Dedicated to Deirdre Read online

  “Would you mind if I came by tomorrow?”

  Letter to Reader

  Title Page

  Books by Anne Marie Winston

  About the Author

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Epilogue

  Copyright

  “Would you mind if I came by tomorrow?”

  Ronan asked Deirdre.

  Yes, I mind! But she felt trapped by the little voice inside that reminded her it would be rude to refuse. Ronan was looking at her, his eyes the color of tiger-eye topaz alive with interest. “All right,” Deirdre said before she could think too much more about it.

  Ronan nodded. “I’ll come by tomorrow, then.” He took her hand in his to say goodbye.

  Driving home a few minutes later, Deirdre was a mass of churning anxiety. Why was she letting him into her home? She didn’t want to look at a man, let alone think about one.

  Without warning, the memory of his big hand taking hers returned. The man radiated warmth. And she hadn’t been warm in a very long time....

  Dear Reader,

  Happy Valentine’s Day! And what better way to celebrate Cupid’s reign than by reading six brand-new Desire novels...? Putting us in the mood for sensuous love is this February’s MAN OF THE MONTH, with wonderful Dixie Browning offering us the final title in her THE LAWLESS HEIRS miniseries in A Knight in Rusty Armor. This alpha-male hero knows just what to do when faced with a sultry damsel in distress!

  Continue to follow the popular Fortune family’s romances in the Desire series FORTUNE’S CHILDREN: THE BRIDES. The newest installment, Society Bride by Elizabeth Bevarly, features a spirited debutante who runs away from a business-deal marriage...into the arms of the rugged rancher of her dreams.

  Ever-talented Anne Marie Winston delivers the second story in her BUTLER COUNTY BRIDES, with a single mom opening her home and heart to a seductive acquaintance, in Dedicated to Deirdre. Then a modern-day cowboy renounces his footloose ways for love in The Outlaw Jesse James, the final title in Cindy Gerard’s OUTLAW HEARTS miniseries; while a child’s heartwarming wish for a father is granted in Raye Morgan’s Secret Dad. And with Little Miss Innocent? Lori Foster proves that opposites do attract.

  This Valentine’s Day, Silhouette Desire’s little red books sizzle with compelling romance and make the perfect gift for the contemporary woman—you! So treat yourself to all six!

  Enjoy!

  Joan Marlow Golan

  Senior Editor, Silhouette Desire

  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

  DEDICATED TO DEIRDRE

  ANNE MARIE WINSTON

  Books by Anne Marie Winston

  Silhouette Desire

  Best Kept Secrets #742

  Island Baby #770

  Chance at a Lifetime #809

  Unlikely Eden #827

  Carolina on My Mind #845

  Substitute Wife #863

  Find Her, Keep Her #887

  Rancher’s Wife #936.

  Rancher’s Baby #1031

  Seducing the Proper Miss Miller #1155

  *The Baby Consultant #1191

  *Dedicated to Deirdre #1197

  * Butler County Brides

  ANNE MARIE WINSTON

  has believed in happy endings all her life. Having the opportunity to share them with her readers gives her great joy. Anne Marie enjoys figure skating and working in the gardens of her south-central Pennsylvania home.

  For Nora

  Who has great taste in shoes, champagne

  and pals (!)

  And who excels at midnight readings.

  One

  “Lee! Don’t pull—”

  Too late. Deirdre Patten’s oldest son used every ounce of his wiry five-year-old strength to tug a box of sugared cereal from the very bottom of an enormous stack of the breakfast foods in the grocery store. With an experienced eye born of many brushes with disaster, she instantly calculated that she was too far away to grab her son. Her heart lurched as the entire stack tilted and began to slide slowly forward. Visions of the grievous injury a huge stack of boxes could do to a little boy flashed across her mind as she dashed forward, and in the same instant, the entire array of cereal boxes crashed to the floor right in front of her.

  “Lee! Honey, where are you?” Frantically she kicked aside boxes, then dropped to her knees looking for a little arm or leg beneath the avalanche. “Lee? Lee!”

  “Hi, Mommy!”

  Her heart began to beat again when she heard the chirpy little voice. She paused in the middle of her frantic shoveling and looked around. On the other side of the aisle, Lee was waving to her. He stood beside a stranger, a man with dark chestnut hair, a man who had Lee’s wrist in a firm grasp.

  “Baby, are you all right?” She leaped over the boxes and knelt beside her son, running her hands over him. Nothing looked broken. “How many times have I told you—”

  “The man saved me, Mom.” Lee was pointing up, and she realized the man who had released her son’s wrist must have pulled him out of the way of the boxes.

  She sat back on her heels with a weary smile. “Thank you so much. This one and his little brother keep me...on my...toes.” Her voice drained away to nothing as she recognized the man looking down at her.

  “Hello...Mrs. Patten, I believe?”

  The voice was the same, deep and slightly rough, with a lazy drawl to the words that made a woman’s toes curl. She’d noticed that the night of the office Christmas party in Baltimore, Maryland, three years ago even though she’d been so upset with her husband she could barely see straight.

  Slowly she got to her feet, keeping her hands on her son’s shoulders in front of her. “Hello.”

  He extended a large, tanned hand. “Ronan Sullivan. We’ve met before.”

  She flushed, a nod her only acknowledgment as she reached out to shake his hand. “Deirdre is my first name, but my friends call me Dee. This is Lee and my other son, in the cart, is Tommy.” She barely touched his fingers before drawing back quickly. His hand was warm and firm, and the brief moment when her hand was in his produced an unsettling instant of awareness that she forced herself to ignore. “Thank you for your quick thinking. Lee could have been badly hurt.”

  “You’re welcome. No problem.” He grazed his knuckles across the top of Lee’s closely shaved head of black fuzz. “I saw it coming, so I was ready for a quick rescue.”

  “Ah, well, thank you again.” She cast a glance at her cart to make sure Tommy hadn’t strayed from his seat in the front. A store employee had come running and was restacking the boxes.

  “You’re welcome again.” He hesitated for a bare instant. “Is your husband still with Bethlehem Steel?”

  “Yes,” she said, though why he would mention her husband after the last time they’d met was beyond her. She’d hoped that perhaps he’d forgotten some of the more humiliating details of that evening.

  “Long commute from out here. Do you live in the area?”

  She hesitated, then decided there was no reason to keep her situation a secret. Sooner or later she had to begin to tell people. “I’m divorced now. I have a farm halfway between Butler and Frizzelburg.”

  His eyes warmed, though he didn’t smile. “My grandparents had a farm down in Virginia. Do you work it?”

&nb
sp; She shook her head. “I lease most of the land to the man who has the place next to ours. I have a small business that keeps me pretty busy.”

  “What do you do?”

  She twisted her fingers together, then caught herself and flattened her palms against her sides. “It’s nothing, really. I design and make a line of doll clothes.”

  “Hmm.”

  She couldn’t tell what that meant, but she felt defensiveness rising around her like a growing field of corn. “It allows me to make enough to live on and still be home with the boys.”

  “That’s important.”

  “It is to me.” She glanced over at Tommy, who was showing signs of restlessness, a prelude, she knew, to a leap from the cart. “Well, I must be going. It was nice to see you again.” A blatant lie. Seeing Ronan Sullivan stirred up all kinds of memories of her old life, memories she was determined to forget.

  “Before you go,” he said. “Would you know of anyone with a place to rent in the area? I’m looking for—”

  “Mom!” Lee clutched at her hand. “Maybe he’s the one! Ask him.”

  “No.” She loved her sons but there were times when she thought seriously of locking them away for a day or ten. “I’m sure Mr.—”

  “Ronan,” he reminded her.

  “Ronan,” she repeated dutifully, “wouldn’t be interested in the apartment.”

  “What apartment?” He was looking at her for an answer, eyes the color of tigereye topaz suddenly alive with interest

  “It’s nothing great,” she said quickly. “I’m looking for a tenant to rent the apartment over the stable. It’s very small and extremely rustic. I’m sure it wouldn’t suit you.”

  “You never know. Would you mind if I looked at it?”

  Yes, I mind! But she felt trapped by the little voice inside—a little voice that sounded strangely like her mother’s—that reminded her that it would be rude to refuse.

  Really, there was no reason for her to worry. She’d envisioned renting to a woman, but why should a man be any different? A civilized man. He’s not Nelson, she told herself firmly. One bad apple doesn’t spoil the whole barrel. Making up her mind, she said, “All right,” before she could think too much more about it. “But don’t expect too much. It’s primitive.”

  He nodded. “I’d still like to look at it. Is tomorrow convenient?”

  Tomorrow! “Tomorrow would be fine. Around eleven?” Maybe he would be working; she could always say evenings didn’t suit, just stall until—

  “Eleven it is.”

  Driving home through the quiet Butler County countryside a few minutes later, she was a mass of churning anxiety inside. Why was she letting him look at the apartment? She didn’t want a man hanging around her home, good apples in the barrel or not. She didn’t want to talk with a man, didn’t want to look at a man, didn’t even want to think about one. She had a few exceptions—her brothers, her friend Frannie’s husband, but she had grown up with Jack so he didn’t really count...but other than that, she deliberately avoided even making eye contact with the opposite sex. The thought of so much as a casual date left a very bad taste in her mouth.

  She’d planned to fix up the apartment, rent it to a career woman who wouldn’t be home much. Still, maybe a male tenant wouldn’t be such a bad thing. She wouldn’t have to see much of him, would hardly know he was there.

  Without warning, the memory of his big hand taking hers returned. The man felt like a big heater, radiating warmth. And she hadn’t been warm in a very long time.

  It was perfect, Ronan thought as his white pickup truck crested the hill on the rutted lane that led to Deirdre Patten’s place. A perfect place to write. Not a reporter or a determined fan in sight, and none likely to find him easily.

  And to make it even better, he had his research right under his nose. Fields on his right, forest on his left. The fields sloped gently down to a wide, flat valley through which a little stream meandered. A stone farmhouse—an old stone farmhouse, from the look of it—was surrounded by a neat square of yard, and across the gravel driveway, an equally ancient barn loomed. Beside the barn was what looked like a chicken house, a pig sty and finally a smaller, and much newer, stable painted a traditional barn red with white crossbars. Green fields, interspersed with stands of tall trees and fencerows overgrown with climbing vines, spread out in every direction.

  It looked like a picture on a postcard titled, “America, Circa 1950.” And it was right off the highway, though no one would ever guess it was there.

  Taking his foot off the brake, he let the truck coast down the lane, trying in vain to avoid the worst ruts. He’d probably have to have the wheels aligned every couple of months if he stayed here.

  Halfway down the lane, he slammed on the brakes abruptly. The wheels skidded in the loose stone, then caught and held as he pumped the pedal. What the hell—?

  Dead smack in the middle of the lane were the two little Patten boys, Lee of the cereal box slide and his little brother—had Deirdre said his name was Tommy? They were hunched over something on the ground, something that made a heck of a lot of dust. One had a handful of leaves he was cautiously stuffing into whatever it was. They were so absorbed in what they were doing that neither one of them even heard the truck.

  He considered blowing the horn, but he didn’t want to scare the little fellas, so he opened his door and swung out of the truck, intending to call to them to move out of the road.

  That’s when he saw the flames.

  “Hey!” That wasn’t dust; it was fire! He didn’t have much experience with kids, but he knew nobody in their right mind would allow boys this small to mess around with fire.

  As he started forward, the oldest child looked up. A broad smile split his face and he hollered, “Hi-ya, Mr. Sullivan, it works! Come see our fire!”

  Since he planned on doing exactly that, he walked up and hunkered down beside the smaller boy. The flames were still a tiny blaze, hungrily licking at the leaves. “What are you doing?”

  Tommy held up a magnifying glass. “On TV Yogi an’ Boo-Boo started a fire wif a mag-i, man-i—”

  “Magnifying glass,” supplied his brother. “And so did we!”

  “Umm, that’s interesting.” Ronan took the magnifying glass and pretended to examine it while he eyed the little blaze. “But you don’t want that fire to get very big.”

  “No,” agreed the littlest boy. He stood and pulled something out of one pocket of the sturdy, very grubby jeans he wore. “We’re gonna put it out.”

  Glancing down at the small hand thrust under his nose, Ronan couldn’t help but grin. The little guy had a yellow plastic water pistol, primed with enough water to douse a match—maybe. “Good idea,” he told the child solemnly, pressing his lips together to prevent the chuckle that was trying to escape. “But I know another way to put out a small fire like this. Want me to show you?”

  “Okay!” Both little boys stepped back as he stood.

  “Fire needs air to breathe, just like you do,” he explained. “I’m going to step on it, keep it from getting any air, until it dies.”

  “Can we help?”

  “Sure.” Anything to get that fire out before it realized how much prime fuel surrounded it. “One, two, three, stomp!” And as he did, he slipped the magnifying glass into his pocket. Where in the heck was their mother, and what was she thinking, to be letting them try a dangerous stunt like this?

  It didn’t take much convincing to get the boys interested in a ride in the truck—another issue he’d mention to their mother. He boosted them in and drove on down the lane to the house, parking in the graveled area next to the old barn. As he lifted each child from the truck, a battered green Bronco came jouncing across the pasture farthest from him. As it neared, he saw Deirdre was driving. She looked scared and upset—until she saw the children. Then her expression changed to pure fury.

  She was out of the Bronco almost before it slid to a stop. “Where were you?” she demanded. “I specifically told
you to stay in the yard.” Her pretty, heart-shaped face was stern, and she tapped her foot as she waited for an answer.

  Ronan was fascinated. He’d thought the phrase, “Vibrated with anger,” was a figurative description until now.

  “But the yawd bums,” Tommy offered.

  “Yeah, we didn’t want to start a big fire,” said Lee.

  “A fire?” Her green eyes grew round. “Where did you get matches? What did you set fire to? Is it still burning?”

  Ronan cleared his throat as he reached into his pocket, offering her the magnifying lens. “The intrepid scouts here didn’t need matches. I helped them put it out.”

  “You’re kidding.” She took the item from him as if it might bite. “You actually started a fire with this?” she said to the boys.

  “Yep!” Tommy, less experienced at reading his mother’s ire, swelled with pride.

  She didn’t miss a beat. “And is it okay to play with fire?”

  Both children visibly sagged. Small voices muttered, “No.”

  “That’s right,” she said. “And what’s the rule about fire?”

  “There has to be a grown-up with us.” The older boy looked chastened—but not exactly sorry.

  “And what happens when you don’t follow the rules?”

  As one, two little faces fell, and they turned toward the house. “Go to our rooms,” they said in mournful unison.

  “I’ll let you know when you can come out,” she called after them. Then she turned to Ronan. “Mr. Sullivan, I don’t know what to say, except thank you again.” She sighed, looking at the magnifying glass and shaking her head. “They can find things to get into that I’ve never even thought of.”