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  Their Eyes Met…And Something Electrical Passed Between Them.

  Something charged with so much force that it shocked every nerve in Harley's body to life. Mary Claire's nervous movements were as fleeting as those of a moth at a flame.

  The brash of her fingers across his lips made Harley's heart do a slow somersault while his blood warmed in his veins. It had been a long time since a woman had touched him in such a way. He'd forgotten the tenderness, the comfort rendered in so simple a gesture. On a sigh, he caught her wrist in his hand then held her palm against his cheek, absorbing the softness of her skin.

  Slowly the thundering of her pulse trapped beneath his fingers registered in his muddled mind, and Harley's gaze settled on lips slightly parted and eyes filled with…. Was it longing?

  Dear Reader,

  Happy Valentine's Day! To celebrate the season of love, don't miss the third story in THE BABY OF THE MONTH CLUB series by Marie Ferrarella. In The 7lb, 2oz Valentine, mum-to-be Erin Collins has just found her baby's father after months of searching. Only problem is, he doesn't remember anything, let alone her! Next month, watch out for the fourth book in this fabulous mini-series, also in Silhouette Desire®.

  A book from Joan Hohl is always a delight, and this month's MAN OF THE MONTH, A Memorable Man, is no exception. And Joan Elliott Pickart's irresistible Bishop brothers are back in Texas Glory, the next installment of her FAMILY MEN series.

  There's plenty of matchmaking going on in A Child of Her Own by Beverly Barton, and How To Succeed at Love is another fun story from Susan Connell. February also brings Marry Me, Cowboy, the first novel in Peggy Moreland's brand new mini-series, WIVES WANTED! When the men of Temptation, Texas decide they want wives, they advertise!

  So read...and enjoy!

  The Editors

  DID YOU PURCHASE THIS BOOK WITHOUT A COVER?

  If you did, you should be aware it is stolen property as it was reported unsold and destroyed by a retailer. Neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this book.

  All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author, and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all the incidents are pure invention.

  All Rights Reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Enterprises II B.V. The text of this publication or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the prior consent of the publisher in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Silhouette, Silhouette Desire and Colophon are registered trademarks of Harlequin Books SA used under licence.

  First published in Great Britain 1998

  Silhouette Books, Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road

  ,

  Richmond, Surrey TW9 ISR

  © Peggy Bozeman Morse 1997

  ISBN 0 373 76084 1

  22-9802

  Printed and bound in Great Britain

  by Mackays of Chatham PLC, Chatham

  To Jim Bob and Kelly dayman of Windsong Farm in

  Georgetown, Texas, who helped make this author's

  childhood dream come true! Thanks for hours of riding

  pleasure and for instilling in me the competitive edge

  needed to race barrels and bend poles!

  PEGGY MORELAND

  is a natural storyteller with a sense of humour that will tickle your fancy, and Peggy's goal is to write a story that readers will remember long after the last page is turned. This award-winning author frequently appears on bestseller lists around the U.S.A. A native Texan, she and her family live in Round Rock, Texas.

  Other novels by Peggy Moreland

  Silhouette Desire®

  A Little Bit Country

  Run for the Roses

  Miss Prim

  The Rescuer

  Seven Year Itch

  The Baby Doctor

  Miss Lizzy's Legacy

  A Wilful Marriage

  HARLEY KERR'S

  THOUGHTS ON TEMPTATION, TEXAS!

  I've lived my whole life in Temptation, a small town with an unlikely name in central Texas. Though there were those who considered living in Temptation a hardship and couldn't wait to escape, I've always loved it here and never gave a thought to leaving.

  Since I was old enough to walk, I followed my father around the ranch, learning from his experience. I gleaned a ton of it on my own when I took over the place at the age of seventeen after his death. I fell in love when i was sixteen, married my school sweetheart three years later and brought her home to my ranch.

  Though I never gave it much consideration the first time around, I thought my expectations for a wife were simple enough. I wanted a woman I could love and care for, and one who was willing to love and care for me in return. She'd have to be a strong woman, someone who could stand the isolation of the land and still thrive, one who was both independent and dependent at the same time. I wanted a woman who'd stand by me through thick and thin. I wanted a home and a family and a woman to share it all with.

  But my first wife didn't share those expectations. When we married, she was looking for a way out of Temptation, Texas. So when she left, taking my two kids with her, I sealed off my heart and swore never to love again.

  When my old friend, Cody Pipes, started this fool plan to advertise for women to move to Temptation to save our dying town, it never occurred to me that my heart might be in jeopardy again.

  Prologue

  Sixty or so men were crowded into the End of the Road Bar, the official gathering place for the male population of Temptation, Texas. Some sat slumped at tables with their backs rounded against spool-back chairs. Others straddled bar stools, their dusty, mud-caked boots hooked over the stools' lowest rungs. Those unfortunate enough to have arrived too late to claim a proper chair hitched a foot against chipped plaster and pressed their shoulders to the wall, while still others leaned back on elbows braced against the long, scarred bar.

  Having made the trek into town straight from work on their respective farms and ranches, most of the men wore jeans and boots. Others sported bib overalls over soiled T-shirts. Since there wasn't a lady in sight to complain about the breach of etiquette, to a man their heads were covered, either with straw cowboy hats or monogrammed caps advertising farm equip­ment or feed.

  Arriving late, Harley Kerr stopped just inside the door and looked around. Cody Fipes, his friend and Temptation's sheriff, sat at a table in the rear of the room. Harley slipped into the empty chair Cody had saved for him and was rewarded with a beer shoved his way. With a nod of thanks, he one-knuckled his sweat-stained hat to the back of his head and closed a hand around the cold brew.

  "Was beginning to wonder if you were going to make it," Cody murmured in a low voice.

  "Bull got in a pasture with some heifers,'' Harley replied dryly.” Took me a while to convince him he didn't belong there." Hot and tired, he tipped back his head and took a long, thirst-quenching drink be­fore setting the beer down and turning his attention to Roy Acres, Temptation's mayor.

  Seated on a tall stool centered in front of the long bar, Mayor Acres resembled a fly-fattened frog. His face flushed with the effort, he raised his voice a level higher to be heard over the scrape of chairs and the buzz of conversation as he called the meeting to or­der. The topic for the night's meeting? Temptation's quickly disintegrating population and the closing of local businesses.

  Heads wagged regrettably as Mayor Acres read through the list of businesses that had closed in the past year. Lips pursed as Acres reviewed a survey taken at the local high school that revealed only sev­enteen percent of the students registered there in­tended to remain in Temptation after graduation.

  Usually filled with raucous laughter and loud country music, the End of the Road was as quiet as a church on Saturday night as its occupants absorbed the depressing news about the town where they'd spent their entire lives. If something wasn't done and done fast, Temptation, like so many other rural com­munities, would soon be nothing but a ghost town.

  Few understood this better than Harley Kerr and Cody Fipes. They'd spent a lot of time over the past few years cussing and discussing Temptation's slow decline. But unlike Harley, Cody had come up with a plan. Not one that Harley totally supported, but he figured at least it was a start.

  With a tense glance at Harley, Cody stood and dragged off his hat. "Roy," he said, nervously tap­ping his hat against his knee, "I think I might have a solution to Temptation's problem." "Well, speak up, then," Mayor Acres grumped im­patiently. 'That's why we're here."

  Cody hauled in a steadying breath, not at all sure how his idea would be accepted. ‘‘What we need to do," he said slowly, "is to advertise for women."

  Somewhere in the crowded room the legs of a chair hit the floor with a loud thump, and one man, caught in midswallow during Cody's brief recitation, spewed beer. Across the room someone shouted, "Hell. If you're horny, Cody, why don't you just drive up to Austin a nd pick yourself up a whore for the night?" The comment was met with hoots and hollers and a general round of back slapping.

  Cody frowned. He hadn't expected anybody to jump on his idea, at least not at first, but he sure as heck hadn't expected, to be made a fool of.

  "That's not what I had in mind," he said dryly. "It doesn't take somebody with a college degree to figure out that if you want to grow a town, you need women to do it. As far as I know," he added, nar­rowing an eye at the man who'd told him to find himself a whore, "men haven't figured out how to reproduce on their own just yet."

  He shifted, drawing his hat between his hands. "What we need to do is take a look at the businesses we've lost, assess what businesses or professionals we'll need in the future and advertise for women to move here and fill those needs."

  At the word "need," someone snickered and Cody shot him a look that would peel paint off a barn. Sorry he'd even bothered to share his idea for saving Temp­tation, Cody rammed his Stetson back on his head. "That's all I've got to say," he muttered, then sat down.

  The laughter continued and Cody's face turned red­der and redder until Harley felt compelled to come to his friend's defense. With a sigh, he pushed to his feet. "You boys can laugh all you want, but I haven't heard a one of you come up with a better idea. Per­sonally I don't give a double-damn whether any women move here or not." He waited a beat, then added, "But Cody's right when he says it'll take women to grow our town." He clapped a hand on Cody's shoulder in a show of support "I, for one, stand behind him on this plan of his to advertise for women, and I hope all of you will do the same."

  What no one in the room realized was that the re­porter from the county newspaper was busily scrawling notes on a steno pad, recording Cody Fipes's plan to save Temptation right along with Harley Kerr's endorsement of the plan. When the weekly issue was delivered to its subscribers on Wednesday, the entire county would read about the meeting in the small town of Temptation, Texas, whose population had dwindled to a depressing 978, and Cody Fipes's sug­gestion for how to save it. By Thursday, the AP ser­vice would have picked up the story and carried it nationwide.

  By Friday afternoon, news trucks and vans would line the narrow main street that marked the town of Temptation, their cameras rolling, hoping to capitalize on this story of the town who hoped to save itself by advertising for women.

  Within forty-eight hours, single women from all fifty states would be gossiping—and maybe dreaming a little—about the small Texas town of Temptation where the men outnumbered the women eight to one.

  One

  Houston, Texas

  A television sat on the apartment's breakfast bar, its volume muted, while a suited anchorman on the screen droned out the six-o'clock news. Across the narrow dining room, Mary Claire Reynolds sat at her kitchen table, cradling her sleeping eight-year-old son, Jimmy, against her breasts. Her chin rested on top of his head while hot guilty tears streaked down her cheeks and dripped onto the boy's red hair, the same unique shade as her own.

  With Jimmy sitting in profile on his mother's lap, his bruised cheek and split lip were visible to the two women sitting on the opposite side of the table. They had arrived as soon as they'd heard the news of the boy being attacked, offering, as they had so-many times in the past, support and comfort.

  Leighanna exchanged a concerned look with Reg­gie, then leaned across the table to lay a comforting hand on Mary Claire's arm. "It's not your fault," she murmured softly. "You mustn't blame yourself."

  Mary Claire caught her lower lip between her teeth, trying to hold back the strangled sob that burned in her throat, and tightened her arms around Jimmy. "It is," she said, unable to stop the hot angry tears that streaked down her face. "If I'd been home, this never would have happened." She cupped a hand on her son's tousled hair as if at this late date she could protect him from the fists of the gang of boys who'd attacked him. Her hand inadvertently touched the bruise on his cheek, and he roused and tried to pull from her arms. She hugged him tighter, rocking slowly back and forth, murmuring to him to soothe him back into a restful sleep.

  When he had settled again, she pressed her lips to his head. "I never should've divorced Pete," she murmured with regret. "I should've listened to my mother and simply looked the other way when he strayed."

  Reggie straightened, a look of shock on her face. "Mary Claire, you don't mean that!"

  "I do mean it," she said fiercely. "If I'd stayed, I wouldn't have been working. I'd have been at home with my children where I belong."

  "You were miserable married to Pete Reynolds," Reggie reminded her. "He was a two-timing snake."

  Mary Claire lifted her tearstained face. "But we were safe. I'd gladly sacrifice my pride for my chil­dren's safety."

  "What about the children's happiness?" Reggie asked. "Would you sacrifice that, as well?"

  Mary Claire closed her eyes against the painful re- minder.

  "It's true, isn't it?" Reggie persisted. "The kids are happier now than they were when you and Pete were married. He never spent time with them. He was always too consumed with his job and chasing skirts. And when he was home, all the two of you did was fight."

  "But my children were safe," Mary Claire insisted. "And I was at home with them to see that they stayed that way." She pressed her lips to the top of Jimmy's head again, then propped her chin there and turned her teary gaze on the television screen. Suddenly she stiffened, her eyes widening. "Leighanna! Quick!" she cried. "Turn up the volume on the television!"

  Startled, Leighanna twisted in her chair and stretched to adjust the volume. On the screen a re­porter stood in front of a sign that read Temptation, Texas, Population 978.

  "Temptation? Isn't that where your aunt Harriet lived?" Leighanna asked in surprise. Mary Claire nodded but quickly shushed Leighanna with a wave of her hand, her gaze riveted on the screen.

  "...and while other small rural towns around the state and around the country are slowly losing their residents to the economic pull of larger cities, Temp­tation, Texas, has devised a plan to save their town." The camera panned, taking in the sleepy community of Temptation.

  Mary Claire felt her throat tighten at the sight of the town, remembering the-lazy summers she'd spent there visiting her aunt Harriet. Things hadn't changed much through the years. Temptation still looked like a Norman Rockwell painting.

  An American flag still flew above the roof of Car­ter's Mercantile, which served double duty as the town's post office and only grocery store. A red-and-white-striped pole turned slowly in front of the bar­bershop while a dog napped on the sidewalk in front of the open door. The only movement that broke the solitude came in the form of a dust-covered pickup truck as it chugged down the street.

  "That's it," Mary Claire whispered. The tears were gone and her eyes now glowed with newfound hope. "Temptation. We'll move to Temptation."

  Leighanna turned to stare at her friend. "Tempta­tion?" she repeated in disbelief.

  "Yes, Temptation," Mary Claire repeated firmly.

  "Do you know anyone there?"

  Mary Claire shook her head. "Just Uncle Bert and Aunt Harriet. But of course they're gone now."

  "Oh, Mary Claire," Leighanna cried, "you can't just up and move somewhere where you don't know a living soul! Temptation's a small town. Why, there are more people living in a city block of Houston than live in that entire community."

  "Exactly."

  "But where will you live?" Leighanna asked, try­ing to keep the growing panic from her voice. "Where will you work? The reporter said the econ­omy is drying up."

  Mary Claire kept her gaze on the screen. "I have my aunt Harriet's house. There's a renter living there now, but I'll just tell him he has to move. As for work, I'll find something."

  Knowing she was no match for Mary Claire's stub­bornness once she set her mind on something, Leighanna turned to Reggie for help. Of the two, Reggie was the more sensible and the only one whose stub­bornness equaled Mary Claire's. "Reggie, please," she begged, "see if you can talk some sense into her." When Reggie continued to stare at the screen, Leighanna gave her friend's shoulder an impatient shove. "Reggie! Help me out here!"