Branded. B.J. Daniels

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       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      I wanted to kick off this new series with a dedication to

       a good friend who has been in my thoughts. This one is for Debra Webb, one of the strongest, most determined women I know and one heck of a writer.

      Chapter One

      Emma Chisholm heard the ruckus from clear back in the ranch kitchen. She wiped her hands on her apron as she walked toward the front of the sprawling house to peer out over the wide porch to the yard.

      After a whirlwind courtship and marriage, she hadn’t been prepared for her new home. Hoyt had warned her that his ranch was in the middle of Nowhere, Montana, but she hadn’t been able to imagine anything this isolated or this huge.

      She remembered thinking that day two weeks ago, when they’d driven north for three hours after picking up one of his ranch trucks at the airport in Billings, that she didn’t really know what she was getting into—not with her new life. Or her new husband. After all, what did she really know about Hoyt Chisholm?

      And what did he know about her? Very little since she had purposely skimmed over the past. It was a given that both being over fifty, they had things in their pasts they wanted to forget.

      The thought that Hoyt might also have something in his past he wanted to hide had never occurred to her. That was an unsettling thought, she realized as she headed for the front of the rambling ranch house.

      Even through the cloud of dust they were kicking up, she recognized the two young men brawling by the corral. Emma sighed, shaking her head as she watched two of her stepsons fighting. When Hoyt had told her that he had six sons, she’d been shocked. Funny how that hadn’t come up when they met in Denver and found themselves flying to Vegas for an impromptu wedding.

      She’d expected them to be boys, since that was what he called them. To her surprise, they were six grown men from twenty-six to thirty-three years old. But they definitely behaved like boys. Her six, big, strapping stepsons were typically involved in one squabble or another on a daily basis and she’d come to realize that Hoyt was usually the reason. The boys, all adopted, had apparently been raised without a woman in the house to give them any guidance and Hoyt dang sure wasn’t providing any.

      Emma saw her husband standing in the shade at the other end of the porch watching two of his sons rassle in the dirt.

      “You just going to stand there, Hoyt Chisholm?” she asked as she stepped out on the porch.

      He shot her that grin that had stolen her heart and clearly her senses, as well. How else could she explain marrying a man she barely knew to come to this ranch so far from civilization?

      Hoyt took off his Stetson and scratched the back of his neck. She could tell that he wasn’t going to do a darn thing about this. Just as she could see that he wanted her to accept the way things were on the Chisholm Cattle Company ranch. By now he must be realizing that wasn’t going to happen.

      Stepping off the porch, she walked around to the water faucet at the side of the house, snatched up the hose and turned the faucet on full force.

      Hoyt, seeing what she was up to, quickly abandoned the porch as if he just remembered he had something to do in the barn.

      Emma was tempted to turn the water on him, but she knew it wouldn’t do any good. He’d just laugh and hightail it out of range.

      His two sons were still rolling around in the dirt as Emma dragged the hose over and sprayed them.

      “What the hell?” Colton said as he leaped to his feet.

      “Don’t you be using that kind of language around me, Colton Chisholm,” Emma snapped and sprayed him again.

      Tanner was on his feet, same as his brother, both now soaked to the skin, the dust on their clothes turning to mud.

      Emma shook her head as she looked at the two of them and their hangdog expressions. Both were handsome to a fault.

      “This is all your doing, Hoyt Chisholm,” she called after her husband. “You’re the reason they’re always squabbling, each of them trying to win favor with you.” She’d seen that within the first twenty-four hours of moving into the main house even though the “boys” had their own houses on the huge ranch that was Chisholm Cattle Company.

      Of course, Hoyt pretended not to hear, but she could tell by the way he ducked his head as he stepped into the barn that he’d heard just fine. His sons were brought up wild. And he thought that was a good thing?

      She turned her attention back to the two young men standing before her. They had both retrieved their hats and stood looking sheepish and wet and worried about what she might do next.

      “I’d best not catch you fighting like tomcats again,” she said, scowling at the two of them. “Now get on out of here before I give you another good soaking.”

      They tipped their hats and took off in the direction their father had gone. But within a few feet she could hear them arguing again.

      She shook her head. It was time for Hoyt’s “boys” to grow up, and she knew exactly what each of them needed. A woman.

      Not just any woman. It took a special woman to domesticate a Chisholm man, she reflected, thinking of Hoyt.

      As she turned off the water and coiled up the hose again, she told herself the hardest part would be finding the right woman for each of them. Since marrying Hoyt, she’d been thinking about how to bring this family together. It was clear that her stepsons had been more than surprised when their father had brought home a wife—and less than pleased. But she was determined to change all that.

      She’d have to be careful, though, Emma thought, as she turned back to the kitchen and the apple pies she was helping the cook make for supper. If Hoyt or her stepsons got wind of what she was up to, there would be hell to pay.

      But she was willing to take that chance. She smiled, thinking of her husband. The key was gentling a man, not breaking him. Love could accomplish the most amazing things, she told herself, hoping that was true.

      She set her mind to which of her stepsons would be first to have his life changed forever with her help—and possibly a cattle prod.