Callaghan's Bride

Callaghan's Bride
Diana Palmer

Rugged as an oak, moody as a thundercloud, rancher Callaghan Hart awed women and intimidated men. So how could one scrappy little redhead nearly bring Callaghan to his knees?Easy! Tess Brady, the ranch's new housekeeper, was soft as a kitten. Dewy as springtime. And secretly sweet on big, bad Callaghan. Which drove the hardened loner mad. For Tess's youthful innocence drew him like forbidden fruit. He wanted to touch her. Taste her. Make her his…But no way would Callaghan bed a stary-eyed virgin whose dreams he could never fulfill. No way would he get trapped into marriage. No matter how tempting the bait….

His eyes were bold on her body, as if he knew exactly what was under her clothing.

The thought of Callaghan Hart’s mouth on her lips made Tess’s breath catch in her throat.

She’d always been a little afraid of her big, brooding boss. But lately at night she lay wondering how it would feel if he kissed her. She’d thought about it a lot, to her shame.

Callaghan was mature, experienced, confident—all the things Tess wasn’t. She knew she couldn’t handle an affair with him. She was equally sure he wouldn’t have any amorous interest in a novice like her.

She’d been sure, Tess amended.

Because Callaghan was looking at her now in a way he’d never looked at her before….

Callaghan’S Bride

Diana Palmer

Dear Reader,

It was a privilege for me to participate in the VIRGIN BRIDES series for Silhouette Romance. Marriage is the greatest adventure of all, and to embark upon it with innocence is almost an act of bravery these days. As our society has grown in technology and sophistication, it seems to me that we have sacrificed idealism somewhere along the way. This should not be. Virtue, purity, honor, self-sacrifice and duty are beautiful, enduring ideals. They make life worthwhile; they give us a purpose, a place in the world regardless of our social or financial standing. They define us as individuals and give us higher goals to strive for. They illuminate us spiritually.

One of my favorite characters in fiction is Don Quixote, who struggled in his endearing way to restore honor and morality to a tarnished, weary world. I have always tried to emphasize these virtues in what I write. The VIRGIN BRIDES series brings idealism as well as romantic magic to the Silhouette Romance line, and I am proud to participate in it. Happy Anniversary to the VIRGIN BRIDES. Long may they endure.

Love,

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter One

T he kitchen cat twirled around Tess’s legs and almost tripped her on her way to the oven. She smiled at it ruefully and made time to pour it a bowl of cat food. The cat was always hungry, it seemed. Probably it was still afraid of starving, because it had been a stray when Tess took it in.

It was the bane of Tess Brady’s existence that she couldn’t resist stray or hurt animals. Most of her young life had been spent around rodeos with her father, twice the world champion calf roper. She hadn’t had a lot to do with animals, which might have explained why she loved them. Now that her father was gone, and she was truly on her own, she enjoyed having little things to take care of. Her charges ranged from birds with broken wings to sick calves. There was an unbroken procession.

This cat was her latest acquisition. It had come to the back door as a kitten just after Thanksgiving, squalling in the dark, rainy night. Tess had taken it in, despite the grumbling from two of her three bosses. The big boss, the one who didn’t like her, had been her only ally in letting the cat stay.

That surprised her. Callaghan Hart was one tough hombre. He’d been a captain in the Green Berets and had seen action in Operation Desert Storm. He was the next-to-eldest of the five Hart brothers who owned the sweeping Hart Ranch Properties, a conglomerate of ranches and feedlots located in several western states. The headquarter ranch was in Jacobsville, Texas. Simon, the eldest brother, was an attorney in San Antonio. Corrigan, who was four years younger than Simon, had married over a year and a half ago. He and his wife Dorie had a new baby son. There were three other Hart bachelors left in Jacobsville: Reynard, the youngest, Leopold, the second youngest, and Callaghan who was just two years younger than Simon. They all lived on the Jacobsville property.

Tess’s father had worked for the Hart brothers for a little over six months when he dropped dead in the corral of a heart attack. It had been devastating for Tess, whose mother had run out on them when she was little. Cray Brady, her father, was an only child. There wasn’t any other family that she knew of. The Harts had also known that. When their housekeeper had expressed a desire to retire, Tess had seemed the perfect replacement because she could cook and keep house. She could also ride like a cowboy and shoot like an expert and curse in fluent Spanish, but the Hart boys didn’t know about those skills because she’d never had occasion to display them. Her talents these days were confined to making the fluffy biscuits the brothers couldn’t live without and producing basic but hearty meals. Everything except sweets because none of the brothers seemed to like them.

It would have been the perfect job, even with Leopold’s endless pranks, except that she was afraid of Callaghan. It showed, which made things even worse.

He watched her all the time, from her curly red-gold hair and pale blue eyes to her small feet, as if he was just waiting for her to make a mistake so that he could fire her. Over breakfast, those black Spanish eyes would cut into her averted face like a diamond. They were set in a lean, dark face with a broad forehead and a heavy, jutting brow. He had a big nose and big ears and big feet, but his long, chiseled mouth was perfect and he had thick, straight hair as black as a raven. He wasn’t handsome, but he was commanding and arrogant and frightening even to other men. Leopold had once told her that the brothers tried to step in if Cag ever lost his temper enough to get physical. He had an extensive background in combat, but even his size alone made him dangerous. It was fortunate that he rarely let his temper get the best of him.

Tess had never been able to understand why Cag disliked her so much. He hadn’t said a word of protest when the others decided to offer her the job of housekeeper and cook after her father’s sudden death. And he was the one who made Leopold apologize after a particularly unpleasant prank at a party. But he never stopped cutting at Tess or finding ways to get at her.

Like this morning. She’d always put strawberry preserves on the table for breakfast, because the brothers preferred them. But this morning Cag had wanted apple butter and she couldn’t find any. He’d been scathing about her lack of organization and stomped off without a second biscuit or another cup of coffee.

“His birthday is a week from Saturday,” Leopold had explained ruefully. “He hates getting older.”

Reynard agreed. “Last year, he went away for a week around this time of the year. Nobody knew where he was, either.” He shook his head. “Poor old Cag.”

“Why do you call him that?” Tess asked curiously.

“I don’t know,” Rey said, smiling thoughtfully. “I guess because, of all of us, he’s the most alone.”

She hadn’t thought of it that way, but Rey was right. Cag was alone. He didn’t date, and he didn’t go out “with the boys,” as many other men did. He kept to himself. When he wasn’t working—which was rarely—he was reading history books. It had surprised Tess during her first weeks as housekeeper to find that he read Spanish colonial history, in Spanish. She hadn’t known that he was bilingual, although she found it out later when two of the Hispanic cowboys got into a no-holds-barred fight with a Texas cowboy who’d been deliberately baiting them. The Texas cowboy had been fired and the two Latinos had been quietly and efficiently cursed within an inch of their lives in the coldest, most bitingly perfect Spanish Tess had ever heard. She herself was bilingual, having spent most of her youth in the Southwest.

Cag didn’t know she spoke Spanish. It was one of many accomplishments she was too shy to share with him. She kept to herself most of the time, except when Dorie came with Corrigan to the ranch to visit. They lived in a house of their own several miles away—although it was still on the Hart ranch. Dorie was sweet and kind, and Tess adored her. Now that the baby was here, Tess looked forward to the visits even more. She adored children.

What she didn’t adore was Herman. Although she was truly an animal lover, her affection didn’t extend to snakes. The great albino python with his yellow-patterned white skin and red eyes terrified her. He lived in an enormous aquarium against one wall of Cag’s room, and he had a nasty habit of escaping. Tess had found him in a variety of unlikely spots, including the washing machine. He wasn’t dangerous because Cag kept him well-fed, and he was always closely watched for a day or so after he ate—which wasn’t very often. Eventually she learned not to scream. Like measles and colds, Herman was a force of nature that simply had to be accepted. Cag loved the vile reptile. It seemed to be the only thing that he really cared about.

Well, maybe he liked the cat, too. She’d seen him playing with it once, with a long piece of string. He didn’t know that. When he wasn’t aware anyone was watching, he seemed to be a different person. And nobody had forgotten about what happened after he saw what was subsequently referred to as the “pig” movie. Rey had sworn that his older brother was all but in tears during one of the scenes in the touching, funny motion picture. Cag saw it three times in the theater and later bought a copy of his own.

Since the movie, Cag didn’t eat pork anymore, not ham nor sausage nor bacon. And he made everyone who did feel uncomfortable. It was one of many paradoxes about this complicated man. He wasn’t afraid of anything on this earth, but apparently he had a soft heart hidden deep inside. Tess had never been privileged to see it, because Cag didn’t like her. She wished that she wasn’t so uneasy around him. But then, most people were.

Christmas Eve came later in the week, and Tess served an evening meal fit for royalty, complete with all the trimmings. The married Harts were starting their own tradition for Christmas Day, so the family celebration was on Christmas Eve.

Tess ate with them, because all four brothers had looked outraged when she started to set a place for herself in the kitchen with widowed Mrs. Lewis, who came almost every day to do the mopping and waxing and general cleaning that Tess didn’t have time for. It was very democratic of them, she supposed, and it did feel nice to at least appear to be part of a family—even if it wasn’t her own. Mrs. Lewis went home to her visiting children, anyway, so Tess would have been in the kitchen alone.

She was wearing the best dress she had—a nice red plaid one, but it was cheap and it looked it when compared to the dress that Dorie Hart was wearing. They went out of their way to make her feel secure, though, and by the time they started on the pumpkin and pecan pies and the huge dark fruitcake, she wasn’t worried about her dress anymore. Everyone included her in the conversation. Except for Cag’s silence, it would have been perfect. But he didn’t even look at her. She tried not to care.

She got presents, another unexpected treat, in return for her homemade gifts. She’d crocheted elegant trim for two pillowcases that she’d embroidered for the Harts, matching them to the color schemes in their individual bedrooms—something she’d asked Dorie to conspire with her about. She did elegant crochet work. She was making things for Dorie’s baby boy in her spare time, a labor of love.

The gifts she received weren’t handmade, but she loved them just the same. The brothers chipped in to buy her a winter coat. It was a black leather one with big cuffs and a sash. She’d never seen anything so beautiful in all her life, and she cried over it. The women gave her presents, too. She had a delicious floral perfume from Dorie and a designer scarf in just the right shades of blue from Mrs. Lewis. She felt on top of the world as she cleared away the dinner dishes and got to work in the kitchen.