Heart's Desire - Leanne Karella

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• Author: Leanne Karella
• Publisher: The Wild Rose Press
• Year: 2007
• Setting: Colorado Territory 1865
• Where To Buy: The Wild Rose Press

Book Description

Carson Kinsey saved Ella from working in a saloon, selling her body to whomever Madame Chloe demanded. Now, four years later, she loves the man who took her away from the life of drunken men and adores the little girl she has been hired to tend. Standing between the love they both secretly feel for the other is Carson’s dark memories of the wife he lost, and Ella’s knowledge that she’s a soiled woman who has nothing to give him but herself.

Teaser

Carson shoved the door open. The scent of beef stew made his mouth water. He hadn’t eaten in hours, and he’d worked his tail off all day riding and repairing fences in the north pasture. The candles still burned in the kitchen, but Ella wasn’t in sight. He scowled. She knew not to waste wax candles. He shut the door, checked his rifle for moisture, and then slipped it into the holder over the doorframe. Then he unbuckled his gun belt and did the same to his pistols before sliding them back into the holsters and hanging the belt on the peg next to the door. He removed his boots and left them on the rug by the door before he headed to the oven and lifted the lid on the small, cast iron skillet.

Stew and dumplings. His favorite. Not bothering with a bowl, he grabbed the towel sitting on the counter, wrapped it around the handle, and carried it to the scarred table. He went back to the kitchen for a spoon and a cup of coffee. He’d just scooped up his first bite when Ella came into the kitchen from Hattie’s bedroom.

“Oh. I didn’t hear you come in,” she said in her soft, English accent. “I must have dozed off with Hattie.”

He grunted in response and took another bite. He never knew what to say to her.

“Would you like a cup of milk?”

He shook his head. “Coffee’s fine.”

She paused a moment at the side of the table, and he glanced up to see her brow puckered in a slight frown. Her mouth opened as if she were about to say something, but then she turned away without a word and went to the sink.

He ate in silence but couldn’t keep from glancing at her back as she scrubbed a pot. She wasn’t a beautiful woman by anyone’s standards. She was tall and strong, with hair the color of a field mouse. Her nose was a little too small for her round face, and her eyes too large, her chin pointy. But her lips were full and pink. She had a habit of flicking her tongue out to moisten them when she spoke, which stoked his lust as nothing ever had.

He dreamed of kissing those lips. Of tearing away her worn, calico dress to find out if all those curves were real or a product of a corset. Her breasts were full and high, her waist narrow, her hips wide. If they were real, she’d be so soft to sink into.

Turning his attention back to his stew, he ducked his head to keep from staring at her. He had no business thinking of her that way. She was a fallen woman. A whore. He shouldn’t even let her around his daughter, but when he hired her, he’d been desperate for the help. In the four years she’d been on the Lazy K, she’d never done anything to make him worry. She was a good caretaker for his daughter, kept him well fed, and his house spotlessly clean.

“Hattie would like you to tuck her in when you’ve finished eating.”

“She’s asleep, isn’t she?” he asked as he scraped the bottom of the pan with his spoon, trying to get the last bit of sauce.

“Yes, she is now, but she was asking for you tonight.”

How could a child who barely saw him ask about him? He shook his head and lifted his coffee mug. “Then she won’t know the difference.” He drained the scalded drink in one long swallow.

He stood up and carried the pan and his mug to the sink.

Ella set down the scrub brush and turned to him. Being this close to her was dangerous. His heart might be

dead, but his cock wasn’t. It wanted her. Had ever since he saw her coming down the stairs of the Sleepy Eye Saloon wearing a red and black dress made of shiny silk and teasing lace.

He still didn’t understand why Ella was the only whore Madame Chloe would part with.

“It does matter,” Ella said in her lyrical accent. “That little girl needs her daddy. She cries when you’re not here to tuck her in at night.”

Guilt shot through him like a lightening bolt, followed closely by broiling anger. “It’s not as if I can tell the cattle I can’t mend the fence until morning and would they be so kind as to not leave.”

Ella tilted her chin up. She only stood a few inches shorter than he, but when she looked down her nose at him, it made him want to...haul her into his arms and kiss the stubborn from her.

“I did not say—” She literally bit her tongue and dropped her gaze. “I was passing on a message is all.”

He scrubbed his hand over his face. Ella was not a meek woman, but she never really let him have it, either. Even when it was obvious she wanted to. He wondered if she’d been hurt by a man.

He stared at her for a long moment, wanting to shout at her, wanting to kiss her. Instead, he said, “Finish up here and go to bed.” Then he turned on his heel and headed for Hattie’s bedroom.”

Ella’s softly spoken, “Yes, sir,” followed him.

He found Hattie asleep on her stomach, facing the wall. She was bundled in the blankets like a bug with only the top of her pale blonde head peeking out. Her hair was the same as her mother’s had been. Soft, fine, and the color of corn silk. She looked so much like her mother he sometimes couldn’t stand it.

He touched her head, and she let out a soft sigh. He shouldn’t hold her mother’s sins against her. It wasn’t her fault he’d let his wife go without a word, let her walk away from him. Hattie couldn’t help that he was all she had in the world, and it terrified him to be responsible for her. It certainly wasn’t her fault her mother had died a horrible death at the hands of bandits. And it wasn’t

Hattie’s fault her mother had fled the life he’d tried so hard to build for her.

“Papa?” Hattie rolled over, her eyes half closed.

Maybe his heart wasn’t dead. When she called him papa in her sweet, little voice, something in his chest tightened. “I’m here.”

“Love you, Papa.” Her eyes drifted closed, and she sighed again.

He sat on the edge of the tiny bed and stroked her cheek with his finger. “Ah, pumpkin. I love you, too.” I just don’t know what to do with you.