What The Rancher Wants...

What The Rancher Wants...
LUCY MONROE

Vacancy: housekeeper needed for eligible millionaire! Sexy Win Garrison wants a new housekeeper to make his life easy, not someone who tries to get a ring on his finger! When curvy Carlene Daniels arrives on his doorstep, Win isn't fooled by her oversized jumper and hastily pulled-up hair.She's a knockout! So why is she trying to look like a frump? It makes him want to get her out of those clothes–and into his bed! Carlene doesn't seem to want to play…but what this millionaire wants, he gets!

IN BED WITH THE BOSS

He’s successful, powerful and extremely

sexy. He also happens to be her boss!

Used to getting his own way, he’ll demand

what he wants from her—in the boardroom

and the bedroom….

Watch the sparks fly as these couples

work together—and play together!

LUCY MONROE started reading at age four. After going through the children’s books at home, she was caught by her mother reading adult novels pilfered from the higher shelves on the bookcase. Alas, it was nine years before she got her hands on a Harlequin

romance book her older sister had brought home. She loves to create the strong alpha males and independent women who people Harlequin

books. When she’s not immersed in a romance novel (whether reading or writing it), she enjoys travel with her family, having tea with the neighbors, gardening and visits from her numerous nieces and nephews. Lucy loves to hear from readers. E-mail her at LucyMonroe@LucyMonroe.com, or visit her Web site at www.LucyMonroe.com.

What The Rancher Wants…

Lucy Monroe

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

For my children…your support means the world,

and no mom could be prouder of what amazing

women and young man you have become.

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 ONE

CARLENE DANIELS parked her car in the circular drive in front of the most imposing ranch house she’d ever seen.

Being from oil-rich Texas, she’d seen a few too…not to mention the beautiful homes built locally by millionaire celebs looking for anonymous vacation homes.

Anonymous. Right.

Built in the California Mission style, this home’s three-story stucco walls gleamed pristinely in the bright sunshine, the red-tiled roof and wrought-iron accents looking elegant rather than historic. She wondered who lived here. Typical for the area, the ad had given no particulars about the family she would be working for. If she would be working for them.

Sunshine Springs was not a hotbed for career opportunities, especially for an ex-schoolteacher turned cocktail waitress. But it was time to stop hiding behind spandex miniskirts and her job at the bar. Her experiences with Grant Strickland had made her realize that.

She’d left Texas in pain and determined to leave her old life behind completely. When the only opening available when she arrived in town had been working in a bar, she’d taken it because in no way would it remind her of the job and the kids she’d loved so much back home. But memories didn’t go away with a change in setting and she wanted her life back.

Carlene opened her car windows a crack and put a sunshade on the dash to protect the car from turning into a portable oven before sliding out of the driver’s seat and slamming the door. Swinging the wrought-iron gate open to the entryway, she slipped inside and rang the doorbell. After a couple of minutes and no answer, she rang it again.

They were advertising for a housekeeper after all. If the bell hadn’t been answered by now, it probably hadn’t been heard.

The door swept open. “What’s the rush?”

The husky, masculine demand caught her completely off guard. Oh, wow…this man was…totally yummy. Black hair, cobalt-blue eyes and a tall, droolworthy muscular body.

“I…uh…”

The piercing blue gaze traveled from her hair to her toes and back up again. Then it made a return journey, leaving chills in its wake. Wow…again.

She knew what she wanted him to see: a woman from another time in her life, before she’d taken the job as bartender at the Dry Gulch. A time when her clothes and manners matched the woman she was on the inside.

Instead of the revealing outfits she wore to work nowadays, she had donned a long straight denim skirt, a loose white scooped-neck top, and white sandals. Flats. After months of wearing nothing but spiked heels that added inches to her diminutive height, these shoes almost felt as if she were wearing bedroom slippers.

The only concession she’d made to the glitz she’d grown accustomed to was the silver and turquoise belt around her hips. Even her normally riotous brown curls had been tamed in a loose French braid and she’d left off everything but the barest of makeup. She looked exactly like what she wanted to convey: a nice girl. Non-threatening in the feminine stakes and perfect for the role of housekeeper.

She stifled a cynical snort at the thought. Even her oversized top could not disguise her generous curves. Curves that had been causing her trouble since the sixth grade. And she was pretty sure it was those curves that had caused the second once over and small tilt at the corner of the man’s otherwise rather grim lips.

However, she was darned if she was going to have breast reduction surgery, as her mother had suggested in order to make herself appear more respectable. She liked her figure. She just didn’t like the things it made people assume about her character. An old familiar ache tried to work its way to the surface and she forced it back down.