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  TAMING THE RANCHER

  Brides and Twins Book 2

  By: Natalie Dean

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  About Author – Natalie Dean

  BONUS BOOKS SECTION: Descriptions Included

  MAIL ORDER BRIDE COLLECTION

  MY COWBOY HERO

  COLORADO COWBOY

  BESS: Brides on the Run Book 1

  BARBARA: Brides on the Run Book 2

  THE EXPECTANT BRIDE HEADS WEST

  THE BIG BEAUTIFUL BRIDE HEADS WEST

  THE SECRETIVE BRIDE HEADS WEST

  THE PRIVLEGED BRIDE HEADS WEST

  THE SCANDALOUS BRIDE HEADS WEST

  ROMANTIC SUSPENSE COLLECTION

  THE INNOCENT FIGHTER

  THE MISSING GIRL

  Chapter One

  Even though he was squinting in the sun to see her, Bonnie could tell that the young man had beautiful blue eyes, with a shade of green, which set in his face like matching, smooth-surfaced gems. His hair was thick and tousled, the color of a pie crust that had been baking long enough to take on the hue of brown before it burned; the sunlight overhead danced on the surface of the locks, leaving shards of golden light among the strands. He was the only man she’d seen since arriving in Texas who was not wearing a hat, which accounted for the squinting. And if not for the fact that, in addition to being without a hat, he was also shirtless and unshod, she would have said that he was the most handsome man her eyes had ever seen.

  It was not that he needed a shirt and shoes to be handsome. The absence of an upper garment revealed that he spent much of his day out in the sun, apparently divested of a shirt then as well. She could not speak as to the comportment of his feet; they looked to be well-shaped beneath the dusty fabric of his trousers.

  Bonnie Yankovich was not accustomed to seeing a shirtless man sitting on the front step of the general store on the main street of the town. In Pittsburgh, such a thing was unimaginable; of course, Pittsburgh was a great city, not a little Texas town of ranchers and farmers whose human population was vastly outnumbered by cattle. But growing up in a family of thirteen brothers and sisters had prepared her to deal with the unexpected, and so she held out her hand in greeting.

  “Might you be Mr. Zachary Kennesaw?” she inquired.

  The man grinned, showing an even, white smile that seemed to find the question most amusing. “If I am, then you must be Miss Bonnie Yankovich,” he said, rising to his feet in a smooth, seamless motion to take her hand. His grip was firm and warm and calloused, the evidence of the work he did apparent in the texture of his skin. “Zachary Taylor Kennesaw, pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Yankovich. My friends call me Z and, as we’re set to become husband and wife, I hope you will too. While we wait, I trust that I can call you Miss Bonnie?”

  There was an easy gallantry to his speech that Bonnie found appealing. The drawl had a lazy, idle intonation that was quite different from the accents she was used to in the speech of the immigrant coal miners who lived in the Pittsburgh neighborhood where she came from; a place where different languages were as common as the dust and soot that layered the city in grime throughout the daylight hours. Here in Texas, there was plenty of dust, but to Bonnie’s eyes, it hardly appeared worth making a fuss over compared to what she was used to back home.

  “That will be perfectly permissible,” she decided. It was somewhat more casual than what Mama would have approved of, but Mama was hundreds of miles away and had raised her offspring to think for themselves. She had had little choice; widowed before she was thirty when Papa died in a coal mine accident, she had supported her family by taking in laundry, selling bread and jams in the market, doing sewing for the owners of the mine, and practicing a form of thrift which would have been punishing had her children known any other means of making ends meet.

  Sons stayed in the Yankovich home until they married and the same was true of daughters. But Bonnie had been hard to please, refusing the attentions of the young men who sought out the trim little brunette with the dark lashes and green eyes. She would not marry a man who went into the ground every day, she told her mother. Finally, when Bonnie turned twenty years old, and three of her younger sisters were already wives and mothers, Mrs. Yankovich had had enough. If she wouldn’t marry a man who worked below the ground, Mama said, she must find one who worked above it. Bonnie had answered an advertisement in a magazine for a mail-order bride, and now here she was in Mesquite, Texas, in the presence of her husband-to-be, who was half-naked, at least as the people of Pittsburgh would have seen him.

  “I regret that until I get my horse back,” Mr. Kennesaw was saying, “we’re stranded here.”

  “Was your horse taken from you?” she asked politely, wondering if he had been robbed of his mount as well as his clothing.

  “In a manner of speaking,” he answered with a grin. “I was playing poker with a few pals, and someone got the idea to play for the shirt off my back. I had a lousy hand.”

  “And your shoes?”

  He nodded, looking mournful and amused at the same time. “My hat, too. I was powerful fond of that hat. Reckon I’ll need to buy me another one.”

  “Will you need to buy another horse as well?”

  “Shoot, no. We’ve got horses to spare at the ranch, and Whistler will come home on his own. He knows the way and no lousy poker hand is going to keep him away for long. But in the meantime,” he sighed, “we’d just do best to sit and wait for my brother Will Henry. He’ll be around shortly; he was coming into town this afternoon for supplies, and he’ll get us home.” With a bow and a flourish of his hand, Zachary Taylor Kennesaw indicated the bench on the porch of the general store.

  Bonnie sat down. Mr. Kennesaw joined her. As passers-by walked in front of them, giving Bonnie curious glances and openly staring at her companion, she wondered why Mr. Kennesaw didn’t go into the store and purchase a ready-made shirt rather than continue to sit outside where it was obvious that he was the subject of interest. But he smiled in return to the people who went by, greeting them by name, without any indication of discomfiture.

  He gave Bonnie the focus of his attention, asking if her journey had been pleasant, if the stage had stopped often enough. He promised that when they returned to the ranch, Elsie would have a big spread ready for them. “Everyone is right eager to meet you,” he said,

  “Who is Elsie?”

  “She’s our cook and just about the only person who’ll stand up to Grandmother.”

  “Is your grandmother strong-willed?” Bonnie asked diplomatically. In his letters, Zachary—Z—had told her that his family all lived at the ranch, but except for mention of a twin brother, he had not given details of who the family members were.

  Mr. Kennesaw released a laugh that seemed to find her comment very funny. “Strong-willed? I guess that’s what people with manners would say back East. Out here, we just say she’s pig-headed and ornery.”

  “You say that to your grandmother?” Bonnie thought of her own grandmother, a diminutive woman aged more than her years by the decades of work and struggle. She had never learned English, but as the children all spoke Polish in the home and English at school, there had never been any difficulty in communicating with her.

  “Grandmother’s tough,” Mr. Kennesaw said fondly. “She expects us to speak our minds. She’ll expect you to do the same, so don’t think you have to be on your best behavior with her. If you don’t give it back as soon as she dishes it out, she’ll serve you up for dessert every chance she gets.”

  Chapter Two

  Bonnie was saved by responding to this alarming revelation about a future member of her family when footsteps drew near.

  “Z. Taylor Kennesaw, what in tarnation are you doing out here in broad daylight without a shirt on?”

  Mr. Kennesaw held his hand up to his forehead so that he could see the man standing before him. “Linc Duffy had better cards,” he explained. “Miss Bonnie, this fine, upstanding member of the Kennesaw family is my older brother, Will Henry.”

  Mr. Kennesaw’s older brother was the mirror image of him in looks, but not in demeanor. Zachary Taylor Kennesaw’s expression seemed to be perpetually merry as if everything in the world was no more than a good joke, even if it had come at his expense. Will Henry Kennesaw had the same blue-green eyes but without the glint of mischief buried inside like gemstones. His hair, at least what she could see of it below the brim of his hat, was the same well-baked brown biscuit color of a crust. He was wearing a shirt, boots, and an exasperated expression on his face.

  “I’m his older brother by about three minutes,” Will Henry said, holding out his hand. “Nice to me
et you, Miss Yankovich. I reckon you’re tired, hungry, thirsty, and wondering how long before the next stage comes through so you can get yourself back home where men don’t parade around town without their clothes on.”

  “I’ve got my clothes on,” his brother disagreed. “The ones that matter, anyway.” He stood up and stretched, the muscles of his chest playing like chords against his tanned skin as he moved. “You see, Miss Bonnie, I told you my brother Will Henry would come along to bring us home. William Henry Harrison, my twin brother.”

  “You’re both named for presidents,” Bonnie observed.

  “Ma had the birthing of us, but Grandmother had the naming,” said Zachary Taylor. “And Grandmother had danced with General Taylor, so that accounted for one name. Then she figured that naming us after presidents might give us noble aspirations, so when it was apparent that there would be a matched pair of grandsons, she decided that William Henry Harrison Kennesaw would do for the first one. He got the most names.”

  It seemed odd to Bonnie that a grandmother would have the naming of her grandsons, but even odder that she would choose to name them after presidents whose terms in office had been tragically brief. Still, she reasoned as Zachary Taylor lifted her effortlessly from the ground to help her onto the wagon seat, both young men looked to be in excellent health. Will Henry seemed the soberer of the two, with a smile that took longer to show up on his face and lingered rather than flashed like lightning as it did on his brother’s features.

  Zachary Taylor apologized for leaving her in the wagon but explained that he would help his brother load items into the back of the wagon. “I’ll stay outside the store,” he grinned, “or I’ll offend the ladies.”

  “Never mind that he’s already offended his fiancée,” said Will Henry, hefting a large sack of flour onto his brother’s bare shoulders.

  Bonnie couldn’t truthfully say that she was not offended by her husband-to-be's appearance. She knew that her mother would have been outraged by such a lapse of decorum. The coal miners of Pittsburgh were perhaps uncouth and often illiterate, but they were unfailingly observant of the domestic rules of conduct that their womenfolk enforced, and a bare-chested man in public view would not have been acceptable. The men of Pittsburgh had their own set of rules for breaking, but they would not have shown themselves in front of others without shirts covering their chests. Will Henry seemed to believe in the same code. But Zachary Taylor, moving from the side door of the store to the wagon with no embarrassment, was oblivious to anyone else’s opinions as he loaded up the wagon in his bare feet, with no covering over his upper body. Bonnie tried not to be obvious about watching him as he moved, but she found it impossible to look away.

  While Will Henry went back inside the store, Zachary Taylor picked up her bags from the bench and put them in the wagon. Everything she owned was in those bags. It wasn’t a lot, but there wasn’t a lot to own when a girl was one of a family of thirteen. Mama had provided what she could, determined that her daughter wasn’t going to go all the way west to be married without something from her family, but even with the hand-stitched pillowcases that Mama had lovingly sewed, Bonnie had not come west burdened with an abundance of possessions.

  Finally, the brothers were finished. Will Henry got into the wagon to her left and took up the reins. Zachary Taylor jumped in on her right. Will Henry slapped the reins against the horse’s backside, and the wagon moved forward.

  “How’s Linc going to take it when Whistler shows up missing?” Will Henry asked.

  “I’ll make it right in cash,” his brother answered.

  “Miss Yankovich, when you pick out a horse, make sure that you don’t let Z ride it into town, or it’ll end up among his poker losses,” advised Will Henry.

  “Pick out a horse?”

  “Everyone on the ranch has his own horse. Not that Grandmother needs one anymore, but she used to.”

  “I don’t really know how to ride a horse,” she said hesitantly.

  “You can’t ride a horse?” Zachary Taylor repeated as if such a condition were inconceivable to him.

  “Z, they’ve got trains and hackneys for hire back East,” Will Henry reproved. “Why would she have had to learn to ride? It’s different out here, Miss Yankovich. But you’ve probably already figured that out from the stage coach ride. There’s a lot of distance and not a lot of roads out here, so everyone rides. Someday we’ll have train tracks too, just like back East, but that won’t happen fast.”

  Bonnie was wondering what it would be like to have to ride a horse to get to where she needed to go. There was no need for riding a horse in Pittsburgh. No one in her community owned a horse anyway. But everything that they needed, and all the shops that they could afford to patronize were in walking distance. Mama made everything on her own that she could make and she had taught her daughters to manage households, when they had them, with frugal self-sufficiency. But a horse…

  “Don’t fret,” Will Henry said, “riding’s easy once you get the hang of it, and we’ve got a couple of horses that’ll be just right for a lady.”

  “It’ll be a dull ride,” chimed in Zachary, “but if that’s what you want, I expect you and Cabot will get along well.”

  “Cabot is a gentle mount,” Will Henry said, “and he’s been around the ranch a long time, so he knows the way to every place you’d think of going.”

  “If it’s all the same to you, Miss Bonnie, you might not want to mention to Grandmother that you don’t ride. It’ll seem strange to her, and she’ll have you on a saddle by dawn tomorrow.”

  It was the second ominous reference to the woman who would be her grandmother-in-law, a person who seemed to dominate the ranch where she would be living with Zachary Taylor. It seemed peculiar that no one had mentioned parents or other siblings, just a grandmother who was seemingly the power in the Kennesaw family. Bonnie wondered whether “Grandmother” was the kind of woman who would relish establishing her dominance over a newly-arrived younger woman who was a stranger to Texas and the ways of Texans. Mama had brought her children up to respect their elders and to always be mindful of their manners. But she had also taught them never to let another person rule over them. “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s,” she had said once when one of the Yankovich siblings had come home in tears because of something that had been said. “And to God the things that are God’s. For anything else, you keep what’s yours and don’t let anyone take it away, even if it’s something you can’t see or hold.”

  “Z is right, Miss Yankovich,” Will Henry added. “Grandmother was riding as soon as she was out of leading strings and she doesn’t always realize that it’s not that way for the rest of the world. We’ll get you on a saddle in no time, but Grandmother doesn’t have to be told.”

  Chapter Three

  Grandmother, it turned out, had not given any thought to whether or not the new arrival to the family was comfortable on a horse or not. When Will Henry drove the wagon into the dirt turnaround in front of a long, spreading house that looked to Bonnie as if it didn’t know where to end, there was a tall, lean woman standing, with the aid of two stout canes and a watchful woman behind her, in the grass.

  “Grandmother!” said Will Henry as he descended from the wagon. “How long have you been standing out here?”

  “I wasn’t going to greet Zachary Taylor’s bride from my bed,” declared the woman. “Zachary Taylor—where are your clothes? Don’t tell me that you met your bride looking like that? You ought to be ashamed of yourself! I hope you apologized to Miss Yankovich for this?”

  Zachary Taylor grinned insouciantly at Bonnie as he put his hands firmly on her waist and lifted her to the ground. He continued to grin as he held her, as if he liked the way she felt in his grip and wondered what she thought about it. She gave him a hint of a smile that didn’t reveal much, except that she wasn’t averse to his touch.

  “No, ma’am,” he answered, “I just hoped she’d notice my winning ways before she noticed that I wasn’t wearing all that I should be.”

  “I never heard of such a thing,” his grandmother snapped. “I don’t think there’s ever been a Kennesaw who met his bride naked as a savage!”