To Claim a Wife

To Claim a Wife
Susan Fox

REBEL BridesTwo rebellious cousins–and the men who tame them!Caitlin Bodine is the black sheep of her family. She's shunned by her cousin Maddie–but no one's bad opinion of her hurts so much as Reno Duvall's. As a young girl, Caitlin hero-worshiped this tough, sexy rancher. As a woman, she's haunted by her reputation and a tragedy Reno will never forgive….Reno Duvall blames Caitlin for his brother's death. He can't believe she has the nerve to return after all these years–or that he's forced to share his home with her! So why can't he stop thinking about her? Caitlin is simply too wild to wed, but suddenly Reno finds himself longing to claim her as his wife!

Two rebellious cousins—and the men who tame them! (#u3d1df4d3-d610-5e94-ba92-8bcfeb2b0467)Letter to Reader (#ua9862b31-fc35-5f24-934b-a4c6c6d7185f)Title Page (#u28522868-8f8e-5ec2-b5cf-bb76ca30579e)Dedication (#u0749ac28-da2d-53dd-8bb5-7f21c021e4a9)CHAPTER ONE (#u19c91832-5222-51fd-81cc-6314dff4772e)CHAPTER TWO (#ub9201d31-5939-5e8a-a52a-cbbccea3f51c)CHAPTER THREE (#ua64ec9a1-15cd-5af8-ac2f-1a779e1c48d0)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)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

Two rebellious cousins—and

the men who tame them!

Meet Caitlin and Maddie: two beautiful, spirited cousins seeking to overcome family secrets and betrayal....

Neither cousin is looking for marriage—these Texas women have proud, rebellious hearts and it will take two very powerful men to tame them.

But look out, Caitlin and Maddie—two tough, gorgeous guys are about to try and sweep you up the aisle...and they won’t take no for an answer!

These two rebel brides are about to

meet their match at last.

This month, enjoy Caitlin’s story in

To Claim a Wife

Dear Reader,

I’ve dedicated the two books in this series, REBEL BRIDES, to my mother. My first heroine, Caitlin, lost her mother at an early age; and my second heroine, Maddie, was abandoned by her mother. But I’d like you all to know that my mother is the best mother a kid could have.

She and I are not only mother and daughter, but best friends. am so blessed to have been raised by such a gentle, compassionate, loving woman, and her unconditional love for me is truly the most profound gift a mother could give her child. My mom’s love of cowboys, the American West and country music turned out to be genetic. And, of course, my mom is my number-one fan. But then, she’d be that even if I’d never written a single book.

Thank you so much for reading my books. I’ve had the time of my life writing them for you. I hope you read something in them that you find encouraging and uplifting.

May your life be filled with happily-ever-afters!

To Claim a Wife

Susan Fox

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

For my mother, Marvel Terry. The sweetest, most loving

mother on planet Earth, and the gentlest, classiest, most

honorable woman I know. I love you with all my heart. I

can’t find adequate words to express how much you

mean to me. God bless you.

CHAPTER ONE

THE letter was as terse as a telegram.

Return to the Broken B. Jess Bodine dying.

Coulter City Hospital ICU.

RD

Caitlin Bodine wasn’t shocked by the news of her father’s grave illness. She’d known he was dying. News had a way of reaching her. It wasn’t that she still had many friends in Coulter City, Texas, but a man as important in ranching and oil as Jess Bodine was news anywhere in ranch country. Even in ranch country as remote as the plains of eastern Montana.

Caitlin had agonized for months over the news of her father’s worsening health. Agonized, wrote letters, then suffered his inevitable silence when her efforts to mend the breach between them failed as abysmally as always.

But then, her father had never acknowledged any of her other letters. Five years of utter silence from him should have been enough to convince her that their estrangement would continue to the grave. But that tiny spark of hope—the one she’d carried since she was a small child—refused to die.

It was a fact that she’d always idolized her father. It was also a fact that her father had rejected her. Her childhood craving to be accepted and loved by him still had the power to torment her, still had the power to seduce her back to Texas for one last colossal heartbreak.

Perhaps this time things would be different. Perhaps in the face of death, the old man’s thoughts about his only child had become remorseful. Perhaps he’d come to regret exiling her five years before.

But the bitter reality was that it wasn’t her father who’d summoned her home, it was Reno Duvall. Reno Duvall, the man who hated her.

Strangely, she dreaded facing Reno’s hatred even more than she dreaded another rejection from her father. Old memories stirred forcefully and panic sent a poison arrow through her insides.

Reno would never forgive her. But then, Caitlin might never forgive herself.

Reno Duvall walked down the hospital corridor to the ICU. He remembered Caitlin Bodine as an eighteen-year-old hellion, who’d dogged her father’s footsteps and engaged in a near cutthroat competition with his younger brother, Beau, for her father’s attention. She’d been a solemn, moody adolescent who hid her pain behind temper tantrums and frequent retreats to her secret place on the range.

She’d been a child perpetually frustrated and injured by her failure to live up to her father’s expectations, a child so pathologically jealous of his younger brother that she’d come to hate the stepbrother—the rival—who’d become her nemesis instead of the rightful member of her family that her father’s marriage had made him.

Had her jealousy of Beau been so bitter, so deep that she truly had caused Beau’s death, then allowed him to die? Witnesses had testified at the inquest that she’d done everything she could to save him.

But she’d failed. She’d been the one to put Beau’s life in danger in the first place, running off in another wild temper to hide out on the range. She’d known about the flash flood warnings in the area, but she’d ignored the danger.

Reno hardened his heart to the emotionally neglected child she’d been. Whatever had caused her tantrum that day, her selfish actions had set the stage for Beau’s death. Eighteen was too damned young to die.

Though Reno had sent for her to come home to the Broken B, he’d loathed the chore. Loathed the notion of ever coming face-to-face with the girt—the woman—who’d destroyed his family. His mother was gone now too, because of Caitlin. Her grief over her youngest son’s death had been as intense on the day she’d died as it had been the day they’d carried Beau’s slicker-shrouded body into the ranch yard.

A man couldn’t overlook that. Or the grim fact that Caitlin Bodine was kin to him, though there was no blood between them. No blood, that is, except his kid brother’s lifeblood.

Reno was about to enter the ICU when the elevator down the hall arrived. He sensed—he knew—the moment the doors slid open who would step out.

The past five years hadn’t changed Caitlin Bodine, yet the five years between then and now had changed everything about her.

She seemed taller now, prouder, almost arrogant. Her slender body moved with the poise and elegance of a model, but with a kind of confidence he somehow sensed was pure playacting. The coltishness of her slim figure was gone; she’d acquired a womanly roundness that sent a tremor of restlessness to his groin.

He made himself focus on her face. She’d lost the adolescent fullness in her cheeks. Her cheekbones seemed higher, her features sharper, more strikingly patrician. Her lips were the same, lush and naturally dark.

She wore her sable hair long and loose. It was longer now, rippling down her shoulders and back until it swung past her tight little backside like the thick flowing mane of a show horse. Long hair had always drawn him, but the sight had never hit him like this, never heated his blood in quite this way or sent it pumping through him like a hot pulse. It was just one more reason to nurse the hatred he felt for her.