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Автор Denison Janelle
“If you expect me to pack up and leave without a fight, then you have another think coming”
“On the contrary, darlin’,” he said, his smooth drawl at odds with the resentment she detected in his voice. “I fully expect you to stay. ”
Wariness pulsed through Josie with every heartbeat. Was he tricking her somehow? Letting her believe. that he wasn’t going to take away the only home she and Kellie had? “I... I don’t understand. ”
“There’s a stipulation to the deed,” he said very carefully, as if he wanted her to understand what he was about to say. “A provision your father set and I agreed to before I won that last poker hand. ”
“What kind of stipulation?”
Seth O’Connor’s smile was grim. “That we get married. ”
Janelle Denison has read romances ever since she was in high school. She never intended to become a writer, but her love of books and romance led to writing the kind of emotionally satisfying stories she’s enjoyed from Harlequin over the years. While perfecting her craft, she worked as a construction secretary, but recently decided to quit her “day job” to write full-time.
Janelle lives in Southern California with her engineer husband, whose support and encouragement have enabled her to follow her dream of writing, and two young daughters, who keep life interesting and give her plenty of ideas for the young characters she includes in her books.
Janelle’s greatest hope is that her romances leave her readers smiling and feeling as if they’ve made a couple of new friends. After all, nothing is more enjoyable and heartwarming than watching two opposites struggle against all odds, then fall in love despite those odds.
Bride Included
Janelle Denison
To all the wonderful friends I’ve made who have helped me along this incredible journey, from the struggles in the beginning, to sharing the joy of each sale. There are too many of you to name, but each one of you played a part in making this dream a reality.
And, as always, to Don, who makes every story special, just by believing in me.
CHAPTER ONE
“MOM!” Josie McAllister’s ten-year-old daughter, Kellie, burst into the kitchen, her wide green eyes filled with panic. “There’s a big man on a horse riding across the pasture. He’s headed toward the house and he looks mean!”
Josie frowned and washed her hands, sticky from the biscuits she’d just cut out for dinner. “Are you sure it’s not one of the ranch hands?”
“I’m sure!” Kellie’s chest heaved with panting breaths and her face was flushed, as if she’d bolted across the hundred yards separating the stables from the main ranch house. “I’ve never seen him before!”
Josie wiped her hands on a terry towel, a twinge of uncertainty rippling through her. It was Sunday, and even though her foreman, Mac, usually stopped by to check on the stock, the rest of the hands spent the day with their families. She’d heard Mac pull his old beat-up Ford out of the driveway over an hour ago, which meant she and Kellie were alone.
