The Rancher's One-Week Wife

It’s a quickie marriage to a rich cowboy from USA TODAY bestselling author Kathie DeNosky!

Blake Hartwell is a sexy-as-sin rodeo champion with money to burn and a way with the ladies, but to Karly Ewing he’s her soon-to-be ex! Their whirlwind affair ended with Vegas “I dos”—but saying yes was a mistake. So Karly heads to his ranch, divorce papers in hand, only to be stranded with the man she can’t resist! Will temptation lead them to happily-ever-after? Or will Blake’s secrets tear them apart for good?

The room was so cozy and inviting, she felt as if she belonged there, which was absolutely ridiculous.

Karly turned to go back into the kitchen to wait for Blake, and walked right into his broad chest. Stumbling backward, she would have fallen if not for his big hands encircling her upper arms to steady her.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

Her voice failed her as she gazed up into his sexy brown eyes, and for a split second, she thought she caught a glimpse of the warm, compassionate man she’d thought she was in love with. But just as quickly as it appeared, the glimmer was gone, replaced by a closed-off stare.

“You’d better watch your step,” he said, his deep baritone sending a shiver coursing through her. “One of these days those ridiculous shoes are going to cause you to fall and break an ankle.”

Before she could find her voice and tell him that she didn’t need his input on what she should or shouldn’t wear, he released her and motioned toward a door across the room.

“Let’s go into the office for this talk you seem to think is so important.”

She took a deep breath and followed him. Now she had to find a way to tell him she was still his wife.

Dear Reader,

A few years ago, I introduced you to Blake Hartwell, the best friend of the hero in my book In the Rancher’s Arms. So many of you wrote to tell me how much you loved Blake and wanted to read his story that, this month, I’m happy to be bringing you his book.

When Blake ran into Karly Ewing in a Las Vegas hotel lobby, he bought her a drink to apologize for his carelessness. By the end of the day, they were lovers. By the end of the week, they were married. And by the end of the next week, they were filing for divorce.

In The Rancher’s One-Week Wife we take a look at what happens when a couple who think they’re divorced find out they’re not only still married, but that they still can’t seem to keep their hands off each other. Unfortunately, they both have secrets that could very well make finding their happily-ever-after impossible.

Sometimes rocky, sometimes filled with unexpected detours, the road to love is never easy. But it’s always worth the journey.

All the best,

Kathie DeNosky

The Rancher’s One-Week Wife

Kathie DeNosky

www.millsandboon.co.uk

KATHIE DENOSKY lives in her native Southern Illinois on the land her family settled in 1839. Her books have appeared on the USA TODAY bestseller list and received numerous awards, including two National Readers’ Choice Awards. Readers may contact Kathie by emailing [e-mail]. They can also visit her website, www.kathiedenosky.com, or find her on Facebook at Facebook.com/Kathie-DeNosky-Author/278166445536145.

This book is dedicated to my editor, Stacy Boyd. Thank you for being my cheerleader and for waving those pom-poms when I need them the most.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Epilogue

Extract

Copyright

One

Blake Hartwell shook his head in disgust when he heard the low-slung sports car bottom out in first one, then another of the many potholes pitting the dirt lane leading up to the foreman’s cottage. As he brushed the sorrel gelding he’d tied to the side of the corral, he decided right then and there that whoever was behind the steering wheel of that little red toy couldn’t be from the area. Folks in rural Wyoming had better sense than to drive a vehicle that sat that low on unpaved mountain roads. It was a surefire way to knock a hole in the oil pan or tear up the exhaust system on a car.

“Whoever he is, he’d better be prepared to hitch a ride on the back of an antelope if he breaks down because I’m not driving his fool hide back to town,” Blake muttered as he glanced at the afternoon sun sinking toward the taller peaks to the west.

The car stopped at the side of the foreman’s cottage next to Blake’s truck. When the driver’s door opened, a leggy blonde stepped out, causing his heart to stall and the breath to lodge in his lungs.

Blake clenched the grooming brush he’d been using on Boomer so tightly he wouldn’t have been surprised if he left his fingerprints in the wood. He swallowed hard as he watched her walk toward the corral as fast as her spiked heels would allow on the uneven ground.

Slender and sleek in her formfitting black dress, her delicate body moved much like a jungle panther on the prowl. Blake’s lower body tightened and he wasn’t sure if it was in response to the sight of her now, or the memory of how those long legs felt wrapped around him when they made love.

“Aw, hell,” he cursed under his breath. “What does she want?”

Boomer stamped one of his front hooves, then looked over his shoulder as if to ask if Blake knew her.

Reminding himself to exhale, Blake released the breath he’d been holding and went back to brushing the gelding’s rust-colored hide. He knew her all right. Back in December, he’d met Karly Ewing in Las Vegas. She’d been on vacation from her job—whatever that was—and he’d been in town to compete in the national bull-riding finals. He’d accidently bumped into her in the lobby at Caesar’s Palace and barely managed to catch her before she fell. As a way of apologizing for his carelessness, he’d convinced her to let him buy her a drink. They’d ended up talking for hours and the chemistry between them had been explosive. By the end of the day they’d been lovers. By the end of the week they’d been husband and wife. And one week after that, they’d been filing for a divorce.

When she stopped a few feet from the horse, she looked a little uncertain, as if she wasn’t sure what kind of reception she’d get from him. “H-hello, Blake.”

Her voice flowed over him like a fine piece of silk and reminded him of the way it had sounded when she’d said his name as he pleasured her. Blake gritted his teeth against the heat building in his lower belly and continued to brush Boomer.

He wasn’t about to let her get to him. Not again. It had taken months after that fateful phone call on New Year’s Eve, when she told him she wanted a divorce, for him to get a decent night’s sleep. If possible, he’d just as soon avoid repeating that.

She’d made the choice to end things between them and although he hadn’t agreed with her, he had accepted it. The way he saw it, there wasn’t anything they hadn’t already covered and there was no sense in rehashing it now.

“What brings you to the Wolf Creek Ranch, Karly?” Without waiting for an answer, he added, “Eight months ago you weren’t even willing to come here to see it. In fact, you said you weren’t the least bit interested in learning anything about the backside of no-man’s-land.”

As long as he lived, he would never forget the sting of her rejection, or her scorn for the land he loved. The ranch had been in his family for the past hundred and fifty years and he’d spent the majority of his adult life trying to get it back from his gold-digging stepmother after his father’s death. He’d finally accomplished that goal almost two years ago and once he’d made Karly his wife, he’d been looking forward to showing her the place that he was proud to call home. But she hadn’t cared enough about him or it to even see the place before she refused to live there with him.

Meeting her startled gaze head-on, he did his best to ignore the effect she had on him whenever he looked into her incredible blue eyes. “Why the sudden interest in a place you had no desire to learn anything about?”

Color rose on her cheeks and it seemed as if she might be slightly embarrassed. “I, um, I’m sorry if I left you with the wrong impression, Blake. It’s not that I didn’t think the ranch would be beautiful...”

When her voice trailed off as she looked around, Blake stopped grooming the gelding and rested his forearms on the gentle animal’s broad back to give her an expectant look. “Then what was it?”

As he stared at her, awaiting an answer, a slight breeze fluttered her long, honey-colored hair and reminded him how the silky strands had felt when he’d threaded his fingers through them as he kissed her. His body came to full arousal and he was damn glad the horse stood between them. At least she wouldn’t be able to see the evidence of how he still burned for her.

Turning back to face him, her eyes couldn’t quite meet his. “I’ve always lived in the city and I was...” She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.”

“What are you doing here, Karly?” Seeing her again was heaven and hell rolled into one neat little bundle, and the sooner she laid her cards on the table and went back to Seattle, the sooner he could get back to the business of trying to forget her.

When she took a deep breath, he did his best to ignore the rise and fall of her perfect breasts. “We need to talk, Blake.”

He shook his head. “I don’t know what you think we need to discuss now. We pretty much covered everything that needed to be said eight months ago. I wanted you to give us a chance to make our marriage work. You didn’t want that. End of story.”

“Please, Blake.” She took a step back when Boomer blew out a gentle breath through his nose and turned his head to gaze at her. Looking a little apprehensive, she continued. “I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t important. Could we please go somewhere we can sit down and talk? I promise I won’t take up too much of your time.”

Blake sighed heavily. It was clear she wasn’t going anywhere until she’d said her piece. And truth to tell, he did need to talk to her. He hadn’t yet received a copy of their divorce papers and he needed them for his records.

“The door’s open,” he finally said, motioning toward the foreman’s cottage. “Make yourself at home. I’ll be in as soon as I put Boomer in his stall for the night.”

She opened her mouth as if she intended to say something more, then with a short nod she turned on her black spiked heels and slowly walked toward the back porch. Watching the gentle sway of her slender hips as she navigated the hard-packed, uneven ground in those ridiculous shoes, Blake shifted his weight from one foot to the other in an effort to relieve the pressure in his now too-tight jeans. He’d spent the past eight months trying to forget how her soft curves had felt beneath his hands and how her kisses were the sweetest this side of heaven. Seeing her here—where he’d wanted her—was bringing back all the memories he thought he’d left behind.

Shaking his head, he untied the gelding’s lead rope from the top fence rail. He had no idea what she thought they needed to discuss, but if it had brought her from Seattle all the way to his remote ranch in Wyoming, it had to be pretty damn important.

Leading Boomer into the barn, he decided to get this meeting over with as soon as possible. Then, after he watched Karly drive off his land and away from him for good, he had every intention of getting his brother, Sean, to come over from his ranch on the other side of the mountain and go with him to the Silver Dollar Bar in the tiny community of Antelope Junction. Sean could be the designated driver, while Blake finally finished the job of forgetting he’d ever met the petite blonde who’d turned his world upside down from the moment he’d laid eyes on her.

* * *

Karly opened the back door to Blake’s home and walked into the kitchen on shaky legs. It had taken every ounce of courage she possessed to face him again, and although she had thought she’d put their brief relationship in perspective and moved on, his effect on her had been no less devastating today than it had been eight months ago, when she’d agreed to become his wife.

Blake was every bit as handsome, every bit as masculine and even sexier than she’d remembered. With wide shoulders, narrow hips and long muscular legs, he had a physique women drooled over and men spent endless hours in a gym trying to attain. But the steely muscles covering his tall frame had been honed from years of ranch work and competing in rodeos, not from lifting weights or working out on fitness machines. He was the real deal—the epitome of every woman’s cowboy fantasy, and then some.

That was something she hadn’t even realized she possessed until they ran into each other in Las Vegas. But when he caught her to him to keep her from falling, all it had taken was one look at the cowboy holding her to his wide chest and she’d come close to melting into a puddle at his big-booted feet.

A delicious little shiver slid up her spine when she remembered how it had felt to be held in his strong arms, to taste the passion of his masterful kiss and experience the power of his desire as he made love to her. Her breathing grew shallow and her heart sped up. She forced herself to ignore it.

The hardest thing she’d ever done had been making the call to tell Blake she thought it would be in both of their best interest to call off their brief marriage. But when she had returned home, she’d thought about how little they knew about each other and she couldn’t think of a single thing they had in common besides not being able to keep their hands off of each other. Her breath caught and she had to swallow hard against the sudden wave of emotion threatening to overtake her.

“Get a grip,” she admonished herself. “Nothing has changed. He lives here and you live in Seattle. It would have never worked.”

To distract herself, she glanced around Blake’s neatly kept home. Even though the appliances were ultramodern, the rest of the kitchen appeared to be as rugged and masculine as the man who lived there.

A wooden butcher-block island sat in the middle of the kitchen with a variety of copper bottom skillets, pots and pans hanging above it from a wrought-iron rack. The cabinets were a warm oak with hammered black hinges and door pulls; the countertop was polished blue marble. A wagon wheel suspended from the ceiling with old-fashioned-looking chimney lamps served as a chandelier over the round oak dining table, while the windows on the wall behind the dining area framed a panoramic view of the Laramie Mountains, which surrounded the ranch.

“Beautiful,” she murmured as she gazed at the picture-perfect landscape. It was as rugged and fascinating as the man she was here to see.

Wandering into the living room, she wasn’t at all surprised to see a stone fireplace with a rough-hewn mantel surrounded by a grouping of heavy leather furniture and rustic wooden end tables. The room was so cozy and inviting, she felt as if she belonged there, which was absolutely ridiculous. She belonged in Seattle, in her own apartment with its modern decor and view of the city. And try as she might, she couldn’t imagine how it would have been living here with Blake. If that wasn’t enough to convince her that she’d made the right decision, she didn’t know what was.

But as she looked around at the colorful Native American throws on the back of the large leather sofa, and the pieces of vintage tack and Western accents hanging on the walls, she had to admit that Blake’s home had a warm, friendly feel to it that her place had never possessed. An uncharacteristic loneliness suddenly invaded every part of her. She did her best to tamp it down.

She loved her life in Seattle. She had a great job as buyer for a large import/export dealer and although she didn’t have much of a social life, she did occasionally go out with some of her coworkers for happy hour after work. But as she thought about how long it had been since that had happened, she took a deep breath. She really couldn’t say she had a lot in common with any of them anymore. They were all either married or in committed relationships and were more interested in going home to their significant others than hanging out to talk shop.

It was odd she hadn’t noticed that before she met Blake. And she had to admit that when she did realize it, she might have had second thoughts about her decision to end things with him. In the end, she hadn’t let that sway her and resigned herself to being the only one in her office with no one to go home to.

But the more she thought about it, the more her loneliness increased. Shaking her head to dislodge the unsettling feeling, Karly turned to go back into the kitchen to wait for Blake and walked right into his broad chest. Stumbling backward, she would have fallen if not for his big hands encircling her upper arms to steady her.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

Her voice failed her as she gazed up into his sexy brown eyes. For a split second, she thought she caught a glimpse of the warm, compassionate man she’d thought she was in love with. But just as quickly as it appeared the glimmer was gone, replaced by a closed-off stare.

“You’d better watch your step,” he said, his deep baritone sending a shiver coursing through her. “One of these days those ridiculous shoes are going to cause you to fall and break an ankle.” Before she could find her voice and tell him that she didn’t need his input on what she should or shouldn’t wear, he released her and motioned toward a door across the room. “Let’s go into the office for this talk you seem to think is so important.”

Blake stepped back for her to precede him into a study off the living room, and as she seated herself in the burgundy leather armchair in front of his desk, Karly forced herself to stay calm. The heat from his calloused palms through the fabric of her dress when he caught her had set her pulse racing and made breathing all but impossible.

She tried to calm herself as she stared at the outdoor scene intricately carved into the oak desk’s front panel. She’d just as soon face off with the bear fishing in the stream as she would having to deliver the news she’d traveled over a thousand miles to give Blake.

“So what brings you all the way to Wyoming, Karly?” He removed his hat and hung it on a peg by the door. “I’m betting you didn’t make this trip by choice.”

He wasn’t going to make their meeting easy and she really hadn’t expected him to. When they’d decided to dissolve their marriage eight months ago, they had both said things out of hurt and frustration that she was sure they both regretted.

“Please, Blake. Can’t we at least—”

“What do you expect from me, Karly?” he interrupted, sinking into the chair behind his desk. “I haven’t seen or heard from you since just before the first of the year. After we spent Christmas in Las Vegas, I came home expecting my wife to be joining me here for New Year’s Eve. Instead, I get a call telling me you’d changed your mind. If I wanted to stay married, I’d have to give up my life on the Wolf Creek Ranch, quit riding bulls and move to Seattle because you decided you couldn’t live out in the middle of nowhere.”

“That isn’t exactly what I told you,” she said, defending herself.

“Close enough,” he stated flatly.

“You were just as adamant that you couldn’t live in the city,” she reminded him, feeling a little guilty. He hadn’t been as insulting in his assessment of Seattle as she’d been about where the ranch was located. But dredging up what he said and what she said wasn’t getting to the point of her visit. When they continued to glare at each other for what seemed an eternity, she sighed and shook her head. “I didn’t come here to argue with you, Blake.”

“Why are you here? I thought we settled things when I signed the papers without contesting the divorce.” He frowned. “By the way, I’d like to get a copy of the final decree. You said your lawyer was supposed to mail that to me, but like everything else you promised, it didn’t happen.”

Karly stared down at her tightly clasped hands. She supposed he was right. She had made several promises that she hadn’t been able to keep. She’d meant to keep them at the time. But once she went back home to pack her things and close her apartment, her sanity returned and the fear of failure had her second-guessing everything that had happened in Las Vegas.

“When I took the documents back to Mr. Campanella after you signed them, he suggested that I file for the divorce myself in Lincoln County on the eastern side of the state,” she finally said. “Which I did.”

Blake frowned. “Why?”

“The dockets in Seattle are filled with other domestic matters and it can take up to a year or more just to get a court date,” she explained. “All I had to do was mail the signed documents to the courthouse in Lincoln County and after the ninety-day cooling-off period the divorce would be final.”

“Mail them?” His frown darkened. “I thought a lawyer and at least one of the petitioners had to go before a judge for a divorce. At least that’s how I think it is here. Is it different in Washington State?”

Rubbing her temples, Karly tried to concentrate. This was what she’d come here to tell him. It was also where everything got extremely complicated. “If the petition had been filed in Seattle, Mr. Campanella would have been present. But Lincoln is one of only two counties where residents of Washington State file uncontested divorces by mailing the paperwork to the county clerk. Neither petitioner has to be present, nor do they have to have legal representation.” When she noticed his skeptical expression, the tension headache she’d been fighting began to pound unmercifully. “It’s really quite simple. The judge looks over the papers, signs a final judgment and sends it back.”

“That sounds out of character, for a lawyer to pass up a case like this,” Blake said, frowning. “Most of the ones I know would jump at the chance to make some easy money.”

“Mr. Campanella is the grandfather of one of my coworkers,” she explained. Karly really appreciated the woman’s offer of help. When she’d come back from Vegas and realized the enormity of what she’d done, she’d been in a panic to fix her mistake. “Jo Ellen asked him to guide me through it all and he agreed. He suggested that I use the courts in Lincoln County since ours was a simple, uncontested divorce. He said it would save time and cost a lot less than going through the court system in Seattle. I agreed, and followed his instructions.”

Blake nodded. “I guess that makes sense if you’re in a hurry to rid yourself of an unwanted husband.”

His words were bitter and cut like a knife. She had to swallow around the lump forming in her throat. He had no idea how hard it had been to make the decision not to follow her heart and move to the middle of nowhere with him. She had witnessed the unhappiness and resentment created when her mother followed her heart and it had ultimately ended her parents’ marriage. Karly had reasoned that it was better to end things before it came to such hard feelings between herself and Blake. But there was no sense in dwelling on the mistakes and heartaches of the past now.