The Best Husband In Texas

The Best Husband In Texas
Lass Small

MEN of the YEAR MAN of the MONTH"I won't rest 'til I make that elusive filly my bride." - Austin Farrell, prime Texas husband material Ranchin' man Austin Farrell had loved Iris Smith since childhood. Though he'd never said the words, he always believed he was the only man for her. Then she married… and was widowed. Not once, but three times!Now the gentle beauty was back in Texas, and Austin was determined to lavish her with tender, lovin' care. And prove to her that this cowboy would never leave his destined bride's side… .Some men are made for lovin' - and you'll love our MAN OF THE MONTH!

Excerpt (#u6b399aa1-e99a-514a-9ce5-654ccd12ed45)Letter to Reader (#u4da060e2-63af-5c02-9cf0-b1002ea96528)About the Author (#u68fb28c5-c212-5a47-a1c9-8410a35a8de4)Title Page (#u6b32f5da-d17c-55e6-ba91-66263f1ee280)Dedication (#u789fe3c6-d4ac-57fb-9458-cf7bde71e059)Chapter One (#u794f24f2-5100-52b4-adf9-5c118fe16694)Chapter Two (#u634a04d8-9e2d-5b58-80c7-02b7dbbb80d8)Chapter Three (#ue3ef597e-2bb0-5e58-af38-b87e53ff7cf1)Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

He Could Wait.

Austin needed Iris to get used to him, to be comfortable with him. Then they could talk. He was older than she, and more worldly.

Worldly? She’d had three husbands!

Well, they’d all been kids. And she hadn’t had any of them long enough to really be tested. She needed permanence and maturity.

She needed...him.

He looked over at Iris. Her cold little hand was warming in his big hot hand. Hers was lax and...trusting? Did she trust him?

Would she ever trust him enough to love him?

Dear Reader,

Spring is in the air—and all thoughts turn toward love. With six provocative romances from Silhouette Desire, you too can enjoy a season of new beginnings ... and happy endings! Our March MAN OF THE MONTH is Lass Small’s

The Best Husband in Texas. This sexy rancher is determined to win over the beautiful widow he’s loved for years! Next, Joan Elliott Pickart returns with a wonderful love story—Just My Joe. Watch sparks fly between handsome, wealthy Joe Dillon and the woman he loves.

Don’t miss Beverly Barton’s new miniseries, 3 BABIES FOR 3 BROTHELS, which begins with His Secret Child The town golden boy is reunited with a former flame—and their child. Popular Anne Marie Winston offers the third title in her BUTLER COUNTY BRIDES series, as a sexy heroine forms a partnership with her lost love in The Bride Means Business. Then an expectant mom matches wits with a brooding rancher in Carol Grace’s Expecting.... And Virginia Dove debuts explosively with The Bridal Promise, when star-crossed lovers marry for convenience.

This spring, please write and tell us why you read Silhouette Desire books. As part of our 20

anniversary celebration in the year 2000, we’d like to publish some of this fan mail in the books—so drop us a line, tell us how long you’ve been reading Desire books and what you love about the series. And enjoy our March titles!

Regards,

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

About the Author

LASS SMALL finds living on this planet at this time a fascinating experience. People are amazing. She thinks that to be a teller of tales of people, places and things is absolutely marvelous.

The Best Husband In Texas

Lass Small

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

To Debra Robertson

One

At the age of nineteen, Iris Smith Osburn lost her first husband to Desert Storm. A U.S. tank ran over Jake’s foxhole. Since the tank was one of ours, the government—with some earnest coaxing in court—paid up.

There in San Antonio, TEXAS, the grieving Iris voluntarily split the award with her late husband’s hostile family. They thought she was selfish, but sourly they took the lawyer-settled half of the money. The attorney’s fees came from her half.

Iris Smith Osburn Dallas’s second husband was her first husband’s best friend. He was a fine man, and like her first husband, he was very gentle and kind. Tom died of some strange Gulf disease that’s still being studied. He, too, had been in Desert Storm and there was government insurance. He had no family who wanted to share.

Her third husband was a friend to the second. Peter Alden was charming. Iris was reluctant to try marriage again, but Peter was adamant, and he convinced her to become his wife. While a spectator at a rodeo, he was trampled by a nasty bull that had gotten loose between the fences. Peter’s death had been quick. It had been a shock that had shaken Iris to the core.

The female mourners who were at Peter Alden’s funeral whispered that, each time, Iris’s grief had been quite practiced. They whispered that with her hands over her face that way, she was probably looking through her fingers to see who would be her next?

Iris Smith Osburn Dallas Alden not only was awarded the life insurance of her third husband, but her brother-in-law was an attorney. He proved the rodeo proprietors were responsible. He gently refused his fee.

Iris offered Peter’s family half of the compensation awarded by the Court’s judgment. The family declined. They discouraged their lawyer son’s attentions to the blond, blue-eyed Iris. Obviously, she was dangerous to men.

She moved back home to Fuquay, about eighty miles north and west of San Antonio near Kerrville. Iris was, by then, twenty-four years old and three times a widow. All of her marriages had been brief. She felt she was a scourge and knew she would never marry again.

It was February of that year when Iris was welcomed back among her relatives and friends with varying reactions. Her extended family was mostly compassionate. There were those who considered her a threat. There was just something about a young, good-looking, grieving widow that lured men. Then, too, she was financially well-off... another very strong lure to most men.

Eldest of the children in her family, it was very strange for Iris to be back in Fuquay, TEXAS, to live at home again. But she could not deal with curiosity. She needed her family’s protection.

The house was very familiar because it hadn’t changed much over the years. It was filled with family hand-me-down furniture and hand-crocheted curtains. Even to strangers, it was a comfortable house.

Iris knew that her own room had not been used because there were so many unoccupied rooms. She could go into her old room, close the door and be alone. The house was silent. It felt as if it was frozen in time. Just about the way Iris was. Both were on hold. Waiting? For what?

Iris looked with dead eyes at the pictures still on her bulletin board. Who was that long-ago child who’d saved those curled pictures? Who was that laughing woman? She’d had a good laugh, which hadn’t been heard in some time.

She could not recall when she had last laughed. About what?

On that board, there were no pictures of any of her husbands. It was as if her life had stopped when she’d left this silent, still house. And she’d come back to it as a ghost.

Iris opened one of the room’s windows to TEXAS’s February-fresh mildness. They were due a norther. Maybe if she opened all the windows, the house would be refreshed and shake itself back to ‘life?

What about her? Could she then begin to breathe and again be the woman who had left here to move to San Antonio to go to Incarnate Word College? That was...several lifetimes ago.

No.

She could not go back in time. But she couldn’t find the motivation to get herself to go forward. She was lost. She would never marry again. It was too awful to have a partner who failed in the sworn commitment of “from this day forward.” Why had she buried three such good young men?

At twenty-four, she was older now than either of her first two husbands. Iris and her husbands’ families would never know what sort of men they would have become, what careers they would have chosen or what their children could have been.

Her tears welled.

She knew she would never again marry. She could not stand to be another man’s widow. She was a curse. The realization, the clarity of their unfulfilled lives had caught up with her and overwhelmed her to the point that she didn’t know how to cope. Therefore she withdrew. She was in a capsule of her own making. In there she was alone, and it was silent.