The Horseman's Bride Read online

  Contents

  “Come back sometime,”

  Letter to Reader

  Title Page

  Books by Marilyn Pappano

  About the Author

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Epilogue

  Teaser chapter

  Copyright

  “Come back sometime,”

  Shay said. Like tomorrow. And the next night. Every night. “If I’m not at work, I’m usually here.”

  His only response was a faint smile as he shifted into gear.

  “Easy?”

  He looked at her.

  “Does this trip into town mean that you’re not going to hole up out there forever?”

  “No, it means—” Second after second ticked by before he finally answered. “I wanted to see you.” Then, before she could respond, he backed up and drove away.

  Pleasure bubbled up inside her as she watched his taillights disappear around the corner—pleasure and pure, sweet need. Maybe she was a fool for falling for him all over again. But she couldn’t turn away—not from him or her feelings for him. She couldn’t stop hoping, and Easy was her best hope.

  Always had been. Always would be.

  Dear Reader,

  Welcome to another month of fabulous reading from Silhouette Intimate Moments, the line that brings you excitement along with your romance every month As I’m sure you’ve already noticed, the month begins with a return to CONARD COUNTY, in Involuntary Daddy, by bestselling author Rachel Lee As always, her hero and heroine will live in your heart long after you’ve turned the last page, along with an irresistible baby boy nicknamed Peanut You’ll wish you could take him home yourself

  Award winner Mane Ferrarella completes her CHILDFINDERS, INC trilogy with Hero in the Nick of Time, about a fake marriage that’s destined to become real, and not one, but two, safely recovered children Marilyn Pappano offers the second installment of her HEARTBREAK CANYON miniseries, The Horseman’s Bride This Oklahoma native certainly has a way with a Western man’ After too long away, Doreen Owens Malek returns with our MEN IN BLUE title, An Officer and a Gentle Woman, about a cop falling in love with his prime suspect. Kylie Brant brings us the thud of THE SULLIVAN BROTHERS in Falling Hard and Fast, a steamy read that will have your heart racing. Finally, welcome RaeAnne Thayne, whose debut book for the line, The Wrangler and the Runaway Mom, is also a WAY OUT WEST title You’ll be happy to know that her second book is already scheduled

  Enjoy them all—and then come back again next month, when once again Silhouette Intimate Moments brings you six of the best and most exciting romances around

  Yours,

  Leslie J Wainger

  Executive Senior Editor

  Please address questions and book requests to

  Silhouette Reader Service

  US 3010 Walden Ave, PO Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269

  Canadian: PO Box 609, Fort Ene, Ont L2A 5X3

  MARILYN PAPPANO

  THE HORSEMAN’S BRIDE

  Books by Marilyn Pappano

  Silhouette Intimate Moments

  Within Reach #182

  The Lights of Home #214

  Guilt by Association #233

  Cody Daniels’ Return #258

  Room at the Inn #268

  Something of Heaven #294

  Somebody’s Baby #310

  Not Without Honor #338

  Safe Haven #363

  A Dangerous Man #381

  Probable Cause #405

  Operation Homefront #424

  Somebody’s Lady #437

  No Retreat #469

  Memories of Laura #486

  Sweet Annie’s Pass #512

  Finally a Father #542

  *Michael’s Gift #583

  *Regarding Remy #609

  *A Man Like Smith #626

  Survive the Night #703

  Discovered Daddy #746

  *Convincing Jamey #812

  *The Taming of Reid Donovan #824

  *Knight Errant #836

  The Overnight Alibi #848

  Murphy’s Law #901

  †Cattleman’s Promise #925

  †The Horseman’s Bride #957

  Silhouette Special Edition

  Older, Wiser Pregnant #1200

  Silhouette Books

  Silhouette Christmas Stones 1989

  “The Greatest Gift”

  Silhouette Summer Sizzlers 1991

  “Loving Abby”

  36 Hours

  You Must Remember This

  *Southern Knights

  †Heartbreak Canyon

  MARILYN PAPPANO

  After following her career navy husband around the country for sixteen years, Marilyn Pappano now makes her home high on a hill overlooking her hometown. With acreage, an orchard and the best view in the state, she’s not planning on pulling out the moving boxes ever again. When not writing, she makes apple butter from their own apples (when the thieves don’t get to them first), putts around the pond in the boat and tends a yard that she thinks would look better as a wildflower field, if the darn things would just grow there. You can write to Marilyn via snail mail at P.O. Box 643, Sapulpa, OK 74067-0643.

  To the Friday afternoon bunch:

  Laura Altom, who’s so much like me, it’s scary. We could be twins. Hey, it’s just a slight age difference.

  Meg Reid, who answered my questions—some of them twice—without getting impatient, and who gave me such encouragement.

  Susan Shay, who loved Easy from the beginning and helped keep me inspired in the writing.

  You guys are talented writers, great entertainment and the best road-trip companions Oklahoma has to offer Here’s to many more fabulous times.

  Chapter 1

  It was a hot Texas night. The Mesquite arena was filled with fans in the seats and cowboys behind the chutes. The competition had been stiff this Saturday night, but luck was with him. The time to beat was 8.6 seconds, and he could do that one-handed in his sleep.

  He shifted in the saddle, adjusted his hat, tightened his right hand around the reins, then looked up to the stands. His gaze searched the center section on the left, skimming row over row until he saw her. She looked nervous, which eased his own nerves. There was no reason for him to worry when she worried enough for both of them. That was her job, and it allowed him to concentrate on his job—the horse, the calf, the rope.

  He flexed his fingers, tensed his muscles and waited for the gate to open and release one frightened calf into the arena. He would leave tonight a winner. He knew it in his bones. The gate swung open, the calf darted out, and he—

  Easy Rafferty started awake. His heart was pounding the way it always did before a ride, but he wasn’t in some rodeo arena on Gambler’s back. He was behind the wheel of his parked pickup truck, and the engine was still running, the stereo still playing, the headlights still shining. Ignoring his body’s protests, he straightened in the seat and looked around.

  He was home.

  For fourteen years, he’d been trying to find his way back here. Fourteen years—good and bad, best and worst. And now he was here.

  The house he’d grown up in looked pretty much the same—square, with a porch stretching from end to end, one story, a weather vane stuck dead center in the roof.

  Headlights and moonlight softened the effects of abandonment—the peeling paint, the screen door hanging crooked, the leaves and dirt that littered the porch. Nothing could lessen the effects of the memories.<
br />
  The front door always open in warm weather so company could call a hello through the screen.

  Sunday mornings in church clothes—white shirt, black trousers, black cowboy boots—waiting on the swing until it was time to go.

  Catching lightnin’ bugs on hot summer nights while his folks talked quietly in the rockers.

  Sprawled on the steps with his best friend, Guthrie, while they planned their next adventure.

  Gentling horses in the corral out back.

  Riding fence, pulling foals, doctoring injuries—the horses’ and his own.

  Stealing a kiss from Mary Jane Phillips under the old maple.

  Stealing his best friend’s girl.

  He shut off the headlights, then the engine, cutting off Garth Brooks in mid-lament. With his keys in one hand and a nylon duffel slung over his shoulder, he climbed out of the truck. His knees creaked and his hip throbbed, reminding him to grab the cane tucked between the seats before taking a step.

  Though knee-high weeds hid the walkway, memory led him right to it. He stepped from stone to stone, bitterly comparing his slow progress to the hundreds of times he’d raced along the same path, his feet barely touching the ground. He’d been so young then.

  He felt so old now.

  It had been five months since the accident that had ended his career. It might as well have ended his life. He was a cowboy who couldn’t cowboy any longer—a horseman who had crippled his best horse along with himself. He had no job, no other skills. No dignity, no pride, no woman. No family but the parents who’d smothered him. No future.

  No damn future.

  Hobbling up the five steps took more effort and resulted in more pain than he’d expected, and turning the key in the lock and walking inside took more courage than he’d known he had.

  He’d always intended to come back here someday—to live in this house, to work this land, to raise the best damn horses and kids in the entire state of Oklahoma. But he’d never intended to come alone. He’d never intended to sneak into town in the middle of the night, and he’d certainly never intended to slink back even less a man than when he’d left.

  He flipped the switch inside the door, and the overhead light came on. The frosted globe with its curly edges was missing, leaving the bare bulb to cast its bright light in all directions, creating harsh shadows. Joelle, a cousin so many times removed that most people didn’t think of them as family, had taken care of the electricity and the water for him. She’d gotten a few pieces of furniture delivered—a sofa, a coffee table, a rocker and a television, a bed and a dresser. The refrigerator had come from her grandfather and was older than Easy. The stove and kitchen table had come from her uncle and were about as old. She’d offered to get the telephone hooked up, but he’d told her no. Who would he call?

  Guthrie?

  Shay?

  Wincing—because his hip hurt, not because he’d let her name slip into his mind—he shut off the light again. Once his eyes had adjusted again to the dark, he limped to the sofa. The springs protested as he sank down. So did his joints. Tilting his head back, he closed his eyes.

  Home. For years he’d thought that if he could just get back here, things would somehow be okay. The people he’d wronged would magically forgive him. The love he’d destroyed would spring back stronger than ever, and the woman he’d loved would want him again.

  But no woman would want him like this. Women would pity him, maybe even fuss over him a bit, but then they would be glad to leave him. And why not? For years he’d been nothing but an empty shell, and now the shell was cracked and damaged. He had nothing left to offer anyone.

  Especially Shay Stephens. She was probably married now, anyway—probably raising kids and being a good mother and a damn good wife. It would be some kind of perverted justice if she’d come back to Heartbreak and married Guthrie, the way she’d intended before he had interfered. It would serve him right, knowing that she lived just a half mile away, sleeping with another man, loving another man.

  A strangled sound, part groan, part sob, echoed through the room. God help him, he’d made a mistake coming back here. First thing tomorrow, whether his body was up to it or not, he would climb back into his truck and he would drive until he’d outrun the pain, the hopelessness, the sorrow. He would drive until he found peace or forgiveness... or death.

  That night in New Mexico, pinned in the wreckage of his truck, listening to his own labored breathing and the agonized screams of his injured horse, he’d prayed to die, but he’d already suspected that God had no time to hear his prayers. The fact that he was still alive proved it. The fact that he’d survived crippled and scarred proved one other thing—that God intended him to suffer his hell on earth.

  All because he’d fallen in love with his best friend’s girl.

  He rubbed his eyes with one hand. He needed rest—had needed it so desperately for so long that the need had become a part of him. The only good thing about the accident was that in the early days they’d kept him sedated so he could sleep without pain, without dreams. He needed that sort of deep, restful sleep tonight, but he wouldn’t find it. Not in this house. Not in this town. Not in this life.

  In spite of his discomfort, he did doze off, but his sleep was neither deep nor restful. It was tormented by dreams, with memories he didn’t allow himself to recall when he was awake, and it was filled with aches—real ones in his hip, his ribs, his hand, and intangible ones around his heart. He awakened in a cold sweat too many times to count, and he shifted often, seeking some relief. By the time he gave up the effort, the sun was up and he was even more fatigued than he’d been the day before.

  He sat up and slowly swung his feet to the floor. Everything appeared to work, though he was for damn sure the worse for wear. Monday’s long drive and the sofa’s lumps and bumps had taken their toll on a body that was already taxed to its limits. The thought of climbing back into the truck was almost enough to defeat him, but another day or three of pure physical misery had to be easier than staying here.

  He was reaching for his cane when abruptly he became aware of sounds—a horse’s whicker, a hoof pawing at gravel, a voice. Gritting his teeth, he pushed himself to his feet. Pain, red-hot and throbbing, shot through him and made him curse as he awkwardly shuffled his way toward the open door. There he leaned heavily on the cane, close enough to see out but not close enough, he thought, to be seen in the shadows.

  There were three horses out front—one gelding, two ponies. The ponies were pintos and nearly identical, as were the two girls on their backs. The woman astride the gelding was clearly their mother, with the same fine, pale brown hair, delicate lines and fragile air. She was a stranger. All of them were, except the gelding.

  Fourteen years ago he’d gotten the horse for free. He was too wild, the owner had claimed, too unmanageable, too dangerous. The man had wanted the animal put down, but Easy had convinced him to give the horse to him. He’d brought him here, had kept him in the corral out back, had gentled him, calmed him, trained him, then given him to Guthrie for his birthday. Was this woman connected to Guthrie? Or had he come to hate Easy so much that he’d give up a top-quality animal simply because it’d come from him?

  The woman’s gaze locked on the screen door. He took a slow step to the side, deeper into the shadows, but it was too late. She urged Buck closer, then called, “Hello.”

  “Who’re you talking to, Mom?” One of the girls guided her pony closer, too, right up to the front steps, then squinted. “Oh, hey, there’s someone in there. D’ya see him, Emmy? I see him.”

  Easy’s left hand clenched around the handle of the cane. “What do you want?” The words came out a growl, harsh and unwelcoming, exactly the way he felt.

  “I’m Elly Harris—”

  The mother cut her off with a silent command before looking back at him. “My daughters and I were riding by and saw your truck. Can I ask what you’re doing here?”

  “What business is it of yours?”

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p; She looked affronted by his rudeness, but the overall tone of her voice remained pleasant. “Actually, I was wondering what business you have here. This is private property.”

  “Yes, it is, and you’re trespassing, so take your kids and your horses and get out of here.”

  She stared at him, but Easy knew she couldn’t make out much. The screen was so rusty and dirty that he would hardly be able to see her if she wasn’t standing in bright sunlight, and he had deep shadows on his side. She didn’t follow his advice and leave, though. Instead, she dismounted and climbed the steps. He took a cautious step back.

  “This house has been empty for fourteen years and it isn’t likely the owner—” Abruptly she broke off. “You’re—Are you—” She wet her lips. “Easy? Easy Rafferty?”

  He scowled harder. “And who the hell are you?”

  “Olivia Harris. Guthrie’s wife.”

  Guthrie’s wife. If she was Guthrie’s wife, then Shay couldn’t be. Relief swept through him, then died a sudden death. What did it matter if Shay hadn’t married Guthrie? He wanted her married to someone, wanted her to be happy and in love and making a home and raising kids and living the life that he could never give her. He wanted to know that his was the only life he’d ruined. He wanted—hell, he needed to suffer.

  She smiled the sort of full, womanly smile he’d been accustomed to before the accident but hadn’t seen at all since. At least, not directed his way. “I can’t believe you’ve come home. No one had a clue—We’ve wondered what you were doing since—”

  He steeled himself against the friendliness in her molasses-thick, Southern-belle voice and instead concentrated on his own enormous bitterness to make his words colder, harder. “What I’m doing is no one’s business but mine. Kindly take your daughters, Mrs. Harris, and get the hell off my property and don’t come back.”