the photo, lingering on the spot where her daughter’s thumb had been. “She died when they were very young,” she murmured.

  “Like Monica’s turtle died?”

  “Something like that.”

  “That’s sad.”

  “Yes. It is.” She blinked and managed to smile down at J.D., kissing her nose. Wondering how old J.D. would be before she understood that one of her own parents had died while she was very young. She’d tried to explain it that morning, while she’d been rushing around the apartment, tossing clothes into suitcases and hiring a cab she could ill afford, to get them to the airport in time for the flight. Smart as J.D. was, she was still only three. There were some things too complicated for comprehension.

  Maggie was thirty-one. She hardly understood it herself. But the news she’d received only yesterday had been undeniable. “I bet we’ll be landing soon,” she said to J.D., as much to distract her daughter as to distract herself.

  It almost worked. Maggie started gathering J.D.’s scattered crayons and coloring books and discarded blanket, just as the flight attendant began speaking over the speakers and the No Smoking and Seat Belt lights began flashing.

  Maggie’s stomach churned and her hands trembled as she stuffed her daughter’s belongings into the voluminous purse she’d carried. The task awaiting her at the end of this spontaneous journey weighed heavily. Almost, but not quite, outweighing her nervousness over being thousands of feet above ground, with nothing but a wing and a prayer holding them there.

  The flight attendants efficiently moved along the aisle of the plane, collecting trash. J.D. took great delight in dropping their cups into the bags, then sat back in her seat, hugging her stuffed horse, Duchess, to her little body.

  Her daughter had been fascinated with every aspect of the flight, while Maggie had been wishing she’d been able to just rent a car and drive to Wyoming. But time was of the essence. So she’d charged their tickets to her seldom-used credit card and here they were.

  Finally, after a landing that thoroughly unnerved her, they were on the ground. Maggie sucked in one relieved breath after another, unclenching her hands from the arms of her seat. She supposed the powers-that-be instructed the armrests to be made out of that rigid black plastic stuff to prevent finger dents from being left by nervous passengers.

  But while the relief of being safely on the ground coursed through her, another set of nerves jangled into life. Nerves because she still didn’t know how she was going to deliver the news that had prompted this hurried trip to the Double-C Ranch in Wyoming.

  Nerves, because within an hour or so, she’d set foot on Double-C land again for the first time in years. Nerves, because despite the passage of those years, she wasn’t sure she was rea
dy to confront the memories the ranch held for her. This was the place where her husband, Joe, had left her. Where Daniel had later left, because of her. Because he’d thought she needed the ranch more than he did.

  J.D. was tugging at her hand, and Maggie realized that the plane had nearly emptied while she’d dithered and worried. She swallowed and pulled her big purse over her shoulder, heading up the narrow aisle with J.D. forging surely ahead.

  She’d arranged for the rental car that awaited her, before they’d left Chicago. Dumping their hastily packed luggage into the trunk of the economy model, she strapped in J.D. and herself, then had to sit behind the wheel for a few minutes. It had been months and months since she’d driven a car.

  She lived in the city now. She walked to work. Walked to the bank. When she couldn’t walk, there was public transportation. Taking a deep breath, she started the car and drove cautiously out of the lot. She didn’t do too badly. The car was less than half the size of the big pickup trucks she’d driven around the ranch when she and her husband had lived there.

  But this little tan model did the job. And all too soon, Maggie was turning into the main gate of the Double-C Ranch. Her stomach was tightening into one huge knot that made her wonder if she would even make it to the main house without first having to pull over to the side of the gravel road.