Cowboys Do It Best

Cowboys Do It Best
Eileen Wilks

WHAT EXACTLY DO COWBOYS DO BEST? Seduction. Chase McGuire knew he shouldn't seduce his new, pretty boss lady. But he wanted Summer Callahan in the worst way. Wanted to show her what his work-roughened hands would feel like, as they rolled in the prickly hay in the barn, tangled in the cool sheets in his bed…EVERYTHING, HONEY!No man had ever made Summer feel the way Chase did. But she was a forever kind of woman and he was a wandering man who'd never commit to one place or one woman. Could Summer take a sultry, torrid affair and turn it into happily-ever-after?

“I Don’t Want This,” (#uc6493bcc-fbcc-5beb-8dea-c44305608821)Letter to Reader (#u3b722860-d4c6-5de0-a21e-83eea127854f)Title Page (#uc9977a14-2847-5f3f-a0d3-9c5a06329c51)About the Author (#ubd68970e-79cf-5c7a-adf7-0e1f6cbf6c28)Dedication (#ub965a565-a45e-5b60-bdcd-ac9c8b0e5154)Chapter One (#ue559b056-f365-54c1-a6eb-e909e50487f4)Chapter Two (#u060c8102-7beb-5ed8-82d7-e84a6d767291)Chapter Three (#u03f47553-7350-5684-881e-dff5ef898c47)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)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

“I Don’t Want This,”

Summer said breathlessly.

“I don’t suppose it matters much whether you want it to happen or not,” Chase said, looking down at her with no smile at all on his face. “Sooner or later we’ll be lovers, Summer.”

“I’m not one of your easy-come, easy-go women.” She felt each throb of her heart as passion and panic combined to thicken her blood.

“No, you sure aren’t, are you? You’re no more what I ought to want than I’m what you should want, but the only way you can keep me from having you, Summer, is to fire me—now. Are you going to do that?”

She looked at him and said nothing.

“I didn’t think so,” he said softly. “I’ll give you a little time, boss lady, to get used to the idea. But not much.”

Dear Reader,

The celebration of Silhouette Desire’s 15th anniversary continues this month! First, there’s a wonderful treat in store for you as Ann Major continues her fantastic CHILDREN OF DESTINY series with November’s MAN OF THE MONTH, Nobody’s Child. Not only is this the latest volume in this popular miniseries, but Ann will have a Silhouette Single Title, also part of CHILDREN OF DESTINY, in February 1998, called Secret Child. Don’t miss either one of these unforgettable love stories.

BJ James’s popular BLACK WATCH series also continues with Journey’s End the latest installment in the stories of the men—and the women—of the secret agency. This wonderful lineup is completed with delicious love stories by Lass Small, Susan Crosby, Eileen Wilks and Shawna Delacorte. And next month, look for six more Silhouette Desire books, including a MAN OF THE MONTH by Dixie Browning!

Desire...it’s the name you can trust for dramatic, sensuous, engrossing stories written by your bestselling favorites and terrific newcomers. We guarantee handsome heroes, likable heroines...and happily-ever-after endings. So read, and enjoy!

Senior Editor

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Cowboys do it Best

Eileen Wilks

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

EILEEN WILKS

is a fifth-generation Texan. Her great-great-grandmother came to Texas in a covered wagon shortly after the end of the Civil War—excuse us, the War between the States. But she’s not a full-blooded Texan. Right after another war, her Texan father fell for a Yankee woman. This obviously mismatched pair proceeded to travel to nine cities in three countries in the first twenty years of their marriage, raising two kids and innumerable dogs and cats along the way. For the next twenty years they stayed put, back home in Texas again—and still together.

Eileen figures her professional career matches her nomadic upbringing, since she tried everything from drafting to a brief stint as a ranch hand—raising two children and any number of cats and dogs along the way. Not until she started writing did she “stay put,” because that’s when she knew she’d come home.

This book is for my daughter Katie, whose “horse sense” was as necessary to my story as her patience with her distracted mother has been to my writing. Thanks, Katie.

One

Three days after leaving Birds’ Eye, Wyoming, Chase McGuire killed his truck. It died when he was twenty miles outside of San Antonio, and still 277 miles from his new job on an offshore drilling rig.

Built like the rodeo champion he’d been until last year, and dressed like the cowboy he still was, Chase had a livedin sort of face that looked a bit older than its thirty-two years. His collection of smile lines said he was accustomed to the tricks life got up to from time to time, and generally took them in stride.

He wasn’t smiling now.

Chase stood with the hood up on his three-year-old pickup truck and stared at his engine, so blasted disgusted with himself he could hardly see straight. The air stank of hot metal and burned oil. Chase didn’t need the smell, though, or the sight of his oil-free dipstick to tell him he’d messed up royally this time. When the gentle tap-tap-tap that had worried him for the last few miles suddenly mutated into a loud clang-clang-clang just before he coasted off onto the shoulder, he’d known all too well what was wrong.

It was a clear case of negligent homicide. His dash instruments had gone out about fifty miles back. A fuse, he’d thought, and hadn’t stopped. He was due in Port Arthur that evening and still had a lot of miles to cover. Maybe he should have gotten an earlier start this morning, but Fannie had been mighty persuasive about lingering. What kind of gentleman would turn down a request from the lady who’d been kind enough to put a weary traveler up for the night?

Especially when his hostess was built the way Fannie was.

He hadn’t figured he’d have any trouble making the time up. Of course, he hadn’t counted on some unknown road hazard puncturing his radiator during the fifty miles after his instrument panel went dark. He’d lost all his water and coolant and burned up his fuel pump, followed pretty damn fast by his motor.

Chase slammed the hood closed and walked back to the cab. He climbed up, grabbed his keys and the duffel bag that sat on the seat. He started to get out, but the sun catcher that hung from his rearview mirror caught his eye.

A friend had given him the little stained glass rainbow years ago, back when Chase left college to go on the pro rodeo circuit full-time. She’d told him he was chasing rainbows.

Chase hadn’t argued. Sure, rainbows were mostly illusion—a trick of light and moisture that fooled you into thinking you saw a bit of magic. But a man needed a rainbow or two to follow. He’d hung that sun catcher on his rearview mirror and followed it through thirty states, mailing his trophies and buckles back to his brother to keep for him.

Until last year. Fifteen months ago, to be exact.

Chase slipped the rainbow’s chain free from the mirror. He stuck it in the pocket on the duffel, stepped down from the cab and looked up and down the quiet country road.

Back the way he’d come lay the interstate. Chase preferred a more wandering sort of road, a road with more personality, some surprises along the way.

No, he couldn’t think of any reason to backtrack. The way he’d been headed, now, there were a dozen little towns spotting the countryside around San Antonio, clustered up as close and friendly as freckles on a redhead. Most of those tiny towns had a split identity these days, divided between their rural upbringing and their newer function as bedroom communities for the growing city at their center. There was bound to be one of those freckle-sized towns up the road a ways. He’d just walk until he came to it, or until someone took pity on his feet and gave him a lift.

Not that he had any idea in hell what he’d do when he got wherever he was going. He probably had enough cash on him for a tune-up. Not a new engine.

Chase put his good hat on his head and left the old one locked up in the truck, slung his tote over his shoulder and set off down the two-lane road.

He limped. He ignored that, just like he’d been doing for the past fifteen months.

The air was crisp, but hardly January cold. San Antonio was pretty far south, so far that the grass was still green. Good walking weather, he told himself.

Yeah, this was one of life’s better jokes, all right, he thought as his feet put a low hill between him and his pickup. A real zinger. Not that he was crazy about working on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. He’d done enough roughnecking from time to time, filling in between rodeos when he was starting out, to know what the work was like. But he needed something. A goal. Some kind of direction to aim at. He didn’t know exactly what he needed, but he sure as hell had to find out.

Chase had always played hard. Before he started shaving he’d understood that the only way to deal with life was to enjoy every moment you can and not take anything too seriously, because sure as anything, once you let something or someone matter too much, life pulled the rug out from under you. But ever since he’d left the circuit, he’d been playing too hard. Drinking too much and working too little. He’d started a slide down a smooth, steep shaft that led exactly nowhere.

When he woke up one morning with chunks of the night before missing, as well as most of the paycheck from his current two-bit job, he’d scared himself badly enough to take the job a friend of a friend offered him in Port Arthur.

Only now he wasn’t going to make it to Port Arthur.

Chase’s mouth drew into an unaccustomedly grim line. He’d just have to get himself straightened out some other way. He settled his tote on his other shoulder to get the weight off the side with the bad knee.