Her Torrid Temporary Marriage

Her Torrid Temporary Marriage
Sara Orwig

ONE RED-HOT HUSBANDMattie Ryan had no illusions about her temporary husband. Long, lean, darkly compelling - Josh Brand was every woman's fantasy. And everyone in Texas cattle country was gonna wonder why in blue blazes he'd marry his gawky cowpoke neighbor!Well, Josh needed a mom for his baby, and Mattie needed - well, Mattie needed a man! The arrangement had seemed simple: a one-year, no-love-involved commitment. But Mattie, in all her experience, did the unthinkable: She'd fallen for her husband.Worse, she welcomed Josh's steamy stares, sizzling caresses and words of seduction. And now the last thing Mattie wanted was for her torrid temporary marriage to end… .

Excerpt (#u125ffff5-7712-5c3e-aba1-8b189176604a)Letter to Reader (#u1ec2b234-b257-50ca-8e35-c587483db4d0)About the Author (#uabaaf6e1-02ca-5d50-8737-85516d640691)Title Page (#uc54ccb69-bcae-5671-8b8c-bbff011e5b6c)Dedication (#u9622b6ab-534d-50bc-aa4b-65113d501b5c)Chapter One (#uad67072c-edb2-51d7-b163-e62b4ac851f2)Chapter Two (#u3cbbaec9-cc76-506d-a1b5-b17e47f55cae)Chapter Three (#u034c56d1-9b8a-547d-8b32-e8604c1e0fa8)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)

“Woman, You Were Meant For Loving,” Josh Said In A Husky Voice.

Mattie’s heart thudded. His hand was on her throat and his dark eyes held a smoldering intensity that she hadn’t seen before. His voice was raw with desire. The few times they had been together before their wedding, she’d sometimes wondered whether he’d seen her at all—but not now. At this moment she had his undivided attention.

“You are absolutely the first and only man to think so,” she said.

He tilted her chin higher, running his index finger along her jaw in a slow, tantalizing trail that made her tingle. Her body was responding to him in ways she had never experienced. She felt as if she was wound tightly inside, an urgency gathering in her.

“It’s been a hell of a long time since I really kissed a woman....”

Dear Reader,

February, month of valentines, celebrates lovers—which is what Silhouette Desire does every month of the year. So this month, we have an extraspecial lineup of sensual and emotional page-turners. But how do you choose which exciting book to read first when all six stones are asking Be Mine?

Bestselling author Barbara Boswell delivers February’s MAN OF THE MONTH, a gorgeous doctor who insists on being a full-time father to his newly discovered child, in The Brennan Baby. Brute of the Bad Boy is the wonderful first book in Elizabeth Bevarly’s brand-new BLAME IT ON BOB trilogy. Don’t miss this fun story about a marriage of inconvenience!

Cupid slings an arrow at neighboring ranchers in Her Torrid Temporary Marriage by Sara Orwig. Next, a woman’s thirtieth-birthday wish brings her a supersexy cowboy—and an unexpected pregnancy—in The Texan, by Catherine Lanigan. Carole Buck brings red-hot chemistry to the pages of Three-Alarm Love. And Barbara McCauley’s Courtship in Granite Ridge reunites a single mother with the man she’d always loved.

Have a romantic holiday this month—and every month—with Silhouette Desire. Enjoy!

Melissa Senate

Senior Editor

Please address questions and book requests to:

Silhouette Reader Service

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Canadian: P.O. Box 609. Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3

About the Author

SARA ORWIG lives with her husband and children in Oklahoma. She has a patient husband who will take her on research trips anywhere from big cities to old forts. She is an avid collector of Western history books. With a master’s degree in English, Sara writes historical romance, mainstream fiction and contemporary romance. Books are beloved treasures that take Sara to magical worlds, and she loves both reading and writing them.

Her Torrid Temporary Marriage

Sara Orwig

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

To Debra Robertson with thanks

One

“I wouldn’t want to lose a wife—that’s really rough. But otherwise, I wouldn’t mind having your problem,” Bear Holcomb said as he leaned against the bar and looked at Josh Brand.

“No, in my circumstances you wouldn’t want it,” Josh said to the hulking man who fit his nickname. “I’m not ready for a woman in my life. I just want a nanny for my baby, not an affair. I’ve had three nannies in less than two months. I wanted a nanny, and they wanted a husband.”

“Stop advertising locally where they know who you are,” Tom Shellene drawled, leaning back in a chair with his booted feet propped on a table and a beer in his hand, his shaggy blond hair hanging over his eyes. “These women know you’re an eligible bachelor.”

“I tried that,” Josh replied, glancing around the barroom at the empty, scarred tables. Afternoon sunlight streamed through the one narrow window that gave a limited view of the main street of Latimer, Texas. “I got ten replies— only two were worth interviewing. One woman talked two hours straight. The other one had child-rearing ideas that weren’t compatible with what I want for my daughter.” He took a long drink of cold beer and placed the bottle on the bar. “What happened to the little rosy-cheeked, gray-haired grannies like the one I had?”

“They’ve got careers or their own families,” Bear drawled.

“So it seems.” Josh smoothed errant wisps of blond hair on the six-month-old baby sleeping in a carrier at his elbow on the bar. He picked up the carrier. “I better clear out before Brad sees us and raises a fuss about a baby in a bar in his jurisdiction. See you guys. C‘mon, Li’l Bit.”

They mumbled goodbyes, and Josh stepped into warm Texas sunshine. The sun blazed high above the quiet main street. Light reflected off the chrome trim on pickups parked around the town square. The two-story sandstone county courthouse was bathed in a rosy hue, and tall mulberry trees shed circles of dappled shade over the courthouse lawn. Usually Josh loved the town, his ranch and springtime, but this year had turned into one nightmare after another, and now he barely noticed his surroundings.

He fastened Elizabeth Mary Brand’s carrier onto the back seat of his black pickup and went around to climb behind the wheel.

“We’re going home, Li’l Bit. Maybe this week’s ad will find just the right nanny for you.” He drove along the wide main street of the small town in Clayton County, on the edge of the hill country. In minutes they were heading northwest along the highway on the way to his Triple B ranch.

His thoughts churned, and he glanced at the sleeping baby, feeling love wash through him. She was so tiny, so fragile, yet he loved her fiercely and didn’t want to give her up. His mother in Chicago would take Elizabeth, but he couldn’t bear to part with her. Frustrated, he struck the steering wheel with his fist.

An hour later as he neared home, he swung around a curve and saw a blue pickup up ahead, pulled off on the wide shoulder beneath the shade of a cottonwood. The pickup was jacked up, a tire lying on the grass beside it He put his foot on the brake to slow down. Turning to the baby, he said, “Li’l Bit, I may have to help my fellow man.”

Then Josh noticed the driver, who was bending over, the faded jeans pulling tautly across her backside as she pulled the tire up onto its tread and rolled it to the wheel. Instantly he recognized the yellow pigtail and the longest pair of female legs in Clayton County.

“Well, Li’l Bit, I guess I don’t have to offer my help. If I do offer, that self-sufficient cowgirl will take my head off.” About fifty feet away he pressed down on the accelerator and watched his neighbor, Mattie Ryan, squat down and put the spare tire in place. Tossing her long blond braid over her shoulder, she started to replace the lug bolts.

“Oh, hell. Old habits die hard,” he grumbled, and stomped on the brake to slow beside her and lower his window. “Hey, Mattie. Need help?”

She slanted him a look over her shoulder, her thickly lashed green eyes gazing at him solemnly. “Hi, Josh. No, thanks.”

“Okay,” he said, closing the window and accelerating once again. Down the road a ways he glanced in his rear-view mirror to see her pick up the flat tire and toss it into the bed of the pickup. “Now there’s a lady, Li’l Bit, who wouldn’t want an affair.”

His eyes narrowed as he pictured Mattie Ryan in his mind. Almost six feet tall, she was full-bodied, long-legged and as independent as a barn cat. And sour on men. He remembered vague rumors about her getting dumped by a boyfriend in college, but he wasn’t certain about details.

He and Mattie had grown up on neighboring ranches, established by their geat-gandfathers. Josh’s dad and Old Man Ryan were always battling each other, but they were civil to each other when out in public. Mattie’s mother died when she was ten years old, and Frank Ryan had raised Mattie like the son he never had. Mattie had to be around twenty-eight or twenty-nine. She had two younger sisters who had long ago left the area and never returned.

Now Frank Ryan was dead, and Mattie had her grandmother to care for and the Rocking R ranch to run. And he heard she had been having financial troubles lately because of her father’s illness and death.

Josh drove home mechanically, plans and possibilities involving his neighbor revolving in his mind.

Later that night he decided to give at least three weeks of thought to his ideas while he scrambled around trying to work and help his cook, Rosalie Benson, take care of Elizabeth at the same time. At the end of a week and a half, feeling desperate, he called and made an appointment with Mattie, telling her he wanted to discuss business.

As she was replacing a harness in the tack room of the barn, Mattie heard a car motor. She strode out of the barn in time to see a shiny black pickup approaching the house, a plume of dust dancing in the pickup’s trail. Her heart missed a beat while she clamped her jaw grimly. It was Josh Brand’s pickup. And Gran was in town and wouldn’t be in the house to let him in.

Feeling her long braid flop against her back, Mattie jogged toward the house as Josh’s pickup swept around the curve in front and disappeared from view.

With each step anger pulsed in her, because she could guess why he had come. His would be the fourth offer to buy her out since Dad died. She clenched her fists. She could run this ranch! Her daddy had raised her to take over when he was no longer able to run it As long as Gran was alive, she wasn’t going to sell, and she wasn’t going to lose her home because of bad weather or diseased cattle or a big loan. And not because of any man trying to coax her into selling. The day would come when she would sell, but it wasn’t now.