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Mckinley's Miracle
Mary Kate Holder
HE WAS THE KIND OF MAN MOTHERS WARNED THEIR DAUGHTERS ABOUT….Clayton McKinley was as rugged as the Australian Outback and sexy as sin with his ranch-bronzed skin and knee-weakening smile that no woman could resist. Until Lucy Warner moved in next door…Caring and independent, Lucy resolved to give her foster children a new start in Cable Creek. Her plans didn't include her charming neighbor wreaking havoc in her life and making her dream of things she had no right to want. Still, when trouble arose, Clayton's arms offered both refuge and help–for a time. But the true miracle would occur if this feisty woman ended up winning the confirmed bachelor for good!
Clayton smiled. “Are you afraid of me?”
Lucy trembled involuntarily as his low, sexy drawl skittered up her spine. She tried to ignore the sensation, meeting his gaze with what she hoped was a withering glare.
“In your dreams,” she retorted.
“Oh, you’ll be there,” Clayton replied easily. “I’m going to be seeing a lot of you, Lucy Warner.” He reached out and, soft as a whisper, stroked her cheek, mesmerized by the silkiness he met and by the way she became immobile with…
What was that in her eyes? Panic?
Clayton backed away, realizing he’d have to go very slowly with this particular woman.
“It won’t matter if you hide behind your kids and try to avoid me,” he said gently. “I plan to get close to you, and we’re going to be good together—that’s a promise.”
He grinned his sexy grin. “And a McKinley always keeps his promises.”
Dear Reader,
Get Caught Reading. It sounds slightly scandalous, romantic and definitely exciting! I love to get lost in a book, and this month we’re joining the campaign to encourage reading everywhere. Share your favorite books with your partner, your child, your friends. And be sure to get caught reading yourself!
The popular ROYALLY WED series continues with Valerie Parv’s Code Name: Prince. King Michael is still missing—but there’s a plan to rescue him! In Quinn’s Complete Seduction Sandra Steffen returns to BACHELOR GULCH, where Crystal finally finds what she’s been searching for—and more….
Chance’s Joy launches Patricia Thayer’s exciting new miniseries, THE TEXAS BROTHERHOOD. In the first story, Chance Randell wants to buy his lovely neighbor’s land, but hadn’t bargained for a wife and baby! In McKinley’s Miracle, talented Mary Kate Holder debuts with the story of a rugged Australian rancher who meets his match.
Susan Meier is sure to please with Marrying Money, in which a small-town beautician makes a rich man rethink his reasons for refusing love. And Myrna Mackenzie gives us The Billionaire Is Back, in which a wealthy playboy fights a strong attraction to his pregnant, single cook!
Come back next month for the triumphant conclusion to ROYALLY WED and more wonderful stories by Patricia Thayer and Myrna Mackenzie. Silhouette Romance always gives you stories that will touch your emotions and carry you away….
Be sure to Get Caught Reading!
Mary-Theresa Hussey
Senior Editor
McKinley’s Miracle
Mary Kate Holder
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To my parents, Henry and Mary Holder, who taught me
that anything is possible and whose love and support
lifted me high enough to touch my dream.
MARY KATE HOLDER
has lived all her life in Cowra, central eastern New South Wales. Though romance writing takes up a lot of her time, she also finds pleasure in cross-stitch, cooking, drawing and finding homes for stray animals. She resides with two dogs and two cats, who all guard their own part of the house diligently and would probably complain about her love of country music played often and loud…if they could speak. Though she enjoys the peace and quiet of country life, this hasn’t cured her of the travel bug, and she hopes to be setting off very soon to travel overseas.
Dear Reader,
I have always loved words, their power, their splendor, the depths of emotion they can stir. But when I received the call from Silhouette telling me they wanted to buy my novel, I could not find words to describe how it felt. How does one describe a dream come true? Eight years ago I sat down to write a romance novel and began a long journey filled with many lessons. Along the way I had the support of my parents, family, friends and authors I loved to read who were never too busy to write back to me with words of encouragement and advice. I hope you enjoy reading about Clayton and Lucy. Writing their story was a joy for me, and being able to share it with you is a wonderful feeling. To me happy endings are like dreams. They become impossible only when we stop reaching for them.
Best wishes,
Contents
Chapter One (#u7e164327-c924-5736-a906-5120858c5290)
Chapter Two (#uc1387945-e12f-5121-88f5-5d2805acc001)
Chapter Three (#u1c1aa0df-5dee-590e-b057-0b266ee3f093)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
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 One
Clayton McKinley was about to order his second beer when the door to the Roadhouse opened and she walked in. He hadn’t seen her around before, but in Cable Creek, Australia, there were no strangers, just people you hadn’t met. She made her way slowly through the crowd. She was dressed to blend in. Tennis shoes. Blue jeans. Grey sweatshirt. Hair pulled into a ponytail. But the shoes were worn and old. The jeans were faded and snug, drawing his attention to her slim hips and shapely curves. The sweatshirt skimmed high, rounded breasts, the sleeves pushed almost to her elbows. The clip holding her chestnut hair in place was plain gold. She stopped suddenly, her hands drawn into fists at her sides. Seconds later she moved with lightning speed toward the bar. He watched, every muscle in his body tense and alert, a second beer forgotten as she squared her shoulders and walked right up to the meanest man in town.
“Gerry Anderson?”
Around them everything stopped, a testament to the anger in her voice and the unabashed curiosity of the Saturday-night patrons. Someone pulled the plug on the jukebox. Conversations fell to whispers and then ceased altogether. Every eye in the place was on the slender five-foot-three woman and the burly six-foot man she faced. Gerry turned around, dismissing her with a smirk. Clayton counted that as his first mistake.
“You got the name right, sweetie. What can I do for you?”
She stepped closer to her colossal opponent not even sparing a glance for the two men flanking him. “This is about what I will do to you the next time you bully one of my children.”
Gerry laughed. “Your kids? I heard they were strays nobody else wanted.” He shook his head. “You should go back where you came from. We don’t want your kind here.”
She pinned him with a look that could have laid ice on the Simpson Desert in the middle of summer. “They are under my care, Mr. Anderson. That makes them my children. Max is just thirteen years old and thanks to you he spent the last two hours in the emergency ward.”
For the first time since she’d spoken his name, Gerry looked uncomfortable. “I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.”
“You deliberately drove your car onto the shoulder of the road, kicking up the loose gravel. It frightened the boy’s horse so badly he was thrown.”
Her words sparked a simmering anger in Clayton. Gerry had a mile-wide mean streak, but picking on a child was a low act. He thought of his niece, at home safe in her bed. If it had been Molly on that horse Gerry would be the one in the emergency room.
Gerry smiled. “You got no proof it was me.”
“I don’t know of anyone else in this town with the license plate STUD or the arrogance that goes along with it.”
He turned back toward the bar. Clayton counted that as his second mistake. “Damn kid’s lyin’ through his teeth. I wasn’t even there.”
“You’re a coward.”
Her words dropped into the silence with the impact of an unexploded bomb. Gerry turned back to her, pure venom in his eyes. Clayton pushed slowly to his feet.
“Don’t start nothin’ you can’t finish, missy.”
“My name is Lucy Warner, not missy.”
Clayton did a double take. This was his new neighbour? His first thought was that she looked at least ten years younger than the twenty-five he knew her to be. His second thought was that he wanted to get to know her…a lot better.
“And calling that boy a liar makes you a coward. If I’d been there you would have been going to the hospital on life support.”
Someone chuckled. Another brave soul clapped. Most however seemed content to watch the showdown with undisguised interest. Gerry glanced at his mates and laughed, but Clayton watched his fist close in rage. Raising a hand to her would be Gerry’s last mistake of the night. Clayton would make damn sure of it.
“Some kid can’t handle himself on a horse and you blame me? Just go back to the city where you belong and take those delinquents with you.”
Lucy seemed unimpressed. “Why? Because if I don’t you’ll bully me too?”
Gerry shrugged. “All kinds of things can happen to a woman out here.”
“You might think you’re a tough guy in this town, Mr. Anderson, and maybe picking on children is what it takes to make you feel like a man,” she taunted, raising herself to her full height, squaring her shoulders, her chin high. “But the next time you see one of my children minding their own business you’d better do the same.”
When she turned, the crowd parted like the Red Sea before her. Someone whistled encouragement as she walked to the door. On the threshold she looked back and glared at him. “This is the only warning you get, Mr. Anderson. Leave us alone.”
Lucy had been this angry at least once in her life before tonight. Right now she couldn’t remember it though. Blind fury had pushed her into the pub. Pure adrenaline had fueled her words and dignity had enabled her to walk out.
She didn’t remember getting in her car or turning onto the road, leaving the brightly lit hotel car park behind. Now in the darkness, her adrenaline level dropped and Lucy began to tremble. Never in her life had she raised a hand to anyone, man or woman, but Gerry had tempted her. The smug look on his face. The arrogance in his eyes. The crack he’d made about the children being strays. Physically she would have been out of her depth with him. Words had been her only weapon.
According to Gray Harrison, most people here were good, honest folk. They believed in hard work and simple living and had community spirit, that small-town sense of rallying together to help each other in times of crisis. She deferred to Gray’s judgement on that. He’d grown up here after all.
The first time Lucy had set eyes on the farmhouse she had known this was where the dream was meant to take shape. At times it still seemed impossible to her that the journey she had started for Megan had brought her this far. It had started out as a promise, the only way Lucy could think to make up to her sister all she had denied Megan in one moment of recklessness.
Being a foster mother and having a degree in social welfare had given her credibility to get the project off the ground. Gray’s friendship and the sponsorship of his corporation had sealed it for her. Now it was a reality. A place for troubled teens to find a life away from the streets. Streets that sucked their young lives away. Her own years of experience dealing with troubled street kids had shown her a side to life no child should ever know. The idea for the farm had been her sister’s long-cherished dream and now it was within reach. Lucy wasn’t about to let Gerry Anderson or anyone like him stand in her way.
Though she was only recognized as foster mother to Katie and Max, the powers that be had allowed her guardianship of the two older kids also. To the bureaucrats this was an experiment and Lucy had to succeed so more kids could be given the chance to come here.
She was so lost in thought that when the car began to jerk, her hands tightened on the steering wheel. When it began to sputter, Lucy pulled off the road, and before she could turn off the engine the car died. She reached across into the glove box and found the small torch she’d tucked in there for emergencies. Alone on a dark, lonely stretch of highway, Lucy looked at the fuel gauge and uttered a curse into the night.
Clayton left the roadhouse twenty minutes after Lucy and had driven barely a mile when he spotted the vehicle off to the shoulder of the road, its hazard lights blinking in the darkness. He dimmed his lights and slowed, pulling in behind. Before he turned off his engine, the driver’s door opened and the occupant rushed up to his car. Lucy Warner stood there in the cold wind of an August night. Clayton opened his door and got out. “You really shouldn’t approach a strange vehicle on a lonely road.”
Lucy didn’t hear censure in his voice, just old-fashioned concern. In the glare of his headlights she could make out his strong build. The hat he wore, an Aussie akubra, shadowed his face and her curiosity slipped up a notch.
“It was either stop someone or spend the night here,” she said. “I prefer a bed to the back seat of a car. When you pulled up, I figured I’d take my chances.”
Clayton pushed his hat back just slightly. He preferred a bed to the back seat as well but he didn’t think they knew each other well enough for that discussion. “And if I were someone planning to do you harm?”
Lucy stiffened her backbone and lifted her chin. The thought hadn’t occurred to her…but it did now. Gerry hadn’t been alone at the pub. What if this man was one of his cronies?
“Then the self-defence classes I took a few years back would be put to the test.” He was a big man, broad across the shoulders and at least six feet tall. All the defensive positions in the world would not have saved her if he’d intended to do her harm. She thought she heard him chuckle as he walked to her car.
“What seems to be the problem, Miss Warner?”
Fear slid its icy fingers down her spine. “How do you know my name?”
“You kind of introduced yourself back at the Roadhouse. I’m Clayton McKinley, your neighbour at Cable Downs.”
She crossed her arms beneath her breasts. “Any relation to the local vet?”
“He’s my big brother,” he replied, pride accompanying the words. “One of them anyway.”
Lucy had met Joshua McKinley a week after her arrival. He’d seemed a reserved man with kind eyes. Instinct told her reserved was not a word that would apply to his younger brother.
“Thanks for stopping.”
“It’s my pleasure.”
Lucy didn’t imagine the slight coaxing tone his baritone voice had taken on with those three words. This man’s pleasures weren’t something she wanted to poke her nose into. “You don’t happen to be a friend of Gerry Anderson do you?”
“I’d rather have no friends if Gerry was the alternative. Loudmouthed bullies with more brawn than brain deserve everything they eventually get.”
“Then there must be a huge fall somewhere in his future.”
“I’d bet on it.” He looked toward the vehicle. “So what’s wrong with your car?”
“Everything, according to the mechanic who serviced it last,” she said, glancing at the car. “He said if it were a horse he’d have it shot. For now I’m merely out of petrol and wondering if it can get any colder.”
“Oh sure it can,” he said easily. “There’s nothing like an Australian winter to test your mettle. Get in my truck and put the heater on. You’ll be warm in no time.”
The offer was tempting…far too tempting. “That won’t be necessary. If you have a mobile phone I can call the garage and get Rick to bring some fuel out.”
Clayton smiled to himself. He couldn’t really blame her for being so careful. He’d just warned her about strangers after all. Still, her reply sounded more prickly than cautious. He’d known prickly women before—hell, he’d known all kinds of women before. Every day since he’d hit puberty women had fascinated him. The fact that he would never understand any woman if he lived to be a hundred only intrigued him more.
“Sorry, no mobile phone.”
Lucy couldn’t hide her surprise. “Everyone and his dog has a mobile telephone these days.”
Clayton grinned and stuffed his hands in his coat pockets. “Well, my dog and I do just fine without one,” he told her. “And where’s yours?”
