Cowboy's Baby. Victoria Pade

      Brady’s here. Brady’s here. Brady’s here.

      It was a chant in her head and it made her want to drive off into the sunset without a word to anyone. Never to return and have to reveal the truth. Not to her family. And certainly not to Brady Brown.

      But Kate couldn’t do that and she knew it. She was going to have to go out there and look him in the eye again. And pretend she wasn’t more confused, more scared than she’d ever been in her life.

      “You have to go out there,” she told her image in the mirror. “You don’t have a choice.”

      But maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, she tried to convince herself. With her family around, he would hardly know she was there. He probably wouldn’t even have a thought about their rash wedding or what had followed.

      And he also wouldn’t have the slightest inkling that at this very moment she was pregnant with his baby.

      A RANCHING FAMILY:

      Though scattered by years and tears, they share mile-deep roots in one Wyoming ranch and a singular talent for lassoing the unlikeliest hearts!

      Dear Reader,

      When Patricia Kay was a child, she could be found hiding somewhere…reading. “Ever since I was old enough to realize someone wrote books and they didn’t just magically appear, I dreamed of writing,” she says. And this month Special Edition is proud to publish Patricia’s twenty-second novel, The Millionaire and the Mom, the next of the STOCKWELLS OF TEXAS series. She admits it isn’t always easy keeping her ideas and her writing fresh. What helps, she says, is “nonwriting” activities, such as singing in her church choir, swimming, taking long walks, going to the movies and traveling. “Staying well-rounded keeps me excited about writing,” she says.

      We have plenty of other fresh stories to offer this month. After finding herself in the midst of an armed robbery with a gun to her back in Christie Ridgway’s From This Day Forward, Annie Smith vows to chase her dreams…. In the next of A RANCHING FAMILY series by Victoria Pade, Kate McDermot returns from Vegas unexpectedly married and with a Cowboy’s Baby in her belly! And Sally Tyler Hayes’s Magic in a Jelly Jar is what young Luke Morgan hopes for by saving his teeth in a jelly jar…because he thinks that his dentist is the tooth fairy and can grant him one wish: a mother! Also, don’t miss the surprising twists in Her Mysterious Houseguest by Jane Toombs, and an exciting forbidden love story with Barbara Benedict’s Solution: Marriage.

      At Special Edition, fresh, innovative books are our passion. We hope you enjoy them all.

      Best,

      Karen Taylor Richman

       Senior Editor

      Cowboy’s Baby

      Victoria Pade

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      VICTORIA PADE

      is a bestselling author of both historical and contemporary romance fiction, and mother of two energetic daughters, Cori and Erin. Although she enjoys her chosen career as a novelist, she occasionally laments that she has never traveled farther from her Colorado home than Disneyland, instead spending all her spare time plugging away at her computer. She takes breaks from writing by indulging in her favorite hobby—eating chocolate.

      Contents

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

      Chapter Eight

      Chapter Nine

      Chapter Ten

      Chapter Eleven

      Chapter Twelve

      Chapter Thirteen

      Chapter One

      Most of the McDermot family was gathered in the living room when the roar of an airplane flying so low over the house made it impossible for normal voices to be heard. Conversation halted and all eyes turned upward as an excited Matt McDermot said, “That’s gotta be Brady. Four o’clock on the dot, just like he said.”

      Matt’s expression showed his pleasure. But the arrival of her brother’s old college roommate and best friend had just the opposite effect on Kate McDermot. She felt a wave of pure panic.

      “Where are you going?” her brother demanded when she stood suddenly to leave the room.

      “I thought I might take a little nap before dinner,” she lied.

      “Now? Just when Brady’s gettin’ here? Don’t do that. I told him to land in the north field and I’m going out to pick him up right this minute. I’ll have him back here before you know it and you’ll want to see him, won’t you?”

      Not really, she was inclined to say. In fact, not at all. Brady Brown happened to be the last person on the face of the earth she wanted to see.

      But she couldn’t say that, so instead she said, “Sure. But maybe I’ll just freshen up first.”

      Then she made a subtle dash to her suite of rooms, closed the door tightly behind her and leaned against it for added measure.

      As if that would help.

      But unfortunately it was only a stopgap measure, and she knew it. Eventually she was going to have to face Brady Brown whether she liked it or not.

      Her family didn’t know how she felt. They didn’t know any of what had happened between her and Brady Brown. They didn’t know anything about what was going on now.

      But plenty had happened.

      And there was plenty going on now.

      To Kate’s dismay.

      She’d moved to the small Wyoming town of Elk Creek at Christmastime to live on the ranch she and her four brothers had owned since their grandfather had turned it over to them. She’d needed a change of scenery. A change of lifestyle. A change all the way around.

      If only she’d made the move and let it go at that.

      But after a Christmas during which her brother Matt had become engaged to a woman named Jenn Johnson, who he’d found in a snowstorm on the side of the road, Matt had talked his brothers and sister into a trip to Las Vegas. He was to meet up with Brady to celebrate their mutual thirtieth birthdays on New Year’s Eve.

      Kate had been reluctant to go.

      Taking off on the spur of the moment, without making plans, to a place like Las Vegas, wasn’t something the ultraconservative accountant usually did. But she’d been in a pretty bad funk, and in an effort to lift her spirits all of her brothers had put pressure on her to go.

      So, more to humor them than anything else, she’d let herself be persuaded.

      Of course, only after she’d arrived in Las Vegas had she realized that Matt had an ulterior motive. He was fixing her up with Brady Brown. And since all four of her brothers were paired off with their wives or soon-to-be wives, it was impossible for Kate and the also solo Brady not to be thrown together as a couple.

      Luckily—or maybe not so luckily—Brady had made things easy on her. She was reasonably sure the cowboy