Three Kids And A Cowboy. Natalie Patrick

      Table of Contents

       Cover Page

       Excerpt

Dear Reader

       Title Page

       About the Author

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

       Chapter 4

       Chapter 5

       Chapter 6

       Chapter 7

       Chapter 8

       Chapter 9

       Chapter 10

       Chapter 11

       Epilogue

       Copyright

       “Mrs. Beetle, I’d like you to meet my wife.”

      His what? Miranda froze. She’d stolen away for a few minutes—and what had happened in her absence?

      Brodie’s long fingers massaged her shoulders as he manipulated her under the mantle of his muscular arm. “Darlin’, come in and say howdy to Mrs. Beetle…you know, the social worker. Once she heard you were going to stay and be a mom to these kids, her whole attitude about my keeping them changed.”

      Be a mom to these kids. Longing waged in Miranda’s chest. To be a mom, to make a family with Brodie—how could that not move her? And to know that very dream relied on promising the impossible?

      Dear Reader,

      This July, Silhouette Romance cordially invites you to a month of marriage stories, based upon your favorite themes. There’s no need to RSVP; just pick up a book, start reading…and be swept away by romance.

      The month kicks off with our Fabulous Fathers title, And Baby Makes Six, by talented author Pamela Dalton. Two single parents many for convenience’ sake, only to be surprised to learn they’re expecting a baby of their own!

      In Natalie Patrick’s Three Kids and a Cowboy, a woman agrees to stay married to her husband just until he adopts three adorable orphans, but soon finds herself longing to make the arrangement permanent And the romance continues when a beautiful wedding consultant asks her sexy neighbor to pose as her fiancé in Just Say I Do by RITA Award-winning author Lauryn Chandler.

      The reasons for weddings keep coming, with a warmly humorous story of amnesia in Vivian Leiber’s The Bewildered Wife; a new take on the runaway bride theme in Have Honeymoon, Need Husband by Robin Wells; and a green card wedding from debut author Elizabeth Harbison in A Groom for Maggie.

      Here’s to your reading enjoyment!

      

      Melissa Senate Senior Editor Silhouette Romance

      Please address questions and book requests to:

      Silhouette Reader Service

      U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269

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

      Three Kids and a Cowboy

      Natalie Patrick

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

       NATALIE PATRICK

      believes in romance and has firsthand experience to back up that belief. She met her husband in January and married him in April of that same year—they would have eloped sooner but friends persuaded them to have a real wedding. Ten years and two children later she knows she’s found her real romantic hero.

      Amid the clutter in her work space, she swears that her headstone will probably read She Left This World A Brighter Place But Not Necessarily A Cleaner One. She certainly hopes her books brighten her readers’ days.

       Prologue

      Just where are you headed to, Brodie Sykes?”

      “Hell—if I don’t change my ways.” Brodie checked the bit in his horse’s mouth as he answered his ranch house cook, Curtis “Crispy” Holloman.

      “As if they’d have you,” the scrappy older man muttered. “Besides, it ain’t your ways that need changin’—”

      “It’s the company I keep,” Brodie said. He hoped getting the first jab in would avert a lecture from the only man alive who’d dare to give him one.

      Brodie Sykes ran a tight operation. He commanded the respect of every man jack who rode for his Circle S brand—every man but that damned ol’ ornery Crispy. Somehow, in the month since he hired the cantankerous cook, Crispy had gotten under Brodie’s barbed-wire disposition to befriend him.

      Brodie drew in the smells of horse and saddle leather. “Right now what I could really use is a change of scenery."

      “Yeah, and I know where you’re a-goin’—down to that creek on the edge of your property. But don’t see why you have to go all that far. You can brood and be generally disagreeable anywhere.”

      His horse snorted. Brodie couldn’t have given a better response himself, so he didn’t.

      Crispy’s boots shifted, and the boards of the porch groaned. “She’s gone, boy. You got to get on with your life.”

      Brodie ignored the fist-to-the-gut effect of that advice and tightened the cinch on his saddle. What Crispy couldn’t seem to get through his pigheaded skull was that even though he was only thirty-three, Brodie’s life wasn’t much worth living anymore. His wife’s leaving almost a year ago, had seen to that.

      Dipping his hat to his cook, Brodie fit his boot into the stirrup