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In A Cowboy's Embrace
Charlotte Maclay
Who's been sleeping in my bed?A simple question, yet Cliff Swain knew his reaction to the slumbering beauty couldn't be easily explained. After all, he hadn't looked, let alone thought twice about a woman in years. And here, temptation lay in his bed, her tousled hair spread across his pillow…Tasha Reynolds had come to Montana to repair a broken heart and to cook and clean for Cliff. The deputy dad had an opening, allowing Tasha and her daughter to make a temporary home on the Double S ranch. Only, Tasha hadn't dreamed what she would find in this cowboy's embrace…and couldn't conceive leaving behind…
Instinctively Tasha snuggled into the warmth of the man beside her
She relished the steady beat of his heart and the warm feel of his skin beneath her palm. She felt secure. Cherished. Infinitely at ease, as though she’d been lost for a long time and had finally come home.
She squeezed her eyelids closed against the press of sunlight. Morning, she realized. Time to get up, and she wasn’t anywhere near ready to give up the snug place she’d discovered.
Slightly shifting, she wished—
Everything about her stopped, even her breathing.
There was a man in her bed. A big man with a broad chest and muscular arms. A familiar man who smelled faintly of spicy aftershave mixed with the scent of sagebrush.
Her eyes flew open. “Cliff!” she whispered sharply. Mortified, she tried to shake him awake. “Cliff, wake up! You’re in the wrong bed!”
Dear Reader,
May is the perfect month to stop and smell the roses, and while you’re at it, take some time for yourself and indulge your romantic fantasies! Here at Mills & Boon American Romance, we’ve got four brand-new stories, picked specially for your reading pleasure.
Sparks fly once more as Charlotte Maclay continues her wild and wonderful CAUGHT WITH A COWBOY! duo this month with In a Cowboy’s Embrace. Join the fun as Tasha Reynolds falls asleep in the wrong bed and wakes with Cliff Swain, the very right cowboy!
This May, flowers aren’t the only things blossoming—we’ve got two very special mothers-to-be! When estranged lovers share one last night of passion, they soon learn they’ll never forget That Night We Made Baby, Mary Anne Wilson’s heartwarming addition to our WITH CHILD…promotion. And as Emily Kingston discovers in Elizabeth Sinclair’s charming tale, The Pregnancy Clause, where there’s a will, there’s a baby on the way!
There’s something fascinating about a sexy, charismatic man who seems to have it all, and Ingrid Weaver’s hero in Big-City Bachelor is no exception. Alexander Whitmore has two wonderful children, money, a successful company…. What could he possibly be missing…?
With Mills & Boon American Romance, you’ll always know the exhilarating feeling of falling in love.
Happy reading!
Melissa Jeglinski
Associate Senior Editor
In a Cowboy’s Embrace
Charlotte Maclay
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CHARLOTTE MACLAY can’t resist a happy ending. That’s why she’s had such fun writing more than twenty titles for Mills & Boon American Romance and Mills & Boon Love & Laughter, as well as several Silhouette Romance books. Particularly well-known for her volunteer efforts in her hometown of Torrance, California, Charlotte’s philosophy is that you should make a difference in your community. She and her husband have two married daughters and two grandchildren, whom they are occasionally allowed to baby-sit. She loves to hear from readers, and can be reached at: P.O. Box 505, Torrance, CA 90501.
Books by Charlotte Maclay
MILLS & BOON AMERICAN ROMANCE
474—THE VILLAIN’S LADY
488—A GHOSTLY AFFAIR
503—ELUSIVE TREASURE
532—MICHAEL’S MAGIC
537—THE KIDNAPPED BRIDE
566—HOW TO MARRY A MILLIONAIRE
585—THE COWBOY AND THE BELLY DANCER
620—THE BEWITCHING BACHELOR
643—WANTED: A DAD TO BRAG ABOUT
657—THE LITTLEST ANGEL
684—STEALING SAMANTHA
709—CATCHING A DADDY
728—A LITTLE BIT PREGNANT
743—THE HOG-TIED GROOM
766—DADDY’S LITTLE COWGIRL
788—DEPUTY DADDY
806—A DADDY FOR BECKY
821—THE RIGHT COWBOY’S BED* (#litres_trial_promo)
825—IN A COWBOY’S EMBRACE* (#litres_trial_promo)
Reed County Register
Around Town with Winnie
by Winifred Bruhn
Eligible Bachelor Brothers
Bryant and Clifford Swain have recently set Reilly’s Gulch on fire with rumored bedroom shenanigans!
As you know, the brothers Swain co-own and operate the Double S ranch outside of town. And with any number of virtuous single young women residing in our fine community, these two gentlemen have seen fit to take up with outsiders! What is wrong with the wonderful young women right here in Reilly’s Gulch, I say!
And as if this weren’t enough, apparently there has been a mix-up in the two Swain boudoirs! Ella Papadakis from Los Angeles was dating brother Clifford, but somehow ended up in Bryant’s bed. Her sister, Tasha Reynolds, claims she was merely hired to be brother Clifford’s housekeeper, but seems to have interpreted “keeping house” quite differently!
One must hope, as members of one of Reilly’s Gulch’s leading families, that the brothers Swain will resist temptations of the flesh in favor of setting a strong example for the young people of our community.
Meanwhile, at Sal’s Bar and Grill, this reporter is troubled to note…
Contents
Chapter One (#uf5d6c178-6535-543d-a9ec-2bb395c0e722)
Chapter Two (#uba1d031c-2d9f-5a3a-a3ae-814991797ca4)
Chapter Three (#ua94dd1e1-dac4-5678-9b99-7a74e36e4a5f)
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 Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One
“Daddy! Daddy!” Five-year-old Stevie came running into the kitchen from the back of the house. “Goldilocks is sleeping in your bed! And she brought her mother with her!”
Clifford Swain cupped the back of his son’s head. He’d had a long day rounding up cattle on the Double S and branding this year’s crop of calves on the ranch he and his twin brother jointly owned. He wasn’t at all sure he had the energy to deal with another of his son’s flights of fancy.
Still, a stranger in the house would explain the silver-gray BMW parked out front. No one in the small Montana town of Reilly’s Gulch drove a car like that, certainly not one that was five years old and looked brand-new. Pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles were the favored mode of transportation in this rugged, northwestern part of Montana.
Except for Chester O’Reilly. He’d gotten it into his ninety-year-old head to buy a Mazda Miata from Cliff’s sister-in-law, Ella, and then started a taxi service with it.
“Come on, bucko,” Cliff said to his son. The crime rate in Reilly’s Gulch was so low, he didn’t imagine whomever Stevie had spotted—real or pretend—would pose much of a danger. He should know. When he wasn’t punching cattle, he was a Reed County deputy sheriff and had filed the papers to run for election as county sheriff. “Let’s find out what’s going on.”
“Do you think they ate up all our porridge?”
Cliff grinned at the boy, whose blue eyes sparkled with excitement. “Don’t think you’re going to get out of eating your oatmeal for breakfast if they have. I’ll just buy some more.”
“Aw, gee…” He did a little skip-hop to catch up with Cliff. “Sweet rolls are better.”
“That gooey stuff’ll kill you, kid.” As well as give the boy a sugar high that he didn’t need. Where Stevie was concerned, energy was rarely in short supply.
The sprawling ranch-style house had large rooms and wide hallways. He and his wife had wanted a big family and plenty of space to spread out. But Yvonne had died nearly three years ago. They’d never built the second story, which had been in the original plans.
They’d never had any more kids, either, and that still hurt almost as much as having lost his high school sweetheart.
Cliff peered into the guest room. Actually he’d been sleeping there since Yvonne died. At first there were too many ghosts, too many memories in the master bedroom. Then it simply became a habit to sleep across the hall.
“See, what’d I tell you,” Stevie whispered.
Yep, definitely Goldilocks and her mom, both of them sound asleep on top of the covers, a paperback novel open on the night table. The girl’s hair was tousled with blond ringlets, her face like an angel, but it was the woman who drew Cliff’s attention. Her hair spilled over the pillow like a waterfall made of white gold. At rest, she looked vulnerable. Approachable. Tempting as hell.
Thick coils of heat whipped through Cliff, and he had to fight an instinctive urge to flee…or to join the woman lying on his bed.
A grown-up Goldilocks far more alluring than a younger version. He must have made a sound because the woman stretched, arching as lazily as a sleek cat. Her eyes blinked open. Blue as a Montana sky. A slow smile curved lips specifically made with kissing in mind. She gave him an assessing look, then her gaze slid to his son.
“Hi. You must be Stevie.” A low, seductive voice, husky with sleep.
The boy nodded. “You’re sleeping in my dad’s bed.”
“I am?” She eyed Cliff again with a warm, blue-velvet gaze.
“Did you break any of our chairs?” Stevie asked.
A fascinating little inverted V appeared between her nicely shaped eyebrows. “Chairs?” Effortlessly, she rose to a sitting position, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. Her skirt swirled into position, settling like silk across her lap, draping the quick flash of leg that he’d glimpsed. With easy grace, she picked up a silver hair clip from the nightstand, twisted her long hair a couple of times and piled it on top of her head, snaring it in place in a sexy, casual do.
“He thinks you’re Goldilocks’s mother,” Cliff explained, his throat strangely tight and his voice as husky as hers had been.
She glanced at her sleeping daughter, and her smile blossomed into something radiant. Madonna and child with a measure of laughter mixed in. “More like an overtired minx, I’m afraid. We’ve been driving for days and then I got lost.”
From the looks of her long fingernails painted a raspberry red, to her perfectly oval face and her flawless complexion, not only was this woman lost, she’d wound up about two thousand miles off target. Hollywood should have been her destination.
She slipped her bare feet into a pair of leather sandals on the floor beside the bed, her toenails the same bright shade of raspberry as her fingernails. When she stood, she extended her hand to Cliff. “I’m Tasha Reynolds, your new housekeeper. Temporarily, of course.”
Cliff’s jaw dropped to somewhere near his knees. His housekeeper? No way was this the sort of woman he’d expected to fill in for Sylvia Torres while his regular housekeeper was helping her daughter following the birth of Sylvia’s third grandchild. But he’d asked his sister-in-law if she knew anyone….
“Are you Ella’s sister?” he asked, belatedly noting a vague family resemblance to his brother’s new wife. But while Ella Papadakis-Swain was attractive, Tasha was…striking. Tall and willowy, she moved with a dramatic grace that only a man who could meet and beat her height could fully appreciate. A man like Cliff.
“Guilty as charged.” She slipped past him as smoothly as warm butter on toast, taking Stevie’s hand in the process. “Why don’t we let Melissa sleep a little while longer? Four days of travel were hard on her.”
He watched her walk down the hallway—no, she floated down the hallway, Cliff mentally corrected himself, noting the sway of her skirt. She left the scent of the tropics behind her, hot and sultry. No way could he let Tasha Reynolds stay around as his housekeeper. No way, unless she’d allow him to spend twenty-four hours a day in bed with her.
Given he had an impressionable five-year-old son—and she had a young daughter—that wasn’t a viable plan. The only other choice was to ask her to leave. Because no way could he be under the same roof with her for any extended length of time without bedding her.
He wasn’t going to do that.
