Runaway bride
Marry a secure businessman, or become a bunkhouse cook for twenty hungry cowboys on a cattle ranch? When Angelina Brighton chooses the ranch, she runs from the wedding her billionaire father arranged. Angelina won’t marry a man she doesn’t love. Then along comes former special ops soldier Tyler Stone, barreling into Dry Creek to bring her back home. Or so she thinks. But Big Sky country is full of surprises for everyone—especially for a faithful gal and rugged cowboy who discover what home really means.
“I’ve grown up. I don’t flit from thing to thing like I did in high school,” Angelina said.
Tyler nodded, his eyes measuring her.
“You can trust me,” she whispered. “I know what my feelings are. They’re not going to go away tomorrow because some new and exciting thing happens.”
Angelina watched the emotions roll across Tyler’s face. His disbelief. His uncertainty. Followed by something she thought was hope. And then it was all gone. There wasn’t a flicker of anything left.
“You don’t believe me,” she said, her voice flat.
He swallowed and looked at her. “No, I think maybe I do believe you.”
He didn’t look very certain about it, though, and Angelina blinked back the dampness in her eyes. “I’ll prove it to you. Wait and see. I’m a changed person.”
“But I’m not,” he said.
She could not argue with that. Only God could change the heart of a man. She knew without asking that there would be no more confiding in each other tonight.
Grant me patience, Lord, she prayed silently. Help Tyler to see he needs to change, too.
JANET TRONSTAD
currently lives in Pasadena, California, but she grew up on a farm in central Montana so she knows how dusty the back roads can be in those rural areas. She’s driven down many of them, although not in a red convertible as Angelina Brighton does in this book. Maybe someday. In the meantime, she drives a modest car and enjoys travel, plays and spending time with friends and family.
Wildflower Bride in Dry Creek
Janet Tronstad
Honor thy father and thy mother:
that thy days may be long upon the land
which the Lord thy God giveth thee.
—Exodus 20:12
I dedicate this book to my buddies in the
East Valley Authors group, my local chapter within the Romance Writers of America organization. The writers in this Azusa, California, group are unfailingly encouraging and persistent. Each year we have an “Outwrite Janet” contest and everyone tries to get down more words than I do in the month. One year a team of two even won the challenge, which delighted me. To call out just some of their names—there’s Beth, Charity, Alison, Shannon, Laura, Julie, Debra, Joy, Riccarla, Carol, Roberta, Mary, Maria, Erin, Sherry and Marlene.
Contents
Chapter One
Tyler Stone loosened his grip on the steering wheel and eased his pickup to a stop at the edge of the small town of Dry Creek, Montana. He would never call this place home again and yet, here he was, looking down the street with a longing he hadn’t expected. All of the old clapboard houses stood silent, their cement steps leading to doors that were firmly closed against the July heat.
“Nothing has changed,” Tyler muttered to himself as he kept staring at the empty street.
It seemed impossible that the betrayal his family had experienced in this town hadn’t left some outward mark on the buildings themselves. But none of the windows were boarded up. Not one house was deserted. Ten years ago, reporters had been knocking on the doors of all the buildings, demanding to know what kind of a woman Tyler’s mother had been that she could kill her husband. The media had little compassion as she went on trial for her life, and Tyler wished he knew which of these doors had opened to spill the gossip about the Stone family. His father’s drunken abuse, their general unhappiness, even the time their electricity had been turned off for lack of payment had all made it into the news.
Suddenly, Tyler saw a flash of movement out of his left eye. A tremor raced through his hands until he realized it was only the reflection of the afternoon sun on his windshield.
“Easy now,” he said to himself as he wiped his hands on his jeans. He didn’t have time to worry about which neighbor had done what in the past. He had enough problems in the present. He had been hired to escort Angelina Brighton back to her home in Boston. If he couldn’t convince her to go, he’d be out of a job. And not a newspaper in the world would even care.
This wasn’t the first time he had been hired to babysit Angelina. She had been his last assignment with Brighton Security, the one right before he went into the military. Her father had received some kidnapping threats regarding her so Tyler had been assigned to serve as one of her bodyguards during her senior year of high school. At nineteen years old, he’d been chosen for the job because he could blend in with the other students and stay close to Angelina. All he was supposed to do in a bad situation was to summon the older Brighton guards who were there in the distance. No one had expected him to stop the kidnapping, identify a stalker and then dance with Angelina at the prom after her date waltzed off with another girl.
He remembered her father had barely blinked an eye at the kidnapping attempt, but he’d almost fired Tyler over the dance. Mr. Brighton had coldly informed Tyler that he had higher aspirations for his only child than for her to marry some half-breed Native American boy with criminal blood flowing through his veins.