The Cowboy's Little Girl. Kat Brookes

       Chapter One

      A persistent knocking at the front door of his ranch house had Tucker Wade setting the half-eaten grilled cheese he’d made himself for dinner back onto the plate beside him. Dropping his booted feet from the rough pine coffee table to the wood-planked floor, he stood to answer the door.

      His first thought was that it was his oldest brother, Garrett, stopping by to shoot the breeze after returning from tending to Wilbur Davies’s sick cow. Garrett, the town’s only vet, had gotten called away, leaving Tucker and his other brother Jackson—older by just one year—to see to it the horses were fed and settled in for the evening. But his brothers rarely knocked. And if they did it was a loud, firm rap on the door, not the tentative tapping that had him moving into the front entryway. Not to mention it was near dark and they all followed an early-to-bed-and-early-to-rise routine.

      Very little surprised Tucker, but nothing could have prepared him for the shock of opening the door to find his long-lost wife looking up at him. A woman he’d come to accept he would never see again. Didn’t care to see again, truth be told. But there she stood, in the fiery red-orange light of the setting sun, looking every bit as pretty as he remembered and yet so very different.

      The wispy blonde ponytail Summer had always worn had been replaced by a short, smooth haircut that hung longer in front than in the back. A formfitting navy skirt and matching jacket replaced her well-worn jeans and usual T-shirt. And... Tucker’s gaze dropped lower, a dark brown brow lifting. Heels? The Summer he’d known would never have worn high heels, no matter how good they looked on her. Even her cowgirl boots had low heels. But then again, he’d only thought he’d known the girl he’d exchanged vows with six years before.

      All the hurt, anger and confusion he had worked so hard to suppress after Summer took off without a word threatened to surface once again. Thickly lashed ice-blue eyes—eyes that had once held only warmth, now stared back at him with something akin to...mistrust? Him. The man she’d run out on.

      “Tucker Wade?” his long-lost wife asked as if she wasn’t quite sure it was him.

      A frown tightened the line of his mouth. While he’d admittedly filled out a good bit in terms of muscle, no longer the lanky, bull-riding twenty-four-year-old she’d exchanged vows with at the Laramie County Courthouse, he was pretty certain she knew it was him. What sort of game was his wife playing now?

      “I’m sorry to show up unannounced this way,” she continued. “And this late in the day. But I had to meet with clients before setting out for Bent Creek.”

      There it was, that same Texas twang that had drawn him to his wife in the first place. “Why are you here?” he demanded.

      Undaunted by the glower he was sending her way, she met his gaze head-on. “I thought it would be best if you heard what I have to say in person, instead of over the phone.”

      “Now you want to talk?” he said, anger writhing though him. “Well, this might come as a surprise to you, but I no longer have any interest in anything you have to say.”

      “I can’t blame you for feeling the way you do,” she said softly, “but if you’ll just give me a chance to explain...”

      “What are you doing here, Summer?” he cut in gruffly, not bothering to suppress the ire he felt toward her. He didn’t want explanations. It was far too late for that. In fact, he wanted nothing at all from his wife.

      “I’m not Summer.” She looked away for a second as her voice filled with emotion. Then, looking up at him with those same silver-blue eyes he’d worked so hard to forget, she said, “I’m her sister Autumn.”

      What? Tucker blinked back his surprise. First, his wife shows up out of the blue, with no warning whatsoever of her impending arrival, and then she starts spouting nonsense? Who was Summer going to pretend to be next? A sister named Spring, or maybe Fall since it was mid-October? If his wife had a sister, he surely would have known about it.

      Dear Lord, give me strength, he prayed.

      “I know it’s been a few years since we’ve crossed paths,” Tucker grumbled in irritation, “but I’m pretty sure I haven’t forgotten what my own wife looks like. Even with all