Wes Stryker's Wrangled Wife

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She turned on her heel and headed for the door.

Since Wes didn’t want her to leave, period, and he especially didn’t want her to leave angry, he followed her outside. “Jayne?” he called when she was halfway to her car.

Jayne came to an abrupt stop. Although it went against her better judgment, she turned around. She found herself looking across the expanse of yard where the barn stood in stark contrast to the snow and the sky. If there had ever been any paint on the old building, it was long gone, the boards weathered to a dull, dark gray. Wes’s cowboy hat was gray, too, but a lighter shade, and although she couldn’t see his eyes from here, she could feel the intensity of his gaze.

“I was thinking,” he called, holding very still.

In her experience a woman had to beware of a man who’d been thinking. “About what?” she asked.

“Maybe you’d like to name the dog.”

The suggestion caught her off guard. “You’d really let me choose a name for your dog?”

He didn’t set any records closing the barn door, but he ambled toward her, his limp all the more noticeable since it slowed down a man who was so naturally made for strength and speed.

She wasn’t a mystical, whimsical woman, or a particularly romantic one. She knew herself inside and out, her limits and goals, her strengths and weaknesses. She was a modern-day woman with a smart mouth, a sore heart and an honest soul. And she honestly didn’t know what to do about Wes Stryker.

“A friend of mine gave her dog her middle name, although now that I think of it, her mother had a fit,” she said. “You could do that, I suppose. What is your middle name, anyway?”

He grimaced. “You don’t want to know.”

“Now I have to know.”

Resting his hands on his hips, he lifted one shoulder sheepishly. “You’ll laugh. Everyone laughs.”

“I won’t, I promise.”

He hesitated a little longer, and then, in a voice so quiet she had to strain to hear over the crunch his boots made on the crusty snow, he said, “Engelbert.”

She had to bite her lip to keep from grinning. “Your parents named you Wesley Engelbert Stryker?”

His nod was accompanied by a sigh. “My mother was a huge fan of Engelbert Humperdinck.”

She had to turn around to hide her grin, but she was pretty sure he could hear the smile in her voice as she said, “That dog doesn’t really look like an Engelbert.”

“Who does?”

Her smile grew. “I’ll see what I can do about coming up with something else.”

“I would appreciate that.”

Neither of them said goodbye, but Jayne glanced toward the house after she’d backed from the driveway. Wes hadn’t moved and was watching her from underneath the brim of his worn Stetson. He looked down suddenly and reached into his pocket, pulling out a portable phone.

Before she drove away, she saw him raise the antenna and say something into the mouthpiece. She couldn’t see his expression, but his head was tilted slightly, one knee bent, a hand in one pocket. He didn’t seem to mind the cold or the fact that he was all alone on Christmas morning. Wesley Engelbert Stryker appeared relaxed and comfortable talking to whoever was on the other end of that phone.

Wesley Engelbert Stryker. Lord, what a name.

What a man.

Chapter Three

The phone rang just as Wes was taking a frozen dinner out of the microwave. It was the third phone call he’d had since talking to Annabell earlier that morning. The kids were excited and nervous and curious, not to mention a little afraid of yet another change in their lives.

He left the dinner on top of the stove. Leaning a hip against the counter, he listened intently to the tiny voice on the other end of the line.

“Yes, Olivia, honey. You’ll have your own room... Of course you can bring all your stuff.... Even Snuggles the goose...especially Snuggles the goose.... Uh-huh. And all your pictures of your mommy and daddy.... Yes, you have to bring Logan, too. He’s your brother. No, Olivia, you can’t—”

There was a screech that put Wes in mind of permanent hearing loss. A scuffle followed, and then a young boy’s voice claimed the line. “It’s me, Uncle Wes. Logan.”

As if there were forty other ten-year-old boys who called him Uncle Wes. “What did you do to your sister?” Wes asked calmly.

“I didn’t do anything to her. Well, hardly anything. She’s such a baby. Ouch. She pinched me.”

“I’m sure she didn’t...Logan...”

Olivia screeched again, which made Wes wonder what kind of retaliation Logan had inflicted upon his little sister. “Logan. Logan? Stop bugging your sister and listen to me for a minute... What?... I know... Yeah, I’ll teach you to ride your dad’s horse. Tell Olivia I’ll teach her, too.”

The boy did as he was instructed. Olivia stopped crying in the background, and for the moment at least, peace reigned in a tiny two-bedroom house two hundred and twenty miles away.

The next voice he heard was old and as raspy as if she’d just knocked back a shot of whiskey. Annabell hadn’t, of course. She hadn’t drunk anything stronger than tea since her seventy-fifth birthday. “That,” she said, clearly referring to the little skirmish that had just taken place in her living room, “is why I need your help, Wesley. These children pick on each other worse than two roosters in one henhouse.”

Wes grinned at the analogy. While the eighty-two-year-old woman talked about aching joints and brittle bones, Wes pictured her in his mind. She was probably sitting in a chair that was older than he was, ankles crossed, her prim-and-proper dress hanging limply on a body that had always been small but had grown gaunt these past several months.

“I know it was my idea to take the kids,” she said. “With Kate and Dusty gone, they’re all the family I have left, except you, of course. Why, remember that time you and Dusty showed up on my doorstep three sheets to the wind?”

“Could you narrow it down a little, Annabell?” he asked. “When Dusty and I first hit the rodeo circuit we used to show up on your doorstep three sheets to the wind every time we passed through Sioux Falls.”

She practically cackled. “Those were the days, weren’t they?”

Her cough didn’t fool Wes into believing that the sudden thickness in her voice was anything other than tears. Being the tough old bird she was, Annabell recovered and said, “Those were the days then, and these are the days now. I spoke to a judge friend of mine, discreetly, mind you. He says he doesn’t foresee any major problems or obstacles with placing the children with you. It would be easier if you were blood related, but you are their godfather, after all. You’re going to have to go through the proper channels, though.”

“What channels?” Wes asked, uncrossing his ankles and standing up straighter.

“You’ll have to show the system that you can provide for Logan and Olivia, that you have a suitable place for them to live, that sort of thing. There’ll be some paperwork involved, but isn’t there always? Stanley said that in a perfect world the state would prefer to place children in two-parent homes. I’m telling you, if I were twenty years younger, I’d move out there and marry you myself.”

Wes smiled to himself. If Annabell Malone were twenty years younger, she would still be twenty-seven years older than he was.

“I know there’s been a noted lack of women in Jasper Gulch these past several years,” Annabell said. “But can you think of a woman who stirs your juices, so to speak, and who might take to these two corkers?”