Home on the Ranch

Home on the Ranch
Allison Leigh

SIX FOOT-PLUS OF RUGGED, UNSMILING MALE STOOD THERE…Cage Buchanan hated her. The proud rancher might have hired Belle Day out of sheer desperation, but she was determined to help heal his injured daughter. Now here she was, installed at the Lazy-B Ranch, trying not to respond to this ornery, overbearing, incredibly arousing man.Cage was at the end of his rope. What else explained inviting a Day to live under the same roof? His daughter, Lucy, was Cage's first priority, but with her sexy therapist around, it was hard to focus on daily chores. What would it take to turn passionate enemies into lovers for life…and, together, make a real home on the ranch?

“I’m sorry.”

Belle shivered. She tugged away from his hold, that wasn’t really a hold at all when Cage let go of her so easily, and she was grateful she hadn’t betrayed the way he made her feel.

“I’m sorry, too,” she whispered.

About so many things.

She walked out, leaving Cage standing there in the barn, surrounded by weights and mats and bars and bells, all procured with the intention of helping his daughter walk and run and dance again.

Just then, however, it felt to Belle as if she and Cage were the ones in need of walking lessons.

Dear Reader,

It’s that time of year again—back to school! And even if you’ve left your classroom days far behind you, if you’re like me, September brings with it the quest for everything new, especially books! We at Silhouette Special Edition are happy to fulfill that jones, beginning with Home on the Ranch by Allison Leigh, another in her bestselling MEN OF THE DOUBLE-C series. Though the Buchanans and the Days had been at odds for years, a single Buchanan rancher—Cage—would do anything to help his daughter learn to walk again, including hiring the only reliable physical therapist around. Even if her last name did happen to be Day….

Next, THE PARKS EMPIRE continues with Judy Duarte’s The Rich Man’s Son, in which a wealthy Parks scion, suffering from amnesia, winds up living the country life with a single mother and her baby boy. And a man passing through town notices more than the passing resemblance between himself and newly adopted infant of the local diner waitress, in The Baby They Both Loved by Nikki Benjamin. In A Father’s Sacrifice by Karen Sandler, a man determined to do the right thing insists that the mother of his child marry him, and finds love in the bargain. And a woman’s search for the truth about her late father leads her into the arms of a handsome cowboy determined to give her the life her dad had always wanted for her, in A Texas Tale by Judith Lyons. Last, a man with a new face revisits the ranch—and the woman—that used to be his. Only, the woman he’d always loved was no longer alone. Now she was accompanied by a five-year-old girl…with very familiar blue eyes….

Enjoy, and come back next month for six complex and satisfying romances, all from Silhouette Special Edition!

Gail Chasan

Senior Editor

Home on the Ranch

Allison Leigh

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

ALLISON LEIGH

started early by writing a Halloween play that her grade-school class performed. Since then, though her tastes have changed, her love for reading has not. And her writing appetite simply grows more voracious by the day.

She has been a finalist in the RITA

Award and the Holt Medallion contests. But the true highlights of her day as a writer are when she receives word from a reader that they laughed, cried or lost a night of sleep while reading one of her books.

Born in Southern California, Allison has lived in several different cities in four different states. She has been, at one time or another, a cosmetologist, a computer programmer and a secretary. She has recently begun writing full-time after spending nearly a decade as an administrative assistant for a busy neighborhood church, and currently makes her home in Arizona with her family. She loves to hear from her readers, who can write to her at P.O. Box 40772, Mesa, AZ 85274-0772.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Epilogue

Chapter One

“He is not an ogre.”

Belle Day flicked her windshield wipers up to frenzied and tightened her grip around the steering wheel of her Jeep. She focused harder on the unfamiliar road, slowing even more to avoid the worst of the flooding, muddy ruts.

It wasn’t the weather, or the road, or the unfamiliar drive that had her nerves in a noose, though. It was the person waiting at the end of the drive.

“He is not an ogre.” Stupid talking to herself. She’d have to keep that to a minimum when she arrived. Not that she did it all the time.

Only when she was nervous.

Why had she agreed to this?

Her tire hit a dip her searching gaze had missed, and the vehicle rocked, the steering wheel jerking violently in her grip. She exhaled roughly and considered pulling over, but discarded the idea. The sooner she got to the Lazy-B, the sooner she could leave.

Not exactly positive thinking, Belle. Why are you doing this?