Archer's Angels
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Archer Jefferson was all cowboy
More cowboy than she’d come mentally prepared to corral.
Okay, a man that droolworthy must not lack for female friends. So why had he been e-mailing her for two years? She wrinkled her nose, pushed her thick glasses back and studied him further.
Tight jeans, dirty boots. Long black hair under a black felt hat. Deep voice. Piercing eyes, she noted as he swung around, catching her staring at him. She jumped, he laughed and then he tipped his hat to her as he swung up onto an Appaloosa in a manner the stuntwoman in her appreciated.
Just how difficult would it be to entice that cowboy into her bed? Archer had put thoughts in her mind about his virility, with his Texas-sized bragging about his manliness and the babies popping out all over their ranch.
Seeing him, however, made her think that perhaps he hadn’t been bragging as much as stating fact.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tina Leonard loves to laugh, which is one of the many reasons she loves writing Harlequin American Romance books. In another lifetime, Tina thought she would be single and an East Coast fashion buyer forever. The unexpected happened when Tina met Tim again after many years—she hadn’t seen him since they’d attended school together from first through eighth grade. They married, and now Tina keeps a close eye on her school-age children’s friends! Lisa and Dean keep their mother busy with soccer, gymnastics and horseback riding. They are proud of their mom’s “kissy books” and eagerly help her any way they can. Tina hopes that readers will enjoy the love of family she writes about in her stories. Recently a reviewer wrote, “Leonard has a wonderful sense of the ridiculous,” which Tina loved so much she wants it for her epitaph. Right now, however, she’s focusing on her wonderful life and writing a lot more romance!
Books by Tina Leonard
HARLEQUIN AMERICAN ROMANCE
748—COWBOY COOTCHIE-COO
758—DADDY’S LITTLE DARLINGS
771—THE MOST ELIGIBLE…DADDY
796—A MATCH MADE IN TEXAS
811—COWBOY BE MINE
829—SURPRISE! SURPRISE!
846—SPECIAL ORDER GROOM
873—HIS ARRANGED MARRIAGE
905—QUADRUPLETS ON THE DOORSTEP
977—FRISCO JOE’S FIANCÉE†
981—LAREDO’S SASSY SWEETHEART†
986—RANGER’S WILD WOMAN†
989—TEX TIMES TEN†
1018—FANNIN’S FLAME†
1037—NAVARRO OR NOT†
1045—CATCHING CALHOUN†
1053—ARCHER’S ANGELS†
HARLEQUIN INTRIGUE
576—A MAN OF HONOR
ARCHER’S ANGELS
Tina Leonard
THE JEFFERSON BROTHERS OF MALFUNCTION JUNCTION
Mason (38), Maverick and Mercy’s eldest son—He can’t run away from his own heartache or The Family Problem.
Frisco Joe (37)—Fell hard for Annabelle Turnberry and has sweet Emmie to show for it. They live in Texas wine country.
Fannin (36)—Life can’t be better than cozying up with Kelly Stone and his darling twins in Ireland.
Laredo (35), twin to Tex—Loves Katy Goodnight, North Carolina and being the only brother with a reputation for winning his woman without staying on a bull.
Tex (35), twin to Laredo—Grower of roses and other plants, Tex fell for Cissy Kisserton and decided her water-bound way of life was best.
Calhoun (34)—Doesn’t want the family mantle passing to him.
Ranger (33), twin to Archer—Fell for Hannah Hotchkiss and will never leave the open road without her.
Archer (33), twin to Ranger—Talking with a faraway woman in Australia by e-mail is better than having a real woman to bother him.
Crockett (31), twin to Navarro—Paints portraits of nudes, but never wants to see a woman fully clothed in a wedding gown saying, “I do” to him.
Navarro (31), twin to Crockett—Fell for Nina Cakes when he was supposed to be watching her sister, Valentine, who is carrying Last’s child.
Bandera (27)—Spouts poetry and has moved from Whitman to Frost—anything to keep his mind off the ranch’s troubles.
Last (26)—The only brother who finds himself expecting a baby with no hope of marrying the mother. Will he ever find the happy ending he always wanted?
To Nicki and Jason Flockton, for kindly sharing their love and their excitement over their children with me and our friends, the Gal Pals. Your joy was inspiring.
Much love to my children, Lisa and Dean. Don’t leave me too soon—I’m enjoying you too much.
And heartfelt gratitude to my editors, Paula Eykelhof and Stacy Boyd, whose belief in this series has meant so much to me.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Epilogue
Prologue
Love at first sight? Yes. Love over time? Yes. But there are no shortcuts to the heart.
—Maverick to his sons one night, after their mother had passed, when they wondered how a man ever knew he’d found the one woman for him
From: TexasArcher
To: AussieClove
Howdy, AussieClove. What’s shaking Down Under? I just got home from riding a bull at the rodeo in Lonely Hearts Station. After the events me and some of my bros decided to drink some of the wildest concoction on the planet. We ended up baying at the moon beside Barmaid’s Creek, with some crazy gals for company. You should have seen me ride that bull—if he hadn’t come back around to the left, I would have been the first brother in my family to stay on that cursed piece of cowhide, Blood-thirsty Black.
From: AussieClove
To: TexasArcher
G’day, TexasArcher. Nothing shaking here except maybe my head. My older sister, Lucy, is devastated tonight. She and her husband have learned they can probably never have children. So I threw myself into work, hoping to stay positive.
The stunt tonight involved a boat, some fire, a shark and two guys wearing what I would call thongs. I think guys should never wear swim clothes that are smaller than their…well, you know. What do cowboys wear under those Wrangler jeans?
From: TexasArcher
To: AussieClove
Man alive, AussieClove. Sorry to hear about your sister—that’s too bad. Around our ranch, we’re having a population explosion. We’ve got babies popping out all over the place. I’m never having kids. In fact, I’m never getting married. Too complicated.
One time, I was stuck in a truck with my twin brother, Ranger, and his now-wife, Hannah, and they griped at each other for days. I finally escaped, but Ranger wasn’t so lucky. He rolled down an arroyo and demanded that a medicine man marry him and Hannah because he was convinced he had to get married to live. My twin’s weird. By the way, I wear briefs and sometimes nothing. What do Aussie girls wear under their clothes? (I can tell you right now, floss-size drawers would never hold everything of mine.)
From: AussieClove
To: TexasArcher
I’m sure.
Chapter One
Clove Penmire’s heart pounded as she got off the bus in Lonely Hearts Station, Texas, suitcase in hand. For all her fascination with cowboys and the lure of the dusty state she’d read so much about, she
had to admit small-town Texas was nothing like her homeland of Australia.
A horse broke free from the barn across the street, walking itself nonchalantly between the two sides of the old-time town. A cowboy sprinted out of the barn and ran up the street after his horse, laughing as he caught up to it.
Clove smiled. From the back she couldn’t tell if the man was handsome, but he was dressed in Wrangler jeans and a hat, and, as far as she could tell, the cowboy was the real thing.
That’s what she had traveled to Texas for: the real thing.
That sentiment would have sounded shallow, even to Clove, just a month ago. But having learned that her sister, Lucy, could not have a child, Clove’s thought processes had taken a new course, one that included fantasies of tossing her brother-in-law into the Australian ocean.
All over the world there were people who couldn’t conceive when they wished. They adopted, or pursued other means of happiness. She hadn’t been overly worried, until Lucy confessed that she thought her husband might leave her for a woman who could bear children.
Lucy had laughed a little sadly and said that perhaps she was only imagining things. Clove had murmured something reassuring, but inside, fear struck her. Lucy loved her physician husband. He’d always seemed to adore her. Men didn’t leave women because they couldn’t bear children, did they? Robert was a wonderful man; Clove had been surprised, and distressed, at the turn of events.
So she’d taken drastic measures. She’d come to America for Archer Jefferson.
The cowboy hauled his horse around, leading it back toward the barn. Clove could hear him lightly remonstrating his wayward beast, but the horse didn’t seem too concerned.
The cowboy caught her interested gaze, holding it for a second before he looked back at his horse. The man was extremely handsome. Breathtakingly so. Not the cowboy for her, considering her mission, and the fact that she was what people politely referred to as…the girl with the good personality.
The girl everybody loved like a sister.
The girl men liked to be friends with.
And the worst, the Nerdy Penmire.
She sighed. If Lucy had gotten all the beauty, their mother always said with a gentle smile, then Clove had gotten all the bravery. Which was likely how she’d ended up as a stuntwoman.
A stuntwoman with thick glasses.
Had she the face of other Australian exports like Nicole Kidman, for example, she might have been in front of the camera. But instead, she was a stunt double. Lucy said Clove had the life other people dreamed of.
Maybe.
Clove watched the cowboy brush his horse’s back with his hand and fan a fly away from its spot-marked face. He was still talking to the animal; she could hear low murmuring that sounded very sexy to her ears, especially since she’d never heard a man murmur in a husky voice to her.
“Archer Jefferson!” someone yelled from inside the barn. “Get that cotton-pickin’, apple-stealin’, dog-faced Appaloosa in here!”
“Insult the man but not the sexy beast!” he yelled back.
Clove gasped. Archer Jefferson! The man she’d traveled several time zones to see! Her TexasArcher of two years’ worth of e-mail correspondence!
He was all cowboy, she realized, more cowboy than she’d come mentally prepared to corral. “Whoa,” she murmured to herself.
Okay, a man that droolworthy must not lack for female friends. So why had he been writing her for two years? She wrinkled her nose, pushed her thick glasses back and studied him further. Tight jeans, dirty boots. Long, black, unkempt hair under the black felt hat—he’d never mentioned long hair in their correspondence. Deep voice. Piercing eyes, she noted as he swung around, catching her still staring at him. She jumped, he laughed, and then tipped his hat to her as he swung up onto the “dog-faced” Appaloosa, riding it into the barn in a manner the stuntwoman in her appreciated.
Just how difficult would it be to entice that cowboy into her bed? Archer had put the thoughts in her mind about his virility, with his Texas-size bragging about his manliness and the babies popping out all over their Union Junction ranch—affectionately known as Malfunction Junction.
Seeing him, however, made her think that perhaps he hadn’t been bragging as much as stating fact. Her heart beat faster. He had said he wasn’t in the market for a relationship.
But a baby, just one baby…one stolen seed from a family tree that bore many…from a man she trusted more than a stranger from a sperm bank.
Maybe she wasn’t brave.
“Howdy!”
She jumped as Archer strode across the street to where she stood.
“Are you lost?” he asked.
“No,” she said, her gaze taking in every inch of him with nervous admiration. “Yes.”
He grinned. “My name’s Archer Jefferson.”
She wished he wouldn’t smile at her that way. Her heart simply melted, despite the cold chill of February. He made her dream of a blazing fireplace, soft blankets and naked him holding naked her tight.
“Can I help you?” he asked. “If you’re looking for a job, the cafeteria is that way. If you’re looking for a hair-do,” he said, eyeing her braided hair momentarily, “I’d choose that salon over there. The Lonely Hearts Salon. Owner’s a friend of mine. Salon owner across the street, of the Never Lonely Cut-n-Gurls, isn’t.”
She felt him studying her glasses, the cursed thick things that gave her clear vision when she was doing stunts. Contacts made her eyes itch and burn.
Lucy said Clove hid behind her glasses. Clove blinked, thinking that right now a curtain was the only thing she’d feel truly hidden behind.
“You sure are a quiet little thing,” Archer said. “Don’t be scared. We’re all real friendly here.”
Scared! She was a daredevil!
But if she told him that, in her lilting Aussie accent, he would know who she was right off. And he would think she was nuts for coming all the way to Texas without telling him. He would know it was no accident that she was standing outside the rodeo he had told her he was participating in.
“I’m not scared,” she said, trying to disguise her accent. “Thank you for your concern.”
“Ah, she speaks,” Archer said. “I’ve got to run, but if you need anything, just grab someone off the street to help you. This is a friendly town, if you bypass the Cut-n-Gurls.”
“I’ll do that.”
He tipped his hat, and with a flash of long-legged denim glory, he disappeared into the arena building.
Her breath slowly left the cage it was bound in.
No doubt his genes were as sexy as his jeans. He was far hotter than the thong-wearing models she’d last worked with.
Now she just had to get those jeans off of him.
He hadn’t seemed particularly inclined to strip down to the “briefs or nothing” of which he’d boasted. Not even a flash of male attraction had lit his eye. “I don’t know if I can do this,” she murmured, suddenly doubtful about her mission.
He was terribly manly. And she had very little experience with men. Lucy had always been the one who warmed to hearth and home.
Clove took a deep breath. For Lucy’s sake, she had to be brave.
She went into the walkway where Archer had disappeared. He was leaning against a rail, looking at his Appaloosa. Seeing her, he grinned. “Glad you came in. I was just thinking you might need a hotel.”
Her throat gulped of its own accord. “Ah,” she said, “I was wondering…”
“Yes?” he said, smiling down at her.
He was so tall. “Would you care to go to dinner with me?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper.
The friendly smile slipped from his face. His gaze touched her glasses. Then a forced veneer of friendliness came back to his expression. “I’m sorry. I can’t.”
She blinked, knowing her face was bright red.
“Okay. Thanks, anyway.”
Backing away, she saw sympathy in his gaze.
She turned and
tried to walk away with as much dignity as possible. He was not remotely interested. How humiliating!
This was not going to be easy. In fact, it likely was impossible.
On the other hand, she was a stuntwoman known for her never-fail nerves. And she hadn’t paid for a roundtrip airline ticket to wind up going back home without a Texas-bred souvenir.
For Lucy’s sake, she would bring out the daredevil residing inside her and let it loose all over that cowboy.
ARCHER JEFFERSON watched the little fraidy-cat walk away with some regret. My goodness, she was a shy one! Traveling by herself required some bravery, though.
If he had a rule—and usually he didn’t—it was that most women were to be avoided. He’d learned from watching his brothers fall that women came in exciting, colorful packages; some fun to open, some not. But a shy woman didn’t hold much threat to his well-being. And that one, with her oversize specs and timid little voice couldn’t put fear into a flea.
Scratching his head, he thought about her dinner invitation. Much as he might have enjoyed showing a newcomer the town, he had to get his horse ready for the show. Honky-Tonk was a tricky Appaloosa. She thought she knew things she didn’t, and they’d had more than one disagreement between them about who was boss.
“You’re just a bit sassy,” he said to Tonk. “You think you’re entitled to your own opinions. But we both know better, don’t we?”
She pinned an ear back and gave him a sidelong stare.
“Females and opinions go together like butter and bread,” he continued.
And it often seemed as if his Appaloosa had her fair share of womanly arts, conniving and one-upping being some of them. He knew quite well that females had a spectrum of tricks up their dainty sleeves. He’d watched seven brothers before him fall prey to the wedding-ring chase.