In the Rancher's Arms - By Kathie DeNosky Page 0,2

criteria for a suitable wife. He had wanted a woman who understood the daily operation of a ranch the size of the Rusty Spur and could pitch in to help if the need arose. And she had assured him she had the experience he had been looking for. But one look at his new wife’s designer clothes and her delicate, perfectly manicured hands signing the marriage license, and he had known for certain that her claim to be knowledgeable of any kind of farm or ranch work was a total myth.

He had suspected as much the first time he called to interview her, but he chose her anyway over several other, more qualified respondents for one simple reason. Her soft Southern drawl caused his pulse to race. In hindsight, he probably should have been thinking with his head and not his hormones. But at the time, he had reasoned that if they were eventually going to have a child together it probably wouldn’t hurt to find his wife desirable. What he hadn’t anticipated was his reaction when he saw her for the first time.

He had always thought that having a woman rob a man of breath was just a line in a song or a novel. But that was the only way to describe what had happened to him when she stepped off the plane in Cheyenne. At first sight, he’d sucked in a sharp breath and he wasn’t sure he had released it even yet.

“Eli Laughlin, stop standing there like a moon-eyed calf and get in here to help your bride cut the wedding cake,” Grandma Jean said from the doorway of the dining room.

Grateful for a diversion from his disturbing thoughts, Eli smiled at the woman who was grandmother to all of her grandson’s friends. “Yes, ma’am. On my way.”

When he entered the room, Victoria was standing behind a three-tiered cake sitting on one end of the dining table. She looked like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car.

Walking over to stand beside her, he tried to give her a reassuring smile. “Are you doing all right?”

She nodded. “It was very sweet of Mrs. Hartwell to go to all this trouble. I didn’t expect a cake....” Pausing, she looked directly at him and laughed. “To tell you the truth, I really don’t know what I expected.”

Her nervous laughter and the vulnerability she couldn’t quite hide caused an unexpected emotion to spread throughout his chest. For reasons he couldn’t even begin to understand, Victoria Anderson-Laughlin brought out a protectiveness in him that Eli hadn’t even known he possessed.

He told himself that it was because she was pretty, petite and delicately feminine—the type of woman who made a man feel like a man. But the fact was she was his wife and she carried his name now. For some reason that upped the ante. It was his job to protect her and it came as no small surprise how quickly the feeling had settled over him.

Eli took a deep breath. He must be losing it. Hell, they hadn’t been married more than ten minutes and he was already thinking like a husband?

Emotions like that were something he had tried to avoid and approaching their marriage as a business deal, he thought he had done that. Apparently, he had underestimated the sense of responsibility that came along with having a wife.

“Okay, you two. Give me a big smile,” Blake said, holding up a digital camera. He motioned toward Victoria. “Put your arms around your wife, dude. This is your official wedding photo.”

If Eli could have reached over the cake to choke his best friend, he would have. Blake knew that he and Victoria were little more than strangers. But being thrown in jail on his wedding day for throttling the best man probably wasn’t a good idea, Eli decided as he put his arms around her. He would just have to settle the score with Blake later.

When he pulled her to him, Victoria placed her hand on his chest and the warmth of her palm through his shirt felt damned good. Maybe too good. The prenuptial agreement they signed had a clause that stated they would refrain from having sex for a period of four weeks in order to get to know each other and find out if they were compatible. He took a deep breath. If the magnetic pull between them was as strong as he was beginning to suspect, he was in for a miserable month