Stella Bagwell – The Maverick's Bride-To-Order (страница 1)
Single Cowboy Seeks Perfect Match!
Rust Creek Ramblings
Everyone knows Rust Creek Falls is a good place to find love, but handsome ranching man Zach Dalton is not leaving anything to chance. His classified ad in the Rust Creek Falls Gazette has the whole town buzzing. The offer? No less than lifetime commitment...for the perfect pie-baking, domestically inclined long-haired bride.
One woman who definitely does not fit the job description is Gazette assistant editor Lydia Grant—curly-haired, independent and admittedly useless in the kitchen. Yet we here at the Gazette have seen definite sparks between the marriage-minded cowboy and the girl who is so not his “type.” Could Zach Dalton have already met his Mrs. Right? Clear your calendars, dear readers. We’re convinced there’s another wedding on the way!
“You’re trying out women the same way you would try on a pair of cowboy boots.”
“Well, she has to fit, doesn’t she?” Zach asked. “Just like a pair of boots need to fit. Otherwise I’d set the boots aside and never wear them. And I sure couldn’t do that to a woman. Not after I married her and then found out the fit was all wrong.”
Groaning, she looked up at the sky and shook her head. “I see. It’s not about the approach, but all about the fit.”
“Hey, you got it, Lydia! That’s exactly right. How is it that you understand me so well?”
She looked at him, a wan smile tilting her lips. “Just lucky, I guess.”
He reached over and gave her hand a squeeze. “I’m the one who’s lucky, Lydia. Lucky to have found a good friend like you.”
She eased her hand from his and quickly began gathering the leftovers of her lunch.
“We’d better be going, Zach. It’s time for me to get back to the office.”
A little stung by her abrupt attitude, he stared at her. “Lydia, did I say something wrong?”
Without looking at him, she rose to her feet. “No. You said everything right.”
Then why did he feel like the sky had just clouded over?
* * *
Montana Mavericks: The Great Family Roundup— Real cowboys and real love in Rust Creek Falls!
The Maverick’s Bride-to-Order
Stella Bagwell
After writing more than eighty books for Mills & Boon, STELLA BAGWELL still finds it exciting to create new stories and bring her characters to life. She loves all things Western and has been married to her own real cowboy for forty-four years. Living on the south Texas coast, she also enjoys being outdoors and helping her husband care for the horses, cats and dog that call their small ranch home. The couple has one son, who teaches high school mathematics and is also an athletics director. Stella loves hearing from readers. They can contact her at stellabagwell@gmail.com.
To all the editors and writers
who keep these great Montana Mavericks going.
Thank you for letting me be part of the fun!
Contents
“You want to do what?”
Zach Dalton pushed back the brim of his black Stetson and leaned slightly toward the woman sitting on the opposite side of the cluttered desk. Long, curly hair created a brown cloud around her head while a pair of deep blue eyes stared at him with confusion.
Tightening the rein on his patience, Zach carefully repeated his request. “I want to put a classified ad in the paper. The wanted section to be more exact. Or does The Rust Creek Falls Gazette have a wanted section in its classifieds?”
“Look, Mr.—what is your name?” she asked, her pencil hovering above a small scratch pad.
“Dalton, ma’am. Zach Dalton.”
Her bare lips formed a perfectly pretty O, but Zach allowed himself to admire the sight for only a few seconds. He wasn’t about to let this dizzy woman distract him from his objective. Zach was on a mission. He knew exactly what he wanted and had already decided the best way to go about getting it.
“Dalton? Are you related to the other Daltons who live around here?” she asked.
“That’s right. There’s a bunch of us, ma’am. I’m related to all of them.”
The phone on the desk began to ring, and while she eyed it with an annoyed glare, a male voice in a back room yelled, “Are you asleep out there, Lydia? Pick up the damned phone!”
“Excuse me, Mr. Dalton. I’ll be with you in a moment,” she promised.
While she answered the phone, Zach turned and looked through a dusty plate glass window at North Main Street of downtown Rust Creek Falls, Montana. This early-September morning, the sun was shining warmly, kissing the changing leaves on the trees that grew at intervals along the concrete sidewalk. The slow, two-lane traffic was made even slower by a pair of big cattle trucks working their way to the main highway leading to Kalispell. With autumn weather soon coming, the ranchers were already sorting and selling, preparing for the long, cold months ahead.
Before Zach could let himself think about all the tragedy that had occurred back on his family ranch in Hardin, he heard the woman behind him speaking in an impatient voice.
“No. Not tonight. I have to go now, Mom. I have a customer. Bye.”
When he heard the phone click into place, Zach turned back to the desk to see the young woman, who appeared somewhere near his age, shoving away the tangle of curls falling about her face. She was wearing a green, loose-fitting T-shirt with the logo of some unknown rock band plastered across a pair of rounded breasts. Apparently the newspaper staff enjoyed a very relaxed dress code, Zach decided.
“Sorry about that,” she said. “Now if you’ll tell me again exactly what it is you want, I’ll see that your ad makes the next issue.”
His gaze dropped to the nameplate resting precariously on one corner of the crowded desk. “‘Lydia Grant. Assistant Manager,’” he read, then lifted a questioning glance to her. “Is that you?”
Her head made a quick bob, causing several curls to plop onto her forehead. “That’s me. Assistant manager is just one of my roles at the Gazette. I do everything around here. Including plumbing repair. You need a faucet installed?”
“Uh, no. I need a wife.”