Winter's Proposal by Sherryl Woods

Author:Sherryl Woods
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MIRA Books
Published: 2019-09-26T16:03:01+00:00

* * *

Janet Runningbear gazed out of the window of her small law office on Main Street and saw her daughter being ushered down the sidewalk by a man she recognized at once as Harlan Adams, owner of White Pines and one of the most successful ranchers for several hundred miles in any direction. Judging from the stern expression on his face and Jenny’s dragging footsteps, her daughter had once more gotten herself into a mess of trouble.

She studied the man approaching with a mixture of trepidation, anger, and an odd, tingly hint of anticipation. Ever since her move to Los Piños, the closest town to where her ancestors had once lived, she’d been hearing about Harlan Adams, the man whose own ancestors had been at least in part responsible for pushing the Comanches out of Texas and onto an Oklahoma reservation.

The claiming of Comanche lands might have taken place a hundred years or more ago, but Janet clung to the resentment that had been passed down to her by her great-grandfather. Lone Wolf had lived to be ninety-seven and his father had been forced from the nomadic life of a hunter to the confined space of a reservation.

Even though she knew it was ridiculous to blame Harlan Adams for deeds that had been committed long before his birth or her own, she was prepared to dislike him just on principle. What she hadn’t been prepared for was the prompt and very feminine response to a man who practically oozed sex appeal from every masculine pore.

He was cowboy through and through, from the Stetson hat that rode atop his thick, sun-streaked hair to the tips of his dusty boots. His weathered face hinted at his age, which she knew to be somewhere in his fifties, but nothing about his easy stride or his broad shoulders added to that impression. He had the bearing of a much younger man.

In fact, Harlan Adams strolled down the sidewalk, her daughter in tow, with the confidence of a man who was comfortable with himself and with the power his wealth had earned him. To dampen any spark of fascination he might arouse, Janet quickly assured herself it was more than confidence she saw. It was arrogance, a trait she despised. Since there was no mistaking his destination, she braced herself for his arrival.

A few minutes later, with the pair of them seated across from her, she listened with a sense of growing horror as Harlan Adams described the theft of his truck and the subsequent accident, which had clearly done more damage to the truck than it had to Jenny. Her daughter didn’t even seem flustered.

“He shouldn’t have left the damned keys inside,” Jenny muttered.

“Watch your tongue, young lady,” Janet warned.

A heartfelt apology rose to Janet’s lips but before she could begin to form the words, she caught a surprising glint of amusement in Harlan’s startlingly blue eyes. She’d been anticipating the same mischievous dark brown eyes each of his sons reportedly had, according to the fond reminiscences of the local ladies.

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