The Maverick's Ready-Made Family Read online

  THUNDER CANYON NUGGET

  Invasion of the Baby Mavericks!

  What could be more of a handful than a babbling, bouncing baby? How about two? Sexy single dad Clayton Traub already has a full plate with adorable six-month-old Bennett. But now tipsters tell us Clay’s got a new main squeeze in Antonia Wright. Yes, that Antonia—feisty, independent and eight months pregnant!

  Antonia knows better than to fall for a wrangler bunking at her boardinghouse—particularly in her condition. But how can she resist Clay’s magnetism when he’s living so close? Never underestimate the power of a Traub, big or small. Stay tuned, rough riders, and see if the cowboy daddy can lasso Toni’s heart!

  “Are you afraid of the rumor mill?” Clay asked.

  “Well, it has chewed me up and spit me out before,” she admitted.

  What could be juicier than pregnant and unwed Antonia Wright out on a date (Can you imagine? In her condition?) with the sexy cowboy who was staying out at her ranch? (What could he possibly see in her? And is he really sleeping in the boardinghouse—or in her bed?)

  “You don’t strike me as the type of woman who would let one punch take her down.”

  “I’m also not the type of woman who would let a man goad—or seduce—me into going out with him,” she informed him.

  “Are you saying no to my invitation?”

  “No, I’m saying yes—but because I want to go, not because I was coerced or challenged.”

  “I only care about the yes,” he said, and brushed his lips against hers.

  And when he kissed her like that, Antonia couldn’t imagine saying no to anything....

  Dear Reader,

  The Maverick’s Ready-Made Family isn’t a traditional family. Clayton Traub is a single father, Antonia Wright is an expectant mother and neither is looking for any kind of romantic entanglement. But sometimes love has other ideas....

  This story held particular appeal for me because I also come from an untraditional family that, in addition to my mother and father and sister, includes a stepfather, half brother, stepmother, two stepbrothers and a stepsister, and numerous in-laws. Consequently, holidays in my family are rarely traditional—but they’re always interesting.

  I hope you’ll find Clayton and Antonia’s story just as interesting and that you enjoy this addition to the latest Montana Mavericks series.

  Happy reading!

  Brenda Harlen

  Brenda Harlen

  The Maverick’s Ready-Made Family

  Books by Brenda Harlen

  Harlequin Special Edition

  **Prince Daddy & the Nanny #2147

  **Royal Holiday Bride #2160

  ‡‡The Maverick’s Ready-Made Family #2215

  Silhouette Special Edition

  *Her Best-Kept Secret #1756

  The Marriage Solution #1811

  †One Man’s Family #1827

  The New Girl in Town #1859

  **The Prince’s Royal Dilemma #1898

  **The Prince’s Cowgirl Bride #1920

  ††Family in Progress #1928

  *The Prince’s Holiday Baby #1942

  §The Texas Tycoon’s Christmas Baby #2016

  ¤The Engagement Project #2021

  ¤The Pregnancy Plan #2038

  ¤The Baby Surprise #2056

  ‡Thunder Canyon Homecoming #2079

  **The Prince’s Second Chance #2100

  Harlequin Romantic Suspense

  McIver’s Mission #1224

  Some Kind of Hero #1246

  Extreme Measures #1282

  Bulletproof Hearts #1313

  Dangerous Passions #1394

  *Family Business

  †Logan’s Legacy Revisited

  **Reigning Men

  ††Back in Business

  §The Foleys and the McCords

  ¤Brides & Babies

  ‡Montana Mavericks: Thunder Canyon Cowboys

  ‡‡Montana Mavericks: Back in the Saddle

  BRENDA HARLEN

  grew up in a small town, surrounded by books and imaginary friends. Although she always dreamed of being a writer, she chose to follow a more traditional career path first. After two years of practicing as an attorney (including an appearance in front of the Supreme Court of Canada), she gave up her “real” job to be a mom and to try her hand at writing books. Three years, five manuscripts and another baby later, she sold her first book—an RWA Golden Heart winner—to Silhouette Books.

  Brenda lives in southern Ontario with her real-life husband/hero, two heroes-in-training and two neurotic dogs. She is still surrounded by books (too many books, according to her children) and imaginary friends, but she also enjoys communicating with real people. Readers can contact Brenda by email at [email protected] or by snail mail c/o Harlequin Books, 233 Broadway, Suite 1001, New York, NY 10279.

  To all the authors of the Montana Mavericks series,

  past and present, for creating a fabulous world

  that readers want always to return to.

  Special thanks and acknowledgment to Brenda Harlen

  for her contribution to the

  Montana Mavericks: Back in the Saddle continuity.

  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

  Excerpt

  Prologue

  “Arriving at destination on right.”

  Clayton Traub turned and followed the long gravel drive until he saw a sign above the doorway of a two-story building that read Wright’s Way, confirming that the vehicle’s navigation system had been correct. Not that he’d doubted the device’s capabilities—not really. He just believed in covering all of his bases.

  In the case of following his brother, Forrest, on a three-hundred-mile road trip from Rust Creek Falls to Thunder Canyon, Montana, there were a lot of bases. Especially considering that Forrest had been more than a little...distracted since his return from Iraq.

  Clay parked his Dodge Ram Quad Cab and assessed the residence. The clapboard siding looked as if it had been recently painted, the windows shone in the late-afternoon sun, and there were pots of bronze-colored mums flanking the entranceway. The cursory perusal assured him that it didn’t look like a bad place to spend a few weeks, and he didn’t plan on staying any longer than that.

  He headed up to the main house, following the instructions of a ranch hand who’d told him that Tony would take care of the registration and give him the key.

  A housekeeper answered his knock at the door and directed him to an office. It wasn’t until Clay peeked into the room that he realized “Tony” was actually “Toni.”

  Which shouldn’t have been a big deal, except that along with the realization came an intense jolt of basic masculine appreciation.

  His first glimpse was of her profile, as she was seated at a desk and working at the computer. Her nose was straight, her chin slightly pointed and long, dark hair tumbled over her shoulders. Slender, graceful fingers moved expertly over the keys and though those fingers never faltered, she must have sensed his presence in the doorway bec
ause she glanced over her shoulder and smiled. And his heart actually skipped a beat.

  Toni Wright was very definitely female—and exquisite.

  “Can I help you?”

  It took a moment for her words to penetrate the fog that had suddenly enveloped his brain, and another moment for Clay to get his tongue unstuck from the roof of his mouth. It had been a long time since he’d had such a purely visceral reaction to the sight of a woman. A very long time.

  “Clayton Traub,” he finally said. “I’m checking in.”

  “Welcome to Wright’s Way.” Her tone was pleasant, her smile natural, but there was more than a hint of reserve in the depths of her green eyes. “Do you know how long you plan to stay?”

  Focus, Traub. The reprimand was silent but stern. He was here because he needed a break and because his mother wanted him to keep an eye on his brother while Forrest was rehabbing in Thunder Canyon. The absolute last thing he needed was to let himself be distracted by a pretty face. On the other hand, this trip to Thunder Canyon suddenly promised to be a whole lot more interesting.

  “A few weeks, at least,” he finally responded to her question.

  “The rent is paid weekly, in advance.”

  “That’s not a problem,” he assured her, unfazed by her all-business attitude.

  She passed him a page with Rental Terms & Conditions noted across the top. “Please review this and sign at the bottom.”

  He scanned the document, nothing giving him any cause for concern—until he got to paragraph eight. He tapped a finger on the page, beside the relevant clause. “What exactly does it mean by ‘no overnight visitors allowed’?”

  “It means that only registered guests are allowed to stay overnight on the premises,” she told him.

  “That could be a problem.”

  She shrugged. “Then there’s a motel in town, The Wander-On Inn, that might be more to your liking.”

  “That wouldn’t please my cousin, Dax, who recommended your boarding house. He said he went to school with Hudson Wright. I’m assuming he’s your brother?”

  “And another brother, Jonah, was in D.J.’s grade,” she told him.

  “How many brothers do you have?”

  “Three, but the number has no relevance to your issue with paragraph eight. Like the rest of the rules, it’s intended to protect the comfort and safety of our boarders. We can’t be responsible for unregistered guests wandering the halls of the boarding house or—”

  “He wouldn’t be wandering far,” Clay promised. “In fact, he’s just started to crawl.”

  Her brow furrowed. “He?”

  “My son,” he explained.

  The firm set of her mouth softened, the edges curved. “You have a little boy?”

  “A baby,” he clarified. “Five months old. His name’s Bennett.”

  The last of her reserve melted away. When she smiled at him this time, the impact hit the center of his chest like a wrecking ball. Lord, this woman could be dangerous.

  “A baby,” she echoed softly. Then, with a note of obvious concern in her voice, “Where is he now?”

  “He fell asleep in the truck, so my brother, Forrest, is keeping an eye on him.”

  “I’d love to meet him.” She pushed her chair back from the desk. “Let me just grab your keys and...”

  Whatever else she said was drowned out by the sudden screaming of alarms inside his head warning of imminent danger. Because when Toni Wright stood up, Clay saw that she wasn’t just female and gorgeous—she was extremely pregnant!

  Chapter One

  Five weeks later

  Damn pregnancy hormones!

  It was becoming a familiar curse to Antonia Wright, because as thrilled as she was that she was going to be a mother, she was completely unprepared to deal with the increasingly frequent surges of hormones through her system. Surges that had been nonexistent through the first six months of her pregnancy, but had become more regular and insistent over the past few weeks. Since Clayton Traub had taken up residence at Wright’s Way, in fact.

  But Antonia refused to believe that the link between his presence and her hormones was anything more than a coincidence. Most of the books she’d read had warned that sexual desire was likely to decrease in the last trimester, but Antonia was finding just the opposite to be true. Of course, nothing that she’d experienced since learning that she was going to have a baby had been what she expected. At least not since the initial excitement of having her pregnancy confirmed was usurped by the panic of realizing she was going to be a single mother.

  Maybe having a baby without a father anywhere in the vicinity wasn’t an ideal situation, but she was making the best of it. And she was genuinely excited about the opportunities and challenges that motherhood would entail, but she hadn’t expected the hormones.

  Because that was the only explanation she could come up with for the way her pulse raced every time she saw Clay in the dining room. And the way her knees got all weak and wobbly if he passed close to her. And the way her skin felt all hot and tingly whenever he even looked at her.

  But she’d learned her lesson after Gene hightailed it out of town. She had no intention of ever following her heart again, and she definitely would never get involved with a boarder again.

  Which only proved that her physiological reaction to Clayton Traub had less to do with her heart than her hormones. She didn’t even know the guy, really, so it was ridiculous to think that she might have any kind of emotional attachment to him. But she was definitely attracted. The warm and achy feeling deep inside all of her womanly places confirmed that fact. Or maybe she was just severely sexually deprived.

  It had been exactly seven months, one week and four days since she’d had sex. In the first six and a half of those months, she hadn’t missed the physical intimacy. She hadn’t even thought about it really, because she’d been too busy trying to come to terms with her pregnancy and anticipate the demands of impending motherhood.

  But ever since Clay Traub had shown up at the Wright Ranch, she’d found herself thinking about how very long it had been since she’d been held or kissed or touched. How very long it had been since she’d been wanted.

  Not that any man in his right mind would want her now, with a belly that was rounder than her breasts. And so big that it was sometimes hard for Antonia to believe that she still had another seven weeks to go before she delivered her baby. As eagerly as she was counting down to the day that she would hold her child in her arms, her trepidation was growing along with her excitement.

  What did she know about taking care of a baby? Not very much. And she was terrified that she was going to screw up. If only she could talk to her own mother—but that option had been taken away from her more than two years earlier when Lucinda had succumbed to a massive stroke. Nothing had been the same since her death—not Antonia’s father, not her brothers, not even the ranch.

  Or maybe it would be more accurate to say especially not the ranch. Devastated by the loss of his beloved wife, John Wright had started to neglect his responsibilities, which had resulted in the loss of some business and, consequently, trouble paying the bills. Antonia’s brothers had taken over most of the day-to-day operations, and she had convinced them to turn the former bunkhouse into a boarding house to generate additional revenue. Most of the rental units had sat vacant for a while—certainly long enough to give her cause for concern—but once they’d taken in their first boarders and those boarders started chatting in town about the comfort of the accommodations and the quality of the meals, the rooms had begun to fill.

  Now it was rare for any room to sit empty for more than a week or two, allowing Antonia to breathe a sigh of relief that she hadn’t made a mistake with this venture. Especially considering that she’d given Peggy, the Wright’s longtime housekeeper and cook, a raise to c
ompensate for the additional meal prep that was required, and had recently hired Nora, a high school student who lived up the road, to help serve dinner.

  Because now that she was in her third trimester, Antonia had finally acknowledged that she no longer had the energy to be on her feet sixteen hours a day. And when those days started at 5:00 a.m., as hers had this morning, she was usually feeling the first signs of fatigue before the breakfast crowd had gone.

  “Good morning, Toni.”

  She recognized his voice immediately, and adrenaline rushed through her veins as her cheeks filled with color. There was just something about the way he said her name that actually made her knees weak.

  “Good morning,” she replied, deliberately focusing on the baby in his arms rather than looking into the warmth of Clayton Traub’s dark brown eyes. “And how are you doing this morning, handsome?”

  Bennett gave her a gummy smile and reached his arms out to her, and Antonia wanted nothing more than to scoop him up. Unfortunately, she had a full coffeepot in one hand and a trio of mugs in the other.

  “Typical male,” she mused. “Wanting yet one more thing from a woman who already has her hands full.” But since she couldn’t give Bennett a cuddle, she gave him a quick kiss on the forehead, then finally chanced a glance at his father. “I’ll bring his breakfast as soon as you get him settled.”

  “No hurry,” he assured her. “He had some oatmeal about an hour ago.”

  “We start serving breakfast here at six,” she reminded him. She’d given him a dining schedule along with the rest of the paperwork when he’d checked in, and for the first several days, he had brought the baby to the dining room early. But then the time of their arrival had started getting later and later, until they were showing up near the end of the breakfast shift rather than the beginning.

  “And at six, you usually have a pretty full house,” Clay noted.

  “A lot of the men need to get an early start because they have jobs in town or elsewhere that they have to get to.” Which made her wonder how her handsome boarder was occupying his time in Thunder Canyon. Of course, as long as his checks didn’t bounce, his employment—or lack thereof—wasn’t any of her concern.