Every Cowgirl's Dream Read online

  “This could get real complicated real fast,” Rye said with a charming grin.

  Letter to Reader

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Books by Arlene James

  About the Author

  Letter to Reader

  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 Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Copyright

  “This could get real complicated real fast,” Rye said with a charming grin.

  Kara kept her response to herself. Not long ago she and Rye Wagner couldn’t stand to be in the same room together, and now they’d agreed to stick together for the duration of the trail drive. They’d be working side by side, sleeping side by side. Might something more come of it than keeping each other out of trouble?

  To her knowledge no man had ever found her sexually attractive, at least no one she’d worked beside on the range. There was no reason to think Rye would be any different, and yet, she couldn’t help wondering, wishing, hoping that maybe...

  But no, she was just one more burden that had been heaped on Rye’s broad shoulders, and she’d best not start to think otherwise. If she did, she would really be in danger—danger of getting her heart broken.

  Dear Reader,

  This September, four of our beloved authors pen irresistible sagas about lonesome cowboys, hard-luck heroines and love on the range! We’ve flashed these “Westem-themed” romances with a special arch treatment. And additional treasures are provided to our readers by Christine Rimmer—a new JONES GANG book with an excerpt from her wonderful upcoming single title, The Taming of Billy Jones, as well as Marilyn Pappano’s first Special Edition novel.

  In Every Cowgirl’s Dream by Arlene James, our THAT SPECIAL WOMAN! Kara Detmeyer is one feisty cowgirl who can handle just about anything—except the hard-edged cowboy who escorts her through a dangerous cattle drive. Don’t miss this high-spirited adventure.

  THE JONES GANG returns to Special Edition! In A Hero for Sophie Jones, veteran author Christine Rimmer weaves a poignant story about a ruthless hero who is transformed by love. And wedding bells are chiming in The Mail-Order Mix-Up by Pamela Toth, but can this jilted city sophisticate find true love? Speaking of mismatched lovers, a pregnant widow discovers forbidden passion with her late husband’s half brother in Tire Cowboy Take a Wife by Lois Faye Dyer.

  Rounding out the month, Stranded on the Ranch by Pat Warren features a sheltered debutante who finds herself snowbound with an oh-so-sexy rancher. And Marilyn Pappano brings us a bittersweet reunion romance between a reformed temptress and the wary lover she left behind in Older, Wiser...Pregnant. I hope you enjoy each and every story to come!

  Sincerely,

  Karen Taylor Richman

  Senior Editor

  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

  ARLENE JAMES

  EVERY COWGIRL’S DREAM

  Published by Silhouette Books

  America’s Publisher of Contemporary Romance

  To Daryl Tumbleson, one of the most accomplished and interesting men I know, with thanks for your help but especially for bringing romance into the life of my best friend in the world. Love you both. D.A.R.

  Books by Arlene James

  Silhouette Special Edition Silhouette Romance

  A Rumor of Love #664 City Girl #141

  Husband in the Making #776 No Easy Conquest #235

  With Baby in Mind #869 Two of a Kind #253

  Child of Her Heart #964 A Meeting of Hearts #327

  The Knight, the Waitress and the Toddler #1131 An Obvious Virtue #384

  Now or Never #404

  Every Cowgirl’s Dream #1195 Reason Enough #421

  The Right Moves #446

  Strange Bedfellows #471

  The Private Garden #495

  The Boy Next Door #518

  Under a Desert Sky #559

  A Delicate Balance #578

  The Discerning Heart #614

  Dream of a Lifetime #661

  Finally Home #687

  A Perfect Gentleman #705

  Family Man #728

  A Man of His Word #770

  Tough Guy #806

  Gold Digger #830

  Palace City Prince #866

  *The Perfect Wedding #962

  *An Old-Fashioned Love #968

  *A Wife Worth Waiting For #974

  Mail-Order Brood #1024

  *The Rogue Who Come To Stay #1061

  *Most Wanted Dad #1144

  Desperately Seeking Daddy #1186

  *Falling for a Father of Four #1295

  * This Side of Heaven

  ARLENE JAMES

  grew up in Oklahoma and has lived all over the South. In 1976 she married “the most romantic man in the world.” The author enjoys traveling with her husband, but writing has always been her chief pastime.

  Dear Reader,

  What a ride this book has been! From Utah to New Mexico, the hard way. Not for me, mind you, but for Kara Detmeyer. Days spent on horseback, nights spent on the hard ground, working daylight to dark in mercurial weather. Only a good cowboy (which is the highest praise, by the way, that one working cowboy can give another) can survive—never mind thrive—in such circumstances. Well, Kara Detmeyer is a good cowboy, gender irrelevant; but that’s only part of what makes her THAT SPECIAL WOMAN!. for Ryeland Wagner.

  It takes a strong, determined individual to excel at the physically and mentally demanding work of ranching, whatever his or her attributes and talents may be. Throw in an old-fashioned cattle drive over a great distance, mix with threats and sabotage, and you have a situation that few could master. Now add a touch of gender bias, a wary young boy and a heart overflowing with love for a single father who’s vowed never to love again. Only a tough, talented, stubborn, generous, loving, pure-hearted woman could come out on top of that one! Such a woman is Kara Detmeyers.

  She is, essentially, Rye Wagner’s exact female equivalent—except in one regard. It takes a certain courage to love as Kara does, unconditionally, without restraint or requirement. It’s a kind of courage that Rye no longer possesses and for good reason. So what’s a woman to do?

  I hope you enjoy Kara’s journey as much as I have.

  Besides, after all, that’s the whole point!

  God bless,

  Chapter One

  The old truck rattled across a dry wash in the dirt road and rumbled on toward the low, white house in the distance.

  “Place is already going to pot,” Kara muttered, and her dog, Oboe, whined agreement from his spot on the seat next to her.

  “Don’t be silly,” her mother, Dayna, said, lifting her silverstreaked, blond ponytail from the back of her neck with a slender hand. “They must’ve had a rainstorm recently, that’s all.”

  “Plum’s only been gone five weeks,” Kara remarked. “Looks like that Wagner couldn’t keep the place up that long without Plummer around to tell him to do it.”

  Dayna sighed. “Kara, why don’t you like Ryeland Wagner? Your grandfather obviously thought highly of him, or he wouldn’t have taken him on as foreman of the ranch.”

  Kara shook her head. “I don’t know. Something about Rye Wagner just—” Sh
e shivered. “He makes me uncomfortable.”

  Dayna slid a speculative glance sideways at her daughter, but Kara didn’t notice. Her gaze was trained on the dusty yard of her late grandparent’s Utah ranch house. She loved that old house. It didn’t have the same kind of personality as the fine log home her parents had built on the New Mexico place, but it was Plummer and Meryl Detmeyer through and through, from its rough exterior to the glowing red rock hearth standing dead center in the living room and the soft, lush, hand-hooked rug in the master bedroom. Her grandmother had made that rug long before Kara was born, and Plummer had treasured it every day afterward, just as he’d treasured every rocky inch of the Detmeyer Ranch and every hide of every Detmeyer cow that roamed the rocky range. In the same way, Kara treasured the Detmeyer legacy, the ranching concern that reached across three states and five generations.

  She brought the old truck to a halt, noting with both satisfaction and trepidation the number of other vehicles parked inside the split-rail fence that marked the ranch house yard. Her cousin Payne’s convertible was there, along with Uncle Smith’s luxury sedan, and Plummer’s new double-cab pickup truck, as well as another vehicle that looked like a rental. Kara’s heart did a flipflop at the sight of her grandfather’s shiny new truck. It was his last indulgence. The rental, she presumed, belonged to the attorney who would read the will.

  Reaching down, Kara switched off the engine of her battered old truck. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes briefly. Dayna Detmeyer reached across the seat and squeezed the top of her daughter’s shoulder. “It’ll be okay, honey. Plummer always took care of everything, didn’t he?”

  Kara sighed. “I know. It’s just that with Daddy and Grandpa both gone, it only leaves Uncle Smith to oversee the business, and all he really cares about is his bank in Denver. He’d been trying to get Grandpa to sell forever.”

  “Have some faith. Your grandmother’s bound to have some say.”

  Kara nodded, but she remembered too well how delicate and aged her grandmother had looked at the funeral, how diminished she’d seemed to be. It was as if Plummer’s death had taken the heart right out of the old woman. Kara feared it had done even more than that. She feared, for some reason, that Plummer Detmeyer’s death had taken the heart right out of the family itself. Losing her father had been a severe blow, but losing Plummer little more than a year later might well mean the finish, at least of the business. Yet it was unthinkable that somewhere on this earth there should not be a Detmeyer ranch. Plummer would have made some provision. He had to have done. He just had to.

  Oboe whined in a bid for freedom. Being cooped up in the cab of the old truck all the way from Farmington, New Mexico, was a trial for him. Four hours without a good run or a pit stop. Poor baby. “All right, all right,” Kara said, ruffling his thick black-and-white coat. “Go find something to bark at.”

  Oboe answered her with something between a snort and sneeze that could have meant anything from “Move it, sister,” to “I adore the ground you walk on.” Kara got out of the truck, and the dog bounded out after her, racing off toward the corrals.

  Kara smiled. “He hates living in town.”

  “He’s not the only one,” Dayna said with a laugh, and let herself out of the truck.

  Kara made a face. It was true. She’d never gotten used to the traffic and the constant swarm of people, the cement and the brick. She hated her job waiting tables, hated the featureless little apartment where they lived. She mourned the loss of her horses and the rolling, lush green of the Chama valley, the utter silence at dawn, the vastness of a night sky so empty of reflected artificial light that the heavens lifted into an infinity strewn with diamonds. Her cousin had said at her father’s funeral that Lawton Detmeyer’s death marked the end of an empire, but the truth was that the empire days were long gone for the Detmeyers. Kara knew that. Yet Plummer and Lawton had wrested good livings from the two remaining parcels of what had once been a vast enterprise that rivaled that of the robber barons—until Law had been accidentally killed. That in itself had almost put an end to the New Mexico operation.

  Kara still felt the shock of it every time she thought about her father’s failure to insure his own life. That, together with the sudden downturn in the beef market, had almost put the place into receivership. As it was, they’d had to sell off all the stock and equipment to meet the demands of creditors and pay the taxes. Kara and her mother had moved a hundred and twenty miles west to Farmington in order to support themselves until the market turned around and they could somehow afford to restock the ranch.

  Plummer’s personal decline had started then. The financial pressure had been too much for him. With his younger son gone, his will to live had faltered as certainly as his seventy-six-year-old heart. He had rallied for a while after Rye Wagner had taken the job as foreman at the Utah ranch. He had, in fact, seemed to adopt Rye, transferring his affection and his esteem for his younger son to the new foreman. That, along with Rye’s distant, faintly disapproving attitude toward her, had not sat well with Kara. Despite the fact that he looked like every cowgirl’s dream, from his gray eyes and splendidly drooping mustache to his large-knuckled hands and big, booted feet, Kara resented the lanky, good-looking cowboy.

  It was true that Plummer’s judgment had always been sound. What Plummer hadn’t known about cattle and ranching was yet a mystery to God Himself, in Kara’s opinion. But still she couldn’t quite conquer the uneasiness that she felt every time Ryeland Wagner came within spitting distance of her.

  Ah, well. She wouldn’t have to worry about that much longer. After today, she’d never have to see Ryeland Wagner again. It irked her that Plummer had specifically requested Rye’s presence at the reading of the will, but this was surely the last time she’d ever have to look into his pewter gray eyes and feel that he was taking her measure and finding her wanting.

  Shaking out her long legs, Kara put a hand in the small of her back and stretched out the kinks before following her mother toward the low, sun-bleached ranch house where she had spent so many idyllic summers. At five feet nine inches and one hundred forty pounds of pure muscle, Kara was no lightweight, but she felt diminutive the instant Payne swept down on her from the porch, his long, thick arms coming around her.

  “Hey, little cousin. Thought you’d never get here.”

  Kara laughed, her blond ponytail bobbing, and kissed Payne on the cheek, smiling up into blue eyes very like her own. “Hey, yourself, cuz. Been here long?”

  Payne drew back and grimaced at her. “Got here last night. Dad insisted. He seemed to have this idea that Grandmother would know every detail of the will and give it to him early.” The sparkle in his eyes said that Smith Detmeyer had yet again underestimated his parent. Kara couldn’t help a smile. Uncle Smitty’s run-ins with the old folks were legendary. Somehow Smitty just didn’t operate on the same plane as his parents and his brother. It was a good thing, again in Kara’s opinion, that Smith had opted to go into banking instead of taking an active interest in the ranching operation. She only hoped that he would continue the policy now that Plummer was gone.

  She clamped a hand onto Payne’s bulging forearm. “So how is she?”

  “Okay. Sad. Smaller, somehow.”

  Kara nodded. “Yeah, that was my impression last time. She seemed so fragile.”

  “Well, I’d say she’s recovered a bit of the old spunk,” Payne told her, eyes sparkling. “She sent Dad to his room last night.”

  “You’re kidding!”

  He chuckled and leaned close, whispering into her ear, “The really funny part is that he went.”

  Kara had to press a hand to her mouth to keep from laughing aloud. “Poor Smitty!”

  “Well, he should’ve known he wasn’t going to get anything out of her. Law, now he could have had her spilling the beans in no time.”

  Kara shook her head. “Dad wouldn’t have asked.”

  Payne looked chastened. “You’re right, of course. I only meant that h
e knew how to talk to his parents.”

  “That he did. Now, then,” Kara said, changing the subject briskly, “how are you?”

  “Can’t complain.”

  “Make another killing in the stock market recently?”

  Payne shrugged noncommittally. Dayna came back to the door, pushing open the screen to poke her head out

  “You two coming in?”

  “In a minute,” Payne answered. “We can’t get started until Wagner shows himself, anyway.”

  “Well, your father seems a bit anxious,” Dayna said, and Payne and Kara traded loaded looks. “Don’t keep him waiting any longer than you must.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it,” Payne said.

  Kara added, “If Rye doesn’t show up soon, we’ll go looking for him, Mom.”

  “I’ll tell that to Smitty.” Dayna pulled back inside and closed the screen door. Payne stepped up onto the porch and walked over to one corner to lean against the railing, arms and ankles crossed. Kara followed.

  “So, all’s well in Denver, huh?”

  “I know you can’t fathom the attraction,” Payne said, “but the city has a lot going for it. What have you got against theater and sports and good restaurants, anyway?”

  She hitched up a shoulder. “Nothing. They’re just in the city, that’s all, and since when have you taken an interest in the theater?”

  Payne’s eyes took on a special glint. “Well, actually, since I met this little actress at one of mother’s events.”

  Kara groaned. “Not another of your women!”