by Lass Small
Celebrate Lass Small’s 50th title for Silhouette Books with another unforgettable story in her series:
Letter to Reader
Title Page
Books by Lass Small
About the Author
Letter to Reader
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Copyright
Celebrate Lass Small’s 50th title for Silhouette Books with another unforgettable story in her series:
Every book’s a keeper in this sexy saga of
untamable Texas men and the stubborn beauties
who lasso their hearts.
You met sweet-talkin’ Rip and his lovely lady Lu in
TAKEN BY A TEXAN
(Desire #1137)
And who could forget the wonderful romance
between Andrew and JoAnn in
THE HARD-TO-TAME TEXAN
(Desire #1148)
Now that infamous bachelor Tom Keeper finally
gets his own chance at romance in
THE LONE TEXAN
But will bright-eyed beauty Ellen be the girl to
change his mind about love and marriage? Read on
to find out...and read a personal message from
author Lass Small herself!
Dear Reader,
This month, Silhouette Desire is celebrating milestones, miniseries—and, of course, sensual, emotional and compelling love stories. Every book is a treasured keeper in Lass Small’s miniseries THE KEEPERS OF Texas, but this month, the continuation of this wonderful series about the Keeper family marks a milestone for Lass—the publication of her 50th book for Silhouette with The Lone Texan, also our MAN OF THE MONTH selection!
Desire is also proud to present the launch of two brandnew miniseries. First, let us introduce you to THE RULEBREAKERS, Leanne Banks’s fabulous new series about three strong and sexy heroes. Book one is Millionaire Dad—and it’s a story you won’t want to miss. Next, meet the first of a few good men and women in uniform in the passion-filled new series BACHELOR BATTALION, by Maureen Child. The first installment, The Littlest Marine, will utterly delight you.
Continuing this month is the next book in Peggy Moreland’s series Texas BRIDES about the captivating McCloud sisters, A Sparkle in the Cowboy’s Eyes. And rounding out the month are two wonderful novels—Miranda’s Outlaw by Katherine Garbera, and The Texas Ranger and the Tempting Twin by Pamela Ingrahm.
I hope you enjoy all six of Silhouette Desire’s love stories this month—and every month.
Regards,
Melissa Senate
Senior Editor Silhouette Books
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 Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3
LASS SMALL
THE LONE TEXAN
Books by Lass Small
Silhouette Desire
Tangled Web #241
To Meet Again #322
Stolen Day #341
Possibles #356
Intrusive Man #373
To Love Again #397
Blindman’s Bluff #413
*Goldilocks and the Behr #437
*Hide and Seek #453
*Red Rover #491
*Odd Man Out #505
*Tagged #534
Contact #548
Wrong Address, Right Place #569
Not Easy #578
The Loner #594
Four Dollars and Fifty-One Cents #613
*No Trespassing Allowed #638 The Molly Q #655
†‘Twas the Night #684
*Dominic #697
†A Restless Man #731
†Two Halves #743
†Beware of Widows #755
A Disruptive Influence #775
†Balanced #800
†Tweed #817
†A New Year #830
†I’m Gonna Get You #848
†Salty and Felicia #860
†Lemon #879
†An Obsolete Man #895 A Nuisance #901
Impulse #926
Whatever Comes #963
My House or Yours? #974
A Stranger in Texas #994
The Texas Blue Norther #1027
The Coffeepot Inn #1045
Chaney’s Cowboy #1064
How To Win (Back) a Wife #1107
‡Taken by a Texan #1137
‡The Hard-To-Tame Texan #1148
‡The Lone Texan #1165
Silhouette Romance
An Irritating Man #444
Snow Bird #521
Silhouette Yours Truly
Not Looking for a Texas Man
The Case of the Lady in Apartment 308
Silhouette Books
Silhouette Christmas Stories 1989
“Voice of the Turtles”
Silhouette Spring Fancy 1993 “Chance Encounter”
*Lambert Series
†Fabulous Brown Brothers
‡ The Keepers of Texas
LASS SMALL finds living on this planet at this time a fascinating experience. People are amazing. She thinks that to be a teller of tales of people, places and things is absolutely marvelous.
Dear Reader,
This is a milestone for me in that Silhouette is celebrating my 50th book published by them. It is a marvel.
I was always told that I should write. My mother and my teachers all commented on that. Instead, I got married and had kids. It wasn’t until our third was twelve that I went back to art school.
In the early ’80s everybody was scrambling for publication, because suddenly all of the publishing houses were launching romances. Home with a little boy, idle, I was already writing short stories and novels. And being turned down.
Finally, I published several books with another house. Then I was asked to write a book for Silhouette. I was surprised. I said, “You’ve turned down five of my books.” And that editor replied, “We’ve matured.”
Now, how could anyone ignore that kind of response? I laughed, and she had me.
All of the publishers have been very kind to me, and I salute them all. Of course, Silhouette Books is now my publishing home. I don’t know how they manage to find such kind editors. My current editor is Melissa Jeglinski. She is another jewel.
Obviously, my mother and my teachers were right all along. I was fortunate to be where I was, at the time the opportunity was open, and I’ve been especially fortunate in editors. It has been a pleasure.
With writer’s love,
One
On the Keeper ranch in northwest Texas, the problem with the senior Mrs. Keeper was that she could never really, actually abandon anybody. She simply could not quit, give up or let any of them go, for crying out loud.
That was why she spent so much time...enduring people. She was so earnest that the most recalcitrant person finally just gave up and relaxed and allowed her to—well, actually, she reprogrammed their brains.
It wasn’t easy.
However, no person who landed at the Keeper place in northwest Texas ever left there for good.
That immediately gives an observer the sound of a closing tomb like in an Egyptian pyramid. And one considers the dead pharaoh and the trapped, live wives and servants who were sealed inside the tomb with the corpse.
Well, with Mina Keeper, it wasn’t that way. Not at all. It was just that Mrs. John Keeper, Sr., couldn’t allow a misdirected human to be rejected. In her mind, everyone could be straightened out and made l
ogical. Sure.
Mina Keeper was picky. Everybody has their own little quirks. First, Mina learned in which direction was their own stance. Everybody has one. Most of those she monitored were hostile or self-protective.
Off the big dining room was a small, private dining room. It was there that Mina had lunch with the individual ones, subtly directing their table manners. To her, table manners were prime.
Oddly enough, one of her current isolated lunch partners was her own son, Tom. He’d been turned down by women so many times, by then, that he’d decided to be a loner. He was silent and somewhat bitter.
Tom was the version of always a groomsman, never the groom. He’d just stood up with yet another pair who were married. The married couple included Andrew Parsons, a man who had been lost in time; and JoAnn Murray who had—almost—abandoned the time laggard.
Andrew, the time laggard, had a sister, Lu, who was living in one of the houses on the ranch with one of the ranch pilots, Rip. Mrs. Keeper was sure no young woman should live in sin. The fact that Lu was living on the Keeper land, with Rip, was another weight on Mina Keeper’s shoulders.
In their bedroom, John Keeper told his wife, Mina, “It’s their business.”
And Mina said rather woefully, “They’re so young.”
“They’re old enough to decide their own lives. They are deciding if they match.”
She turned her head and smiled at her husband on his back, sideways across their bed. “We did that.”
“Hush. The walls have ears!”
She laughed in her throat in the way a woman does when a man pleases her, and—
Well, that finished that mind-irritating subject—for a while.
It was several busy days later when an old friend from school, Jenny Little Drew, called Mina Keeper. They laughed and gossiped and exchanged memories, then Jenny mentioned, “Remember Maggie Williams Simpson? Her woebegone daughter, Ellen, needs a place to heal.”
“Physical?”
“Everything.”
“Uh-h-h...”
“Ellen is not dangerous. She’s just silent and wants to be alone.”
Mina Keeper gasped, “Out here?”
“I’ve always considered the Keeper Place as a haven.”
Mina mentioned with some stridence, “I’ve always thought you were a little strange.”
Jenny was very serious and said into the telephone, “Ellen needs a haven in which to heal.”
“What happened to her?”
“A man abandoned her some time ago when he found she was...with child. She lost the baby. Two losses. Him and then the baby. It was too much.”
“The bastard.”
Jenny was silent a blink. “Why...I’d never realized you knew that word.”
Mina replied with some lack of endurance, “I know them all. Send her to us. We’ll see if we can help.”
In a wavering voice, Jenny said softly, “Ahhh. Thank you. I—hoped—you—could—”
Stridently, Mina warned, “Don’t you dare bawl on me. I can’t survive something like that!”
Jenny’s laugh then was water logged.
The odd guest, Ellen Simpson, arrived three days later! She was like a mouse in a houseful of cats. Under a wide-brimmed hat, her hair was dark and rolled into a severe knot at the back of her head.
At least Ellen hadn’t shaved her head, but she was withdrawn and silent so that she wouldn’t be noticed.
Greeting Ellen, Mina sent a rather strong negative thought to her old school chum Jenny who had very recently become an ex-friend. Unfortunately, Jenny was the kind who never noticed she’d been rejected and abandoned.
Mina smiled gently and said to Ellen, “We are so pleased you could come visit. We have just the room for you.” Mrs. Keeper grinned and lifted her eyebrows as she added, “The crew was delighted to straighten the room. I do hope it’s something you like. If not, we have other choices.”
“It’ll be fine. Mother is especially pleased you invited me here.”
Ellen wasn’t? Mina smiled. To her the woman-child even looked like a reject. Mina said, “Let’s see if you like the room’s view. If you’d prefer another view, we’ll find you another room.”
That gave the guest a reason to see the room and to look outside. Mina always did that to reluctant guests. The choice gave them more liberty and control. She’d had reluctant guests who’d moved immediately, and eventually moved back into the original room.
Mina Keeper acted as if she had the whole day to visit and consider rooms. Ellen didn’t remove her hat for some time. She was hiding? Mina was glad that she knew the circumstances of Ellen. At least that allowed Mina to understand the withdrawn young woman.
Gradually, gradually, Mina began to understand this woman who’d been rejected by a man she most probably loved. A woman who had also lost her child. Here was a suffering woman who didn’t know how to cope with her losses. And Mina wondered how she was to help Ellen?
Mina looked at the sundered girl-woman and her emotions wanted to hold the raw, vulnerable girl and cry with her.
Perhaps at a later time.
Mina showed Ellen the house in a lazy, easy manner. They walked slowly so that the very thin Ellen wouldn’t be totally exhausted. They had morning tea, but she gave Ellen milk.
A clue was that Ellen drank some of the milk slowly and didn’t appear to even know what she did was guided by her upbringing of courtesy. Someone had given her a tea, she’d had milk handed to her and she did not reject it but had courteously sipped it so as not to embarrass the hostess.
Ellen was given a square cookie that was loaded with good foods and laced with raisins and nuts. She actually ate one. It took a while.
How strange it was to Mina that she watched and waited for a guest to actually eat something, when all her years she’d been overwhelmed with hungry people who talked as they ate.
This guest was mostly silent.
Ellen looked at the things Mina mentioned and indicated, but she had no comment.
It was obvious that Ellen’s mother had raised her to be courteous. She endured. How long could Mina keep Ellen by her side? When would Ellen ask to go to her room?
Ellen’s first indication was when she mentioned, “I need to lie down.”
But before that happened, she fainted!
Anyone who lives out as far from civilization as the Keepers, is schooled in basics. And it was a miracle that the Keepers had good M.D.’s not even three city blocks’ distance away.
Mina called. The female doctor came immediately. Dr. Jane Wilkins gave the guest a quick check.
The house helpers were muscular males who lifted Ellen. It was they who quite easily carried the girl to her room.
When Ellen woke, she was in a nightgown, in bed. An intravenous bottle was putting fluid into her system.
Dr. Jane smiled and said, “You’re okay.”
“I’m sorry I...” Ellen’s voice dribbled off.
Softly Dr. Jane said, “No problem.”
“I—don’t know why I did that.”
“Your body has apparently been through a tough time, and you’re not yet ready to do much. This is the perfect place to be—to recover. When you’re up and around, you could come to the clinic. It’s not far, a couple of blocks, and we’ll see what kind of vitamins you might need—or if you need any at all.”
“I’ll probably go home.”
Dr. Wilkins said, “Not right away.” And she smiled. “Mina Keeper said if your momma heard of that, she might be upset.”
The mouth on the white face on the bed smiled just a tad.
“You are all right as far as I can see now. Are there any reasons you might be fragile?”
“I...lost a baby.”
“That takes some getting over. Relax. Sleep. Contact us at the clinic if you need anything at all. Believe me when I tell you, you could not be in a better place, right now. Come to see us in two days, or I can come back then. We’ll be in touch.”
A big tear le
aked out of the side of Ellen’s eye.
Dr. Jane blotted Ellen’s temple gently. “You’re okay. Call anytime. We’re here for you, too. Of course, we also take care of the horses and cattle and what the dickens else is around and ailing. Once it was a buzzard. I’ve never cottoned to buzzards. Fortunately, one of the male doctors was fascinated. Males are odd. But we do the dogs and cats. We’re stretched. We won’t actually put a human in one of the animal restraints.”
Ellen’s eyes were filled with unshed tears but she did smile.
Softly, Dr. Wilkins said, “You are okay.”
“Thank you.”
“Sleep for two hours. That’s the limit. Then you’ll sleep tonight—like a log—and tomorrow will be easier. We’ll keep the bottle here until it’s empty. The Keepers can handle intravenous tubes. No problem.” Dr. Wilkins smiled. “I’ll check you later. Rest.”
Ellen almost smiled. Another tear slid out of the side of her eye.
The doctor said, “Hah! The intravenous must be filling you up. You’re overflowing!”