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Milky Way
Muriel Jensen
WELCOME TO TYLER TRY SOME CHEESECAKEBritt Hansen's started a new line of dairy products and it's selling like crazy! Pull up a chair and savor the triumphs – and tragedies – of America's favorite hometown.A YOUNG WIDOW STRUGGLES TO SAVE FAMILY FARMBritt is certain that her new venture will save her farm from bankruptcy – if she can convince the dairy, her biggest creditor, to give her the time she needs.WILL THE DAIRY REP STAND IN HER WAY?Jake Marshack's future at the dairy will be assured if he can persuade Britt to sell her farm. But he hadn't expected the mother of four to be so determined … or so attractive. Soon, he isn't sure if their battle is one he wants to win….
WELCOME TO TYLER-TRY SOME CHEESECAKE
Britt Hansen’s started a new line of dairy products and it’s selling like crazy! Pull up a chair and savor the triumphs—and tragedies—of America’s favorite hometown.
A YOUNG WIDOW STRUGGLES TO SAVE FAMILY FARM
Britt is certain that her new venture will save her farm from bankruptcy—if she can convince the dairy, her biggest creditor, to give her the time she needs.
WILL THE DAIRY REP STAND IN HER WAY?
Jake Marshack’s future at the dairy will be assured if he can persuade Britt to sell her farm. But he hadn’t expected the mother of four to be so determined...or so attractive. Soon, he isn’t sure if their battle is one he wants to win....
Previously Published.
“I won’t sell this farm,” Britt said.
“Mrs. Hansen, you’re in considerable debt already, with little chance of fighting your way out. If you sell, you can pay all your debts and still have enough left over to start four college funds.”
She did not appear appeased. “You even know how many children I have.”
“Details are an important part of my job,” he said without apology. “You owe us a lot of money, Mrs. Hansen. One of us better do his research.”
She marched across the kitchen, yanked the door open and fixed him with a lethal stare. “I’m a 34B, I love silk underthings, mocha fudge ice cream, and I root for the Milwaukee Brewers. Anything else you’d like to know?”
Temporarily defeated, Jake smiled politely and went to the door. “We’ll deliver your supplies,” he said as he stepped out, “as soon as your bill is paid.”
Dear Reader (#ulink_d48c8868-2452-5204-b9e5-2572489e52d8),
Welcome to Mills & Boon’s Tyler, a small Wisconsin town whose citizens we hope you’ll soon come to know and love. Like many of the innovative publishing concepts Mills & Boon has launched over the years, the idea for the Tyler series originated in response to our readers’ preferences. Your enthusiasm for sequels and continuing characters within many of the Mills & Boon lines has prompted us to create a twelve-book series of individual romances whose characters’ lives inevitably intertwine.
Tyler faces many challenges typical of small towns, but the fabric of this fictional community created by Mills & Boon will be torn by the revelation of a long-ago murder, the details of which will evolve right through the series. This intriguing crime will culminate in an emotional trial that profoundly affects the lives of the Ingallses, the Barons, the Forresters and the Wochecks.
A hot baseball game is going on across the park, and, as usual, the whole town is turning out for the Fourth of July picnic. No doubt they’ll be sampling Britt Hansen’s delicious new yogurt products.
And there’s startling scuttlebutt, as well. The investigation of Margaret Ingalls’s death takes a dramatic turn. In fact, it seems Alyssa Baron is preparing to take over the family business. Judson just hasn’t been the same since the news.…
So join us in Tyler for a slice of small-town life that’s not as innocent or as quiet as you might expect, and for a sense of community that will capture your mind and your heart.
Marsha Zinberg
Editorial Coordinator, Tyler
Milky Way
Muriel Jensen
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To Joe and Sally Rohne,
who have a beautiful farm, and a beautiful romance
Special thanks and acknowledgment to Muriel Jensen for her contribution to the TYLER series.
Special thanks and acknowledgment to Joanna Kosloff for her contribution to the concept for the TYLER series.
CONTENTS
Cover (#u1d583527-67f7-5c50-aead-47f0daf2e978)
Back Cover Text (#u6d5ec3eb-c19c-53b2-8ec2-339b92b6d1d6)
Dear Reader (#ulink_996056bc-730d-578c-bbe9-79a59953a8a0)
Title Page (#u43ef2c35-94d1-5415-b208-25b7057eb8c2)
Dedication (#u22304078-4a4d-5e97-992a-ee055d9782ae)
Acknowledgments (#u94e31db6-af90-5fa2-b2f7-6ea58c71f44e)
Chapter One (#ulink_7afc4932-444d-5ad5-998a-a53749344afd)
Chapter Two (#ulink_49e9bc3f-9708-50bf-bb71-6f212da4ec03)
Chapter Three (#ulink_023c72a7-e1b8-5549-9b11-c11c142585ad)
Chapter Four (#ulink_4921b7d4-e19b-50a1-aa7b-468c0452abe6)
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)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_34d97cd0-bd71-57da-af85-98ca955bafd8)
JAKE MARSHACK TURNED his red Ford Explorer off the highway onto the gravel side road marked with the Wisconsin Department of Transportation’s official brown-and-yellow Rustic Road designation. The signs identified stretches of thoroughfare that retained the charm of days gone by, when life and travel were slower, when there’d been time to smell the wildflowers and listen to the birds. But the rich, verdant pasture spreading out to his left, dotted with grazing Holsteins, and the tall, lush green crowding in on his right went unnoticed. He didn’t see the gray clouds against the stormy spring sky, heralding rain, or the fat black-and-white Canada geese flying toward Timber Lake, a quarter of a mile away. His mind was ticking over figures.
As Winnebago Dairy’s sales manager in southeastern Wisconsin, Jake spent most of his time in a Chicago office. But several times a year he went on the road to collect outstanding receivables. He could be charming and firm, understanding but unshakable in his resolve to have the district with the best numbers. Still, the percentage of uncollectible debt was growing among the smaller farms in his district, and the struggles of their owners to hold on to what little they had left touched him as few things in life did.
But business was business. However much he hated this part of his job, he had to do it. When the big red barn and the white Victorian farmhouse beyond it came into view, he pulled over to review his notes.
“Hansen widow trying hard, but still unable to pay,” Buckley, the sales rep, had reported after his last call at Lakeside Farm. “Renting out large parcels of pasture in March and promises to pay outstanding balance at that time.”
Jake checked his printout. March had come and gone and there’d been no payment. In fact, there’d been no payment since the previous September. Policy was clear. The widow Hansen was cut off pending payment in full.
Jake closed his folder with a groan. Great. A widow. He had to stop feed delivery to some little old arthritic thing who’d probably lose the farm before the year was out and be forced to move in with one of her kids.
He shook his head as he pulled back onto the road and headed for the lane to the house. He’d never understand why generation after generation of farmers broke their backs and very often their hearts over a piece of land that was subject to every joke God, nature and the government could play. It was masochistic and senseless. He couldn’t imagine dedicating one’s life to something as completely unpredictable as a harvest.
Now, numbers made sense. Columns that balanced were easy to understand. A future that depended solely on what an individual could do was the only course worth plotting, as far as he was concerned. Needing and depending on others or on the beneficence of nature always led to a predictable end—disappointment.
Jake didn’t believe in disappointment. He believed in success.
He pulled to a stop behind a muddy blue GMC truck at the side of the house. A yellow Lab lying at the top of the porch steps raised an intelligent face to watch him. Jake leaped out of the vehicle, careful to miss a puddle, and took a moment to look around.
The house had a peaked roof with gingerbread finials and a wraparound porch. It was tidy but in need of a fresh coat of paint. A heart-shaped wreath of dried flowers hung on the front door, and scarlet May-blooming tulips and bright forget-menots trimmed the foundation and the porch steps. He imagined the little widow kneeling on a rug and pampering her flowers.
Maybe he’d get lucky, he thought, and she wouldn’t be home. He could send her a registered letter telling her she was customer non grata. No. He had the best numbers in the company because he dealt with people face-to-face. He made things turn out his way, but he did it openly.
He took two steps up toward the porch and was greeted by a hair-raising growl from deep in the Lab’s throat and a clear view of impressive canine incisors. The dog hadn’t moved, and Jake got the distinct impression it was because she didn’t feel she had to.
Accustomed to a fair amount of hostility, Jake had perfected an understanding manner and a conciliatory tone of voice that usually worked on dogs as well as people. He extended a cautious hand and asked, “Good dog?”
The Lab changed demeanor instantly. Rolling onto her back, she tucked her feet in in eager surrender, her strong tail wagging madly. She whined in helpless adoration as Jake reached up to scratch her sturdy mound of a chest. An upside-down tongue flicked at the sleeve of Jake’s suit jacket.
Jake laughed. “You are a good dog,” he praised. “You’re not much of a security system, but I’ll bet you’re a great friend.”
The dog rolled onto four big feet and followed him as he went to the front door and knocked. She sat on his right foot as he waited...and waited.
* * *
BRITTANY HANSEN STOOD on tiptoe on top of an eight-foot wooden ladder and groped for the shingle that was just beyond her reach. She growled impatiently when the tip of her longest finger refused to close the gap.
“Come on!” she said aloud. “One more shingle! I am not going to climb down and move the ladder again for one more shingle!”
She withdrew her aching arm and studied the shingle with hostility. Rubbing her aching biceps, she tried to remember why repairing the hole in the porch roof had seemed so important this afternoon. Because she wanted to put the porch swing out, she reminded herself, and a large drip had developed where she usually placed it near the kitchen window.
And because Jimmy had always brought the old swing out for her at the first sign of spring, and she wanted to prove to herself that although he wasn’t here to do it, it would still get done.
Sneaky, strong emotion rose up to sting her eyes and clog her throat. Having it out would be no fun, and she’d probably choke up every time she looked at it, but it would be in its place because she had put it there. It would be one small victory after a long dark winter of silent, corrosive grief.
Britt drew a deep breath, leaned her weight against the roof and stretched her right hand out as far as she could reach—and felt the toe of her right foot push the ladder out from under her.
She screamed, the palms of her hands scraping over the rough tiles as she slid down, then caught the rain gutter with her fingers.
Great, she thought with a gallows humor she was surprised to find had survived the winter. Hanging by my fingernails. Literally. The bank should see this.
She groped with her feet for the porch railing, but the extended roof had her too far out to reach.
She considered letting go, but the drop to the ground was considerable. She could not afford a broken limb at this point in time, and the way her luck had been running, a multiple fracture was bound to result.
“Dammit, Jimmy!” she shouted at the air. “Do something!”
* * *
JAKE AND THE LAB, still waiting at the front door were galvanized into action by a crash followed immediately by a piercing screech. With one loud Woof! the dog ran around the porch to the back of the house. Jake followed, his mind already in sympathy with the poor little arthritic old lady.
He jerked to a halt at the sight of a pair of long legs dangling at eye level. They were not arthritic legs. They were slender, shapely legs in snug denim. His brain took a moment to swap mental images and assimilate what was happening.
His eyes lifted to a baggy gray sweater and arms holding rigidly, desperately to the gutter. Pale blue eyes in a white face were wide with alarm and a curious resignation.
Jake wrapped an arm around a pillar to steady himself and reached out over the railing.
* * *
BRITT STARED at the man in the three-piece gray suit and wondered if her desperation had conjured him up. Before she could decide, he had a fistful of the front of her sweater.
“Kick a leg out toward me,” he ordered.
She blinked. He didn’t disappear. “Who are you?” she asked.
She heard his gasp of exasperation. “Does that matter at the moment? Kick a leg out.”
Reflexively, she complied, and felt a muscular arm wrap itself around it.
“Now drop a hand to my shoulder.”
She wanted to, but even the threat of falling couldn’t blunt the effect of a large male hand wrapped high around her inner thigh.
“I haven’t got a good grip on you,” he said when she hesitated. “If you fall now, we’re both going over. I don’t know about you, but weeks of traction wouldn’t fit into my schedule.”
“I...can’t hold on with one hand.”
