What a Rancher Wants (Texas Cattleman's Club: The Missing Mogul, Band 2282) - Softcover

Anderson, Sarah M.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0373732953 ISBN 13: 9780373732951

Verlag: Harlequin Desire, 2014

Inhaltsangabe

When it comes to the Texas Cattleman's Club, what a rancher wants, a rancher gets… 

Nothing's come easy to Chance McDaniel since his best friend betrayed him. And when the deception explodes into a Texas-sized scandal, his best friend's sister, Gabriella del Toro, shows up to pick up the pieces. Now Chance's luck is about to change. He wants this innocent beauty, and seducing her has become his top priority. 

Gabriella's sheltered upbringing has always left her wanting more. Now, with this rich rancher, she sees a chance to break free. But will the web of deception her family has woven ensnare her yet again?

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

With over 2.1 million copies published in over twenty-one countries, Sarah M. Anderson has published over 50 books. Sarah's book A Man of Privilege won a RT Book Reviews 2012 Reviewers’ Choice Best Book Award. The Nanny Plan was a 2016 RITA^® winner for Best Contemporary: Short and Seduction on His Terms won the 2020 Bookseller's Best Award for Short Contemporary. Recently, she's branched out into writing YA under the name Sally Sultzman. She lives in rural Illinois with her family, her rescue dogs, and a collection of oversized tea mugs.

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"¡Dios mío!" Gabriella del Toro hissed under her breath. Blood welled up from the cut she'd inflicted upon herself with the can opener. She sighed. As if anything else could have gone wrong.

From his seat at the breakfast table, Joaquin, her bodyguard, looked up from his tablet. "I'm fine," she said, answering his unspoken question. "Just a cut."

She looked down at the injury. She had not anticipated that fixing some broth and toast for her brother, Alejandro, would be so difficult. But then, everything was difficult right now. While she had spent time in the kitchen back at Las Cruces, the ancestral del Toro estate west of Mexico City, she'd never actually prepared anything more than tea and coffee. Their cook had thought that preparing meals was beneath the lady of the house, even if the lady had been only twelve. No one had thought to teach Gabriella the first thing about cooking since…her tía had tried to show her how to make tortillas from scratch.

Gabriella had been seven the last time Papa had taken her and Alejandro to see their mother's sister. A full twenty years had passed since then.

As Gabriella rinsed the cut under the faucet and wrapped her wounded finger in a towel, she mentally bemoaned how this must look. She was the daughter of Rodrigo del Toro, one of the most powerful legitimate businessmen in all of Mexico. She was one of the most sought-after jewelry designers in Mexico City. She regularly transformed hunks of metal and pieces of rock into wearable art with a Mayan influence.

But at this moment, she was every heiress stereotype rolled into one. She couldn't even open a can of soup.

The bleeding staunched, she went looking for a bandage. She heard Joaquin stand and trail her out of the kitchen, although he kept a polite distance. She'd rarely been apart from the large, mostly silent man since her father had hired him to protect her when she had been thirteen. She was now twenty-seven. Joaquin Baptiste was nearing forty, but he had showed no signs of slowing down. Secretly, Gabriella hoped he never would. He was far more concerned with her happiness than her father-or even her brother-had ever been. That, and he had never let any harm befall her. Even if it did make dating…challenging.

She walked to the bathroom and found a box of bandages in a cabinet, mentally cursing her clumsiness the whole time. The cut was on the edge of her index finger. It would make holding pliers while she shaped wire almost impossible.

Gabriella caught herself. Her pliers were not here, nor were any of her other jewelry-making supplies. It had not been possible to pack up all her tools. Besides, she had been under the impression that they would only be in America long enough to collect Alejandro.

Her poor brother. Her poor father, for that matter. The del Toro family was forever haunted by the specter of abductions, but they'd all thought Alejandro would be safe in Texas. Kidnappings for profit weren't nearly as common in America as they were in Mexico, Alejandro had argued when Rodrigo had hatched this scheme to send him north to America to "investigate" an energy company he wanted to acquire. Alejandro had refused to bring Carlos, his personal guard. He had told Rodrigo he would not go if he weren't allowed to do things the American way.

The thing that Gabriella still could not believe was that their father had relented and Alejandro had been allowed to live alone, as an American would. Alejandro had assumed the identity of Alex Santiago and come north alone a little more than two years ago.

Gabriella had suffered a bout of jealousy at that. She longed to be free to come and go as she pleased, but her father would not hear of it. She had stayed at Las Cruces, under constant watch of Joaquin-and Rodrigo.

At least, she had been jealous-until Alejandro had been kidnapped. However, the kidnappers had not demanded an exorbitant ransom, as was the usual custom. Instead, there had been no word from them-or Alejandro, until he had been found in the back of a coyote's truck. Coyotes smuggled immigrants. Alejandro, the son of Rodrigo del Toro, had been thrown in with the poor things desperate to start a new life in America.

The kidnappers had not treated Alejandro well. Although his wounds were healing, he had no memory of the attack, which meant he had no information to give the lawenforcement officers who occasionally checked on him. The case had stalled. Alejandro had returned, mostly whole, to his home in Royal, Texas. Now that his life was no longer in immediate danger, Gabriella had gotten the sense that the police weren't as dedicated to finding the criminals who had abducted him in the first place. Still, they were "requesting" that Alejandro remain in the country. Truthfully, Alejandro had showed no signs of wanting to go. He stayed in his room, resting or watching football- what the Americans called soccer.

Alejandro showed almost no signs of memory, except his love of football. He didn't seem to remember her, or Papa. In fact, the only reaction they'd gotten out of him beyond a mumbled thank-you when she brought him his meals was when Papa had announced they would be returning to Las Cruces within the week. Only then had Alejandro sparked to life, insisting that he was not going anywhere. Then he had locked himself in his room.

So Rodrigo had set up temporary headquarters in a set of rooms in Alejandro's home in Royal that had recently been home to Mia Hughes, the former housekeeper. Papa was simultaneously running Del Toro Energy and utilizing his vast resources to identify the culprits that had taken Alejandro. Rodrigo was not about to let anyone get away with assaulting any member of his family. Gabriella could only hope that, when he caught the perpetrators, he wouldn't do something that would land him in an American prison.

Which meant that Gabriella had no idea how long the del Toro family would be trapped in this house together.

This was also why Joaquin was standing outside the bathroom as Gabriella tended her injury. If she had ever hoped of having the kind of freedom that Alejandro had tasted for two years, those hopes were now dashed. Her father would not allow her to go unguarded. Not after nearly losing his son.

Still, she was in America instead of in Las Cruces, and that was something. True, she had not seen much of America beyond the small private airport where the family jet had landed, or the dark night sky that had made it almost impossible to see this country where she suspected her brother had been his happiest. No, she'd mostly seen the Royal Hospital and then, the inside of Alejandro's house.

Thus far, she was underwhelmed by America.

She longed to do something besides tend to a frustratingly silent Alejandro or to defuse her father's angry outbursts. As much as she never thought she would say it, she missed Las Cruces. True, she had not been allowed to leave the estate's grounds, but within its securely patrolled borders, she'd had far more freedom than she'd had in Royal, Texas. She'd been able to chat with the maids and the cook. She'd been able to go to her workshop and work on her jewelry designs. She'd been able to saddle up Ixchel, her Azteca horse and, with Joaquin, ride wherever she pleased on Las Cruces' extensive grounds. It hadn't been true freedom. More like a reasonable facsimile of freedom.

But it was still more than what she had at the moment. Here, she was trapped with an invalid, an irate father and Joaquin, who, bless him, had never been much for conversation. The only break in the monotony had been the brief appearances of Maria, Alejandro's maid, as well as Nathan...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Harlequin Desire
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2014
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0373732953
• ISBN 13: 9780373732951
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 192
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: HarperCollins Publishers Ireland; enquiries@harpercollins.ie; ; Mayor Street Upper 39/40; Dublin; D01 C9W8; Irland