Love Inspired Historical brings you four new titles at a great value, available now! Enjoy these historical romances of adventure and faith.
A DADDY FOR CHRISTMAS
Christmas in Eden Valley
by Linda Ford
Chivalry demands cowboy Blue Lyons help any woman in need, so he offers widow Clara Weston—and her daughters—shelter and food when they have nowhere to go. And whether he wants it or not, Clara and her daughters are soon chipping away at his guarded heart.
A WESTERN CHRISTMAS
by Renee Ryan & Louise M. Gouge
In two brand-new novellas, Christmas comes to the West and brings with it the chance for love, both old and new.
HER COWBOY DEPUTY
Wyoming Legacy
by Lacy Williams
Injured and far from home, sheriff’s deputy Matt White finds love in the most unexpected of places with a former childhood friend.
FAMILY IN THE MAKING
Matchmaking Babies
by Jo Ann Brown
Arthur, Lord Trelawney, needs lessons in caring for children, so he decides to practice with the rescued orphans sheltering at his family estate. A practical idea…until he meets their lovely nurse, Maris Oliver.
Love Inspired Historical October 2015 Box Set
Her Cowboy Deputy
Family in the Making
A Western Christmas
A Daddy for Christmas
Lacy Williams
Jo Ann Brown
Renee Ryan and Louise M. Gouge
Linda Ford
Table of Contents
Her Cowboy Deputy
By Lacy Williams
Family in the Making
By Jo Ann Brown
A Western Christmas
By Renee Ryan and Louise M. Gouge
A Daddy for Christmas
By Linda Ford
Stranded!
Bear Creek sheriff’s deputy Matt White is used to being the rescuer, not the rescued. But now the hurt lawman’s marooned on Catherine Poole’s remote homestead. The little girl he’d known briefly as a child is all grown up—and tugging at his heart.
Isolated from the world around her, Catherine’s spent her whole life caring for her ailing grandfather. The last thing she needs is a cowboy stranded in her home. Let alone the memories he dredges up of a past she’s tried to put behind her. But can this deputy be her chance to finally move forward and find true happiness?
“Hey,” she said to the injured man, shaking his shoulder. “Wake up.”
His eyes cracked open. If she’d thought about it at all, she might’ve expected them to be blue, given his fair coloring and blond hair, but they were a warm brown, just like her papa’s had been.
“You’re all right,” she said, and if her voice was breathless with relief, he was the only one around to hear.
“Can you sit up?”
She put her hands beneath his shoulders and nudged, hoping that he would take the hint and sit up. She’d rescued him, and now he needed to move on, before Pop caught wind that he’d been trespassing on their property.
But as she pushed on his shoulders, he gave a horrible groan. One hand went to his chest, and then he promptly passed out.
She unbuttoned the top of his shirt and found ugly purpling bruises covering his upper chest. And he was breathing funny. Even passed out, his mouth was a grimace of pain.
He wasn’t going away anytime soon.
What was she going to do now?
Lacy Williams is a wife and mom from Oklahoma. She has loved romance from childhood and promises readers happy endings in all her stories. Her books have been finalists for an RT Reviewers’ Choice Award (three years running), a Golden Quill Award and the Booksellers’ Best Award. Lacy loves to hear from readers at [email protected]. She can be found at lacywilliams.net, facebook.com/lacywilliamsbooks or twitter.com/lacy_williams.
Books by Lacy Williams
Love Inspired Historical
Wyoming Legacy
Roping the Wrangler
Return of the Cowboy Doctor
The Wrangler’s Inconvenient Wife
A Cowboy for Christmas
Her Convenient Cowboy
Her Cowboy Deputy
Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com for more titles.
LACY WILLIAMS
Her Cowboy Deputy
Two are better than one,
because they have a good return for their labor:
If either of them falls down, one can help the other up.
But pity anyone who falls
and has no one to help them up.
Though one may be overpowered,
two can defend themselves.
A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.
—Ecclesiastes 4:9–10, 12
With thanks to my cousin T., who provided insight on having a broken collarbone. Any inaccuracies are mine.
Contents
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
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Epilogue
Dear Reader
Chapter One
May 1902
Sheriff’s deputy Matty White stumbled out of the bunkhouse, still pulling on his left boot.
In the corral just outside, his brother Seb swung a lasso above his head, aiming for one of the green broke geldings trotting anxiously back and forth and tossing their heads.
Except for Seb, the barnyard was eerily empty. Matty’s big family worked the family ranch together, and nearly everyone showed up for family breakfasts and suppers, so the absence of his older brothers was unsettling.
And it was easy to see why.
Matty clapped his hat to his head as a burst of wind threatened to send it flying. He didn’t like the looks of the swirling clouds, low and heavy in the sky.
“Get those horses in the barn and get inside,” Matty called over his shoulder to Seb.
Seb waved him off. Probably Pa had already told him the same. And…while it was hard to remember sometimes thanks to his antics, his youngest adopted brother was twenty now and man enough to know when it was time to take cover from a storm.
This particular storm looked to be a nasty one, judging by the sky’s sickly green hue.
Hailstones thumped against his shoulders and hat, stinging slightly, as Matty’s boots hit the porch steps.
He burst in through the door, calling for his ma. Penny White was in the parlor with Walt, Ida and Andrew, her and Jonas’s biological children, lined up on the sofa. She was disheveled, a state he rarely saw her in. Her auburn hair was coming out of the simple braid she must have rushed to put it in.
Andrew and Ida, ages five and eight, sat with wide, bright eyes, obviously alerted to the potential danger of the situation.
“Good, you’ve got the lit
tle ones,” Matty said. He had to speak loudly in order to be heard above the hail pounding on the roof.
“We’re not little,” eleven-year-old Walt growled. “I’m plenty big enough to ride out with Pa. He shoulda let me go with him.”
“Pa went out?” Matty directed his question to Penny, worry skittering through him. The hail would be uncomfortable or could possibly cause injury. And what if Jonas’s horse spooked?
“Breanna was worried about her mare that’s close to foaling,” Penny explained breathlessly. It seemed she shared his concern. “She ran out of here before either of us could stop her, and Jonas followed. He’ll keep her safe. They can take cover at Oscar’s cabin or Davy’s, depending on where they find the horse.”
If they found her. The animal was half wild—a little like his stubborn seventeen-year-old sister—and would likely hole up wherever she could find shelter. The family ranch had expanded as each adopted brother gained his majority, and there was plenty of land to cover. Seb, Matty and Breanna were the only unmarried siblings left at home.
But Penny was right. Now that his older brothers had married and built their homes around the ranch, Jonas and Breanna could take cover with one of them. Even Maxwell and his wife, Hattie, both doctors, had a place out here. They split their time between home and the nearby town of Bear Creek, where their clinic served those in town and the neighboring areas.
Seb burst through the door, snapping it closed against the wind that threatened to tug it out of his hands. “It’s getting bad out there.” He wiped the brim of his hat, and his hand came away wet. Several hailstones clattered to the floor at his feet.
“You got any quilts handy?” Matty asked Penny. “Get the children huddled up beneath them. Just in case.”
He didn’t go after the blankets himself. He’d grown up in this house, but as the White family had grown with Jonas and Penny’s biological children and as the older boys had begun wanting more independence, they’d moved out to the bunkhouse. And he knew how particular his ma was with how she preferred her house to be kept.
Penny disappeared into the hallway toward the bedrooms and reappeared moments later with an armful of quilts.
“I ain’t no baby,” Walt protested, attempting to shove away the thick quilt that Penny extended to him.
“Listen to Ma,” Matty said sharply. He didn’t like to take that tone with his younger brother, but this wasn’t a moment to assert his independence—things could get dangerous, fast.
“Matty—” Seb’s murmur drew his gaze to where the younger man stood in the kitchen, looking out the window over the washtub. Matty’s feet took him there almost of their own accord.
“Get the children down behind the sofa,” he said over his shoulder to Penny.
And then he was standing outside on the porch, his brother beside him, without really meaning to.
A soft curse escaped his brother’s lips. Matty would’ve chastised him, except the word conveyed all the terror he felt this very moment.
At the edge of their property and rapidly moving closer was a funnel dropped from the clouds.
“Tornado,” Matty whispered. The silent prayer that had been rolling around the back of his brain since he’d run out of the bunkhouse this morning suddenly shouted loud in the forefront of his mind. Keep my family safe. Please, Lord.
Noise, like a rolling freight train, pressed in on his ears. The ground at the base of the tornado was obscured in a cloud of dust and debris. On its current trajectory, it would come close to their barn. Or demolish it.
“Turn, turn,” Seb murmured. Matty could barely hear him over the tornado’s roar.
For long moments, they both simply stared at the oncoming horror. A full-grown tree pulled free of its home as if it weighed nothing. Earth crumbled from its roots as it was engulfed in the tornado’s debris.
Please, God.
And as if God had heard their frantic prayers, the tornado did turn. Although it remained on the ground, it swerved to the west, taking out a copse of cedars.
He and Seb stood on the porch watching as the tornado ripped its way across the family property, knocking down two fences as it passed.
“I need to get to town,” Matty told his brother. “Sheriff Dunlop will want his deputies—” of which Matty was one “—scouting the area.”
Seb nodded.
“Check on Ma and the kids,” Matty said. “Then Edgar and Fran, and Daniel and Emma. I’ll stop at Oscar’s and Davy’s places on my way to town. Maxwell and Hattie are probably already on their way to town.” Daniel and Emma were Fran’s grown siblings and lived in a cabin nearby.
He could only pray they weren’t needed, but knew that if the tornado had caught folks in Bear Creek unawares, there could be injuries. Or worse.
The only brother who didn’t live nearby was Ricky, who planned to buy out his father-in-law’s ranch up north. Ricky and his wife, Daisy, raised sheep, in contrast to the Bear Creek contingent, who raised cattle and horses.
Matty was torn as he ran out to the barn and saddled up his buckskin gelding. Part of him wanted to stay and help his family. They’d need to move any cattle or horses out of the pastures where fence had been knocked down.
He didn’t even want to think about leaving them to deal with any animals that might’ve been caught in the tornado’s path.
But he’d made a commitment to the town when he’d taken on the badge only three months ago. When Sheriff Dunlop had pinned the tin star to Matty’s chest, he’d felt the weight of expectations—both from the man and from the town he’d sworn to protect.
For now, his family would have to clean up without him.
*
Hours later, Matty was exhausted, covered in mud and hungry. His bedroll would be nice, right about now.
He was also several miles out of town, in the opposite direction of home.
He guided his horse around an uprooted tree, barely seeing the devastation surrounding him. The protruding roots and scattered earth showed the destructive path the tornado had taken. He’d ridden through the storm that followed. The driving rains had flooded local waterways, and hail had demolished crops and buildings. In town, strong winds had damaged several buildings. But the worst part had been discovering that the tornado had resulted in two deaths.
Sheriff Dunlop had sent his four deputies in each direction, north, east, south, west, scouting for folks who needed help and telling them that the Bear Creek school building was being used to house anyone who’d lost their homes.
Heading north had forced Matty to check on the McKeever family, including Luella McKeever, who’d just last week told him not to come courting anymore.
She hadn’t given him a clear reason why she didn’t want to see him anymore, and the rejection still stung. But a bigger part of him was relieved to find her family unharmed, even if they had lost a couple of head of cattle to the hail.
She hadn’t made any move off the porch, and he’d stayed in the saddle, but their eyes had held for a long moment before he’d tipped his hat and taken his leave.
Maybe it was a coping mechanism to keep his mind off the horrors he’d witnessed today, but he couldn’t stop thinking that maybe things weren’t finished between them.
After everything he’d seen today, he realized that life was too short not to try to grab a second chance. His family had been blessed that the tornado had only flattened two fences, but many others had suffered.
He wanted to live each day to the fullest, starting now.
Or after he’d had a chance to wash up and get some rest. He’d ranged so far out of town that the last homestead he’d passed had been almost an hour ago. He didn’t know many of the folks out here, but everyone he’d come across had been thankful to see him.
But there were no houses in sight and Dunlop had told him once he got to the creek that cut through the Samuelses’ property, to turn back.
“You ready to head home?” he asked his mount, patting the animal’s neck. Clouds had gather
ed on the far horizon, possibly threatening another storm or letting him know that one was hitting miles away. He breathed in deep, the scents of horse and moist ground and wet earth filling his senses.
But as he let his eyes take one last scan of the horizon, movement just beyond the next rise caught his eye. Was that…?
He urged his gelding forward and caught the flash of movement again. It was a person. A teenaged boy, looked like. With his hat pulled down over his brow, the lad was leading a mule several yards back from a creek bursting its banks.
Matty whistled to catch the boy’s attention. The young man’s head whipped up. But instead of halting, waiting for Matty to cross the creek and come to him, the boy took off, shouting something at the mule.
That wasn’t the reaction of a law-abiding citizen.
Matty bit back an uncomplimentary exclamation as he urged his horse into a gallop. Whoever this was just made a long day even longer.
He leaned into the horse’s neck as the animal cleared the slight rise, approaching the rolling creek on the down side.
The boy and his mule were disappearing into a copse of bushes across the stream.
The waters blocked his path; the stream had overrun its banks.
“Hey!” he shouted. “Stop! I just wanna talk to you!”
But the boy faded into the underbrush, becoming a shadow.
Matty couldn’t see the bottom of the creek, only eddying, murky brown waters. He had no sense of how deep it was, and that meant danger.
He risked his horse—and himself—if they got caught in the raging water and swept away. He could turn back.
But why would the boy run away from him? Had he broken some law? Would he have even been able to see Matty’s tin star from that distance?
He needed answers.
He urged his horse along the creek’s edge, looking for a place that looked wide enough to cross safely. Finally, he saw what appeared to be a flat stretch and turned his gelding to cross.
Love Inspired Historical October 2015 Box Set Page 1
