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The Cowboy's Ready-Made Family
Linda Ford
The Cowboy ArrangementSusanne Collins has her hands full raising her four orphaned nieces and nephews and managing the family farm. So when her cowboy neighbor proposes he plant her crops in exchange for keeping his wild horses in her corrals, Susanne hesitantly takes the deal. Soon her reluctance to accept help ebbs, and she wonders if Tanner Harding will he prove to be the strong, solid man she’s been hoping for…Half-Native American Tanner has always been adrift in a white man’s world. Yet the beautiful stand-in mother and her ready-made family give him a sense of belonging for the very first time. But can he convince Susanne to take a chance and welcome him not just into her home but also into her heart?
The Cowboy Arrangement
Susanne Collins has her hands full raising her four orphaned nieces and nephews and managing the family farm. So when her cowboy neighbor proposes he plant her crops in exchange for keeping his wild horses in her corrals, Susanne hesitantly takes the deal. Soon her reluctance to accept help ebbs, and she wonders if Tanner Harding will he prove to be the strong, solid man she’s been hoping for...
Half–Native American Tanner has always been adrift in a white man’s world. Yet the beautiful stand-in mother and her ready-made family give him a sense of belonging for the very first time. But can he convince Susanne to take a chance and welcome him not just into her home but also into her heart?
Montana Cowboys: These brothers live and love by the code of the West
“I agree to your plan. With a few conditions.”
Tanner stiffened, guarding his heart against the words he expected. Stay away from the children. Don’t forget you’re a half-breed.
“The children must be treated kindly at all times. And I don’t want them getting hurt because of the horses.”
Nothing about his heritage? Nothing at all?
“Ma’am, there is no need for such conditions. I would never be unkind to a child. Or an adult. Or an animal. Everyone deserves to be treated with respect. And I would never put anyone in danger. For any reason.”
“Then we have a deal.” Susanne held her hand out.
He took it before she remembered he was a half-breed, and marveled at her firm grip despite the smallness of her hand.
Inside his heart, buried deep, pressed down hard beneath a world of caution, there bubbled to the surface a desire to protect.
The one thing he meant to protect was his heart. No one, especially a fragile blonde woman, would be allowed near it.
“We have a deal,” he said.
Their agreement would certainly solve two problems. But he wondered if it would create a whole lot more to take their place.
LINDA FORD lives on a ranch in Alberta, Canada, near enough to the Rocky Mountains that she can enjoy them on a daily basis. She and her husband raised fourteen children—four homemade, ten adopted. She currently shares her home and life with her husband, a grown son, a live-in paraplegic client and a continual (and welcome) stream of kids, kids-in-law, grandkids, and assorted friends and relatives.
The Cowboy’s
Ready-Made Family
Linda Ford
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing.
—Zephaniah 3:17
Dedicated to the memory of my grandson, Julien Yake, who passed away July 2015 at age 19; and to his mother, who will forever mourn him.
Contents
Cover (#uf7093d94-0226-5771-b974-bf7832cd6eaa)
Back Cover Text (#ue21450ca-f020-546b-908b-55f8d8db8645)
Introduction (#ua9e6f697-60b6-5702-b62e-4ce09ec3a06a)
About the Author (#u76bba949-1ab3-599d-8745-4989aa7415fe)
Title Page (#u975eb5f8-83d0-5471-967d-8b5b32c613b8)
Bible Verse (#ua22a4148-61c6-5491-bb75-ac2c2ed2ab87)
Dedication (#ud622d968-c2ad-551f-9904-9e86303608d9)
Chapter One (#u823ac677-6235-5101-a095-95418d7b96a5)
Chapter Two (#u4785fc73-4a86-5fe1-9337-8bc1e7729e09)
Chapter Three (#uacbd615b-9f9b-5c50-bc16-c3e4baac9d07)
Chapter Four (#u868ec641-9890-5d04-a70b-c15585d2cde6)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Dear Reader (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One (#ulink_52f3a4f8-fd9e-505b-90d7-8682a5fd68db)
Spring 1899
Near Granite Creek, Montana
The skin on the back of Tanner Harding’s neck tingled. Something—or someone—watched him.
He slowly straightened from leaning against the fence but kept his eyes on the horses corralled behind the barricade of intertwined thick branches. He didn’t want to alert whatever rustled behind him that he was aware of its presence. He crossed his arms as if his sole purpose was admiring the wild mares he’d captured, but one hand slipped down to the handle of the knife he carried on his belt. Whether it be man or beast, Tanner didn’t intend it to succeed in attacking him.
A slight sound indicated the stalker had moved toward Tanner’s right, to the little grove of trees. A bear? It was too quiet and it didn’t smell. A cougar? A big cat would be up the tree waiting for a chance to pounce. A man? That seemed most likely.
He tensed his muscles, fixed in his thoughts where to strike, and sprang around in a single movement that most men couldn’t imitate. But then most men didn’t have Lakota blood mixed with white in their veins.
His right arm came up. The steel blade of his knife flashed as he confronted—
A boy? A little boy, with tousled blond hair and blue eyes as wide as moons, who shrank back as far as the tree trunk allowed.
“You gonna kill me?” he squeaked.
Tanner slid the knife back into its sheath as the tension drained from his body. “You’re too little to be any danger to me.”
The boy drew himself up to the fullest of his barely three feet. “I ain’t too little.” He crossed his arms and thumped them to his chest. “I’m five.”
“Uh-huh.” Tanner perched one foot on the nearby fallen tree and leaned over his leg. “You got a name?”
“Robbie.”
“Is there a last name goes with that, Robbie?”
“Robbie Collins.”
He knew the family. They lived down the valley a bit, scratching out a living on a farm. The mother had died a year or more ago, the father, a few months past. Who was in charge of this child and the other three children in the family? They weren’t doing much of a job for this youngster to be a few miles from home.
“What’s your name?” Robbie spoke with an amusing mix of bravado and innocence.
“Tanner Harding.”
Robbie nodded. “You live on that big ranch over there, don’cha?”
“Yup.”
“You gots some brothers.”
“Two. Johnny and Levi. They’re both younger than me.” Was the boy purposely trying to divert Tanner from finding out what he was doing here? “Won’t someone be worried about you?”
Robbie ignored the question and moseyed over to the barricade of tree branches. “Those your horses?”
“They are now.” Three of the mares for sure were descendants of his mother’s mare, which had been turned out to join the wild herd after her death. No one but his mother had been able to ride her. He meant to gentle them, breed them to a top-notch stud and start a herd that would have made his mother proud. He would be proud, too. Might even gain him a little respect from the white men in the area. At least he hoped so. Though it might be too much to hope they would at some point accept him as their equal.
“They’re wild horses, right?”
“I’m going to tame them.”
Robbie might only be five, but the look he gave Tanner overflowed with so much doubt that Tanner chuckled.
He dropped his booted foot to the ground. “We better get you home.”
Robbie’s shoulders sank. “Auntie Susanne is not going to be happy with me.”
“Oh?”
He hung his head. “I’m not supposed to go away without telling her.”
Tanner studied the boy. So Robbie had wandered off before. “Then why do you?”
Robbie shrugged. “Just ’cause,” he mumbled. He lifted his head and fixed Tanner with a desperate look. “’Cause things is different now.”
Tanner swung to the back of his horse and reached down to lift Robbie up. “Different how?”
“I’s got no mama or papa. Just Auntie Susanne.” Sorrow dripped from every word.
Tanner felt sorry for this motherless five-year-old boy. Tanner had been seven when Seena, his own ma, died. But his pa was still alive and strong as an ox. A suitable time after Tanner’s mother died, Big Sam Harding had married Maisie and provided the three boys with a loving stepmother.
But it wasn’t the same. Maisie was blonde and white and sweet as honey. Tanner’s ma was a full-blood Lakota Indian and more tough than sweet, though she loved deeply. She’d been injured escaping the Battle of the Little Bighorn and Big Sam had rescued her, nursed her to health, married her and built the ranch for her. After her death, Tanner had felt lost. A half-breed boy in a white world.
Turning the offspring of Ma’s mare into a fine herd was meant to correct the lost feeling that lingered to this day.
He took one more look at the mares. The fence was meant only to capture them. He needed solid corrals in which to train them. There were solid corrals back at the ranch, but Pa said he couldn’t bring in a bunch of wild horses.
“First thing we know, the wild stallions will be coming around stealing the mares back and taking our stock, too.” Pa was right, of course, but being right didn’t solve Tanner’s dilemma. He’d build a new set of corrals out here, but that would take time he didn’t care to spend when he could be training the horses. Somehow he hoped to find an easier solution.
But first he needed to deal with the boy before him.
“Best get you back home,” he told Robbie as they headed toward the little farm.
A short time later a low house with smoke rising from the chimney came into view. A cow wandered through some trees to the south, while a big workhorse grazed placidly in the farthest corner of the farm.
A boy climbed the pasture fence, and in the yard two girls chased chickens. Made him think of a poem Maisie used to recite. Chasing the chickens ’til they won’t lay.
A man rode from the yard on the trail toward the town of Granite Creek, Montana. Seems if he’d come to help, he might have stayed and done a little helping. The fact that he didn’t caused Tanner to think the man came for other reasons, though he wasn’t prepared to guess what they might be. But a woman alone except for four children would appear, to some, an easy mark. His hands clenched the reins.
