Lassoed into Marriage

Lassoed into Marriage
Christine Wenger

From free-range cowboy to down-home daddy! When pilot Lisa Phillips was named co-guardian of her niece she did everything by the book: clipped her wings, took cooking classes and settled down to be a stand-in mum. But she hadn’t planned on playing house with her “frenemy” – rodeo rider and good-time cowboy Brett Sullivan.Sully stared down one-ton bulls on a daily basis, but a three-year-old girl struck terror in his heart. And so did the “Ice Queen” Lisa. She was too tempting…too dangerous. More than anything Sully wanted what he couldn’t have – a real family with Lisa and their little girl.

“Are you and Aunt Lisa going to get married?”

“Why do you ask that?” he said to Rose.

“Because I heard Grandma Sullivan say that it’s wrong for you to live together without being married.”

Leave it to my mother, Sully thought.

He was at a loss as to how to answer her question, but he knew he had to give it a go.

He was about to say no, when he thought about it.

Married to Lisa?

He could almost imagine being married to her. They laughed together. They had Rose in common, bull riding and the big house on twenty acres. They both liked RV-ing, and chili, and cowboy boots. He grinned. And the sex was great, too.

Some marriages were built on less.

Life had been pretty amazing during this arrangement.

So exactly what was his answer to Rose’s question?

About the Author

CHRISTINE WENGER has worked in the criminal justice field for more years than she cares to remember. She has a master’s degree in probation and parole studies and sociology from Fordham University, but the knowledge gained from such studies certainly has not prepared her for what she loves to do most—write romance! A native central New Yorker, she enjoys watching professional bull riding and rodeo with her favorite cowboy, her husband, Jim.

Chris would love to hear from readers. She can be reached by mail at PO Box 1823, Cicero, NY, 13039, USA, or through her website at www.christinewenger.com.

Lassoed into

Marriage

Christine Wenger

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

To my very special friends and fans of the Professional

Bull Riders: Pat Prestin of Florida, Marilyn Day of

Illinois and Necia Green of Australia.

And to PBR champion Chris Shivers of Louisiana:

I’ll miss watching you ride, but enjoy your retirement!

Chapter One

The door of the huge, white Victorian opened and Brett “Sully” Sullivan walked in, his cowboy boots making a dull thud on the gleaming hardwood floor.

Standing in the middle of the great room, he seemed to be larger than life, larger than the room. He held his black cowboy hat to one side, nervously turning it between his thumb and index finger.

Lisa Phillips hadn’t seen Sully in three years, and time had been good to him. His pitch-black hair was cut short with haphazard peaks on the top, and it gave him a devil-may-care look that fit his personality. Without the boots and hat and in his gray suit and maroon tie, he looked more like a lawyer than the bull rider that he was.

“Where’s Rose?” Sully asked, his turquoise-blue eyes full of concern.

“She’s in her room. My parents and your parents are putting her to bed,” Lisa answered, spooning sugar into her coffee.

He nodded then shifted on his feet. He seemed not to know whether to stay or go. He probably wanted to retreat back into his motor home instead of trying to make polite conversation with neighbors and relatives who were paying their respects.

Lisa would just like to fly to some place tropical. Some place where she could soak up the rays and water on a beach … and maybe stop crying.

“Is that coffee?” Sully finally asked.

“Yes. And it’s hot and strong.”

He pulled out a chair next to her and helped himself from the pot that someone had graciously put in front of her on a silver tray. She noticed that he drank his black—just like a tough cowboy should.

Lisa thought back to the day of Rose’s christening. She and Sully were Rose’s godparents and it had been a festive affair. No, it was a festive weekend—in direct contrast to today.

The evening of the christening, Rick and Carol, Sully’s brother and her sister, had called a meeting with the two of them and asked them to be Rose’s guardians in case something happened to them.

Lisa was stunned yet flattered that she had been chosen to see to Rose’s upbringing.

Then the unthinkable happened.

Rick and Carol were gone now. Deceased. Their car had hydroplaned during a rainstorm and hit a bridge support. Rose was with them in the car, but she escaped without a scratch, safely belted into her car seat.

The realization that she’d never see her sister, Carol, again rocked her from her hair roots to her toes, and tears pooled in her eyes. When would she ever stop crying?

And Rose … She was an orphan now.

And she and Sully were Rose’s guardians.

“Sully?”

“Yeah?”

He turned to her. His blue eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot. For a second, she felt sorry for the cowboy. Rick was his brother and her brother-in-law. She had loved Rick, too.

“Remember sitting here three years ago?” she asked. “Rick and Carol had us sign guardianship papers.”

“Yeah.”

“We’re Rose’s guardians now.”