The Bridal Path: Danielle

  THOSE WATKINS BOYS! THAT WILDE WOMAN!

  When handsome single dad Slade Watkins came to town, all Riverton wagered that a wedding was in the offing. The hapless widower hadn’t a clue about taming his two rambunctious sons—until pretty Danielle Wilde took the motherless mischief-makers under her wing. A born nurturer, Dani clearly hankered to call the Watkins clan her own. Unfortunately, sexy Slade had vowed never, ever to rewed. Still, the townsfolk knew: once a Wilde woman put her mind to marriage…a man could kiss his bachelorhood goodbye!

  Watch as three sisters fall in love with the men of their dreams and walk down THE BRIDAL PATH.

  The Bridal Path: Danielle

  Sherryl Woods

  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

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Epilogue

  Chapter One

  Danielle Wilde was pushing thirty, unmarried and mad as hell about it. The oldest of rancher Trent Wilde’s three daughters, she’d planned to be a mother several times over by now. She’d set the goal the first time she’d cradled a doll in her arms, and never once had she wavered from it. Okay, once. The first time she’d held her squalling baby sister, she might have had a few doubts. She’d been little more than a baby herself at the time, so that hardly counted.

  At any rate, in a goal-oriented family like hers, she was pretty much a failure. Strong-willed Sara was operating the family ranch, just as she’d always envisioned. Ashley, the prettiest and brightest, had had a spectacular run as a successful cover model before settling down again back home in Riverton.

  And here she was, living like a spinster in a small house in town, successfully selling her jams and baked goods to the general store and playing the piano in church on Sundays. Her life was so tame and predictable, so completely and thoroughly single, it made her want to spit.

  Seeing both of her younger sisters marry the men of their dreams this past year hadn’t helped a bit, either. Sara had quite literally bet the ranch on the outcome of a bronco ride to win ex-rodeo champ Jake Dawson. Ashley had bopped reformed rebel Dillon Ford on the head with a lamp, then turned that inauspicious reunion into a fiery, devil-may-care romance that had set the whole town on its ear. Both sisters were blissfully happy.

  She was thrilled for them, she really was, but oh, how she longed for the same thing for herself. Dani sighed just thinking about the grit and determination her sisters had employed to get the men and the life-styles they wanted. Nothing had stood in their way, least of all their meddling father, who had his own ideas about the choices they should make for their lives. Sara and Ashley were masters of their own destinies, willing to do the most outrageous things if that’s what it took to get what they wanted.

  The most outrageous thing she had ever done was spill a little flour on the kitchen floor and leave it there overnight.

  As for men, the only ones in town worth having were already taken or were so old that the mere thought of children underfoot gave them heart palpitations.

  Her meddling father had picked out a couple of the latter for her, and if she couldn’t come up with an alternative fast, his suggestions were likely to start making sense. The very thought of marrying for little more than companionship had her pounding her latest batch of bread dough so fiercely the loaves were likely to be the consistency of bricks.

  Sucking in a deep, calming breath, she stared at the flat mess she’d created and choked back a cry of despair–not over the bread so much as her whole pitiful, dull existence.

  “Well, drat,” she muttered and threw the entire batch of dough into the trash before starting over from scratch to make the round, crusty, country bread that sold so well to locals and tourists.

  If only it were so easy to set her life onto a new, more exciting course, she thought as she sifted flour into a huge bowl. Her hand stilled as she heard a muffled exchange on her back porch, followed by what just might have been childish laughter and the distinct, frenzied barking of a dog.

  Intrigued, she was halfway to the window to peek out when a loud crash and the clanging sound of metal against wood set off a stampede of scurrying footsteps, her own among them. She had the back door open in a split second. The sight that greeted her would have reduced a lesser woman to tears.

  Her pies, her beautiful blueberry pies, were upended all over the porch. All except for one, that is. In the hands of a towheaded boy of ten or so, it was being mashed into the face of what appeared to be his similarly towheaded younger brother.

  Meanwhile, the ugliest mongrel dog she had ever seen–a mix of black and brown and white patches–was racing around the two of them in circles, barking in a raspy way that sounded as if it had laryngitis. The dog was catching clumps of spilling blueberries with great glee.

  “I told you you were going to make a mess of it,” the older boy was saying, apparently oblivious to his own obvious contribution to the very visible disaster. “I told you. Just look what you’ve done.”

  The younger one’s response was cut off by another mouthful of pie being stuffed in his face.

  Dani cleared her throat loudly. Two matching pairs of blue eyes, wide as saucers, jerked her way. Both boys froze, creating a tableau of blueberry-covered, childish dismay. The dog, alerted that something had shifted, skidded to a halt in front of Dani, tail wagging, head cocked, blueberry stains all over his graying muzzle.

  “Ohmigosh,” the littlest boy muttered, wiping sticky streaks from his face with the tail end of his shirt, quickly turning it into a laundry nightmare. “Dad’s going to kill us.”

  “Deader than a doornail,” the older one agreed solemnly. With his gaze fixed hopefully on Dani, he pleaded, “Could you, maybe, not tell him? We’d make it up to you somehow. We promise. Please?”

  Faced with such a winsome appeal despite their blatant guilt, Dani couldn’t decide whether to laugh or cry. Forcing herself to take the expected stern tone, she said, “Perhaps you’d better explain just what happened here before I make any decisions.”

  “It was his idea,” the littlest boy said, earning a disgusted look from his brother for the betrayal. “Timmy is always getting us into trouble.”

  “Do not,” Timmy declared. “It’s you, Kevin. If you weren’t such a screwup, we never would have gotten caught.”

  “You said nobody was home,” Kevin countered.

  “That didn’t mean you could knock everything over. We were just supposed to steal one.” Timmy turned to Dani and rolled his eyes. “He’s only eight and he’s really pretty uncoordinated for a boy. This kind of stuff happens all the time.”

  “Does it really?” Dani asked dryly, staring at the mess on her porch. “This bad?”

  “Worse sometimes,” Timmy vowed. “Dad yells at us all the time.”

  “All the time,” Kevin concurred, nodding solemnly.

  “He says we’re going to be the death of him yet,” Timmy added.

  “Or wind up in juvenile hall,” Kevin said, his voice suddenly quivering and his eyes filling with tears. “Please don’t send us to jail.” The dog, sensing some sort of problem, edged closer to him and nuzzled his hand. Kevin sank down and threw his arms around the dog’s neck, clearly grateful for the offered comfort.

  Dani knew she should be just as furious as the constantly outraged father they described. Her entire morning’s work had been destroyed. Give
n what she herself had done to the bread, it was going to be a costly waste.

  And yet as she had watched the sibling drama unfold and listened to the rush of excuses and teary-eyed plea for mercy, a huge empty space deep inside her filled with longing.

  Forget who was to blame, forget the ruined pies, she couldn’t bring herself to scold either one of them. This was exactly the sort of mischief she’d meant to be surrounded by by this time in her life. Her heart turned to mush just staring at those blueberry-covered faces and their protective, mixed-breed dog.

  Not that immediate leniency would do, of course. A responsible adult would at least make them sweat a little longer before offering forgiveness. Besides, punishment was probably meted out on a regular basis by their father and it clearly hadn’t had any effect whatsoever. Only now did it strike her that there had been no mention of a mother. For the first time it occurred to her just who these boys might be.

  “Tell me your names,” she said, fixing her gaze on the oldest boy first. “You are?”

  “Timmy Watkins,” he admitted readily enough.

  “And I’m Kevin,” his brother chimed in.

  Watkins. The name instantly rang a bell. For the past few weeks she’d been hearing about two out-of-control newcomers to Riverton named Watkins. They were sons of a widower, who apparently didn’t know the meaning of discipline, according to those who’d already had run-ins with them. They were a very poor reflection on their dear great-grandparents, claimed those who remembered Seth and Wilma with fondness.

  She’d been told the boys were a pint-size demolition force. In fact, her neighbor swore she had seen the littlest one driving his father’s pickup right before it smashed into the railing outside Stella’s Diner, shattering the wood into splinters. Another friend, who lived on the opposite side of town, swore they were responsible for the destruction of her vegetable garden. If even half of what she’d heard was true, today’s mischief appeared to be all in a typical day’s work for the pair.

  “Are you going to tell our dad?” Timmy asked.

  Before Dani could reply, his expression turned stoic. “I guess you have to, huh? Grown-ups always stick together.”

  For once Dani decided not to fall into the trap of doing the expected. “What do you think I should do?” she asked. It was her experience that kids were often far tougher on themselves than any adult would ever be inclined to be. It would be fascinating to see how these two meted out justice.

  Clearly intrigued by her willingness to take suggestions, Timmy said eagerly, “You could make a pact with us. We’d make you our blood brother. Well, sister, I guess. That way it could be our secret forever.”

  She gave the proposal some thought, then nodded. “That is one possibility, I suppose. Any other ideas?”

  “And we would promise never, never to do it again,” Kevin offered.

  “A promise would be good,” Dani agreed.

  “We’d write it all out and sign in blood,” he added enthusiastically.

  “And exactly what would you be promising not to do again?” inquired a lazy, sexy male voice that could have melted an entire blizzard’s worth of snow. Even the dog went crazy at the sound of it, running around the yard in excited circles again.

  “Ohmigosh,” Kevin muttered. “We’re dead.”

  Based on their reactions, Dani gathered that that beguiling voice belonged to their father, a veritable ogre from their descriptions of his frequent wrath. He didn’t sound like any ogre she’d ever imagined.

  She glanced up from the two pint-size hellions who’d been terrorizing Riverton, Wyoming, for the past month and found herself face-to-face with the most incredibly gorgeous, thoroughly male human being she had ever set eyes on. All thoughts of pie and punishment fled.

  Instead, she considered hurling herself straight into the muscular arms he had folded across his very broad chest. Blue eyes, a grown-up version of the boys’, were the exact shade of a cloudless Wyoming sky. Blond hair, barely darker than his sons’, and the same careless style should have made him look angelic. But, like Timmy and Kevin, this man appeared to know an awful lot about sin. Pure devilment glinted in those eyes. A woman would have had to be blind to miss it.

  Of course, once he’d taken a thorough survey of the porch and added up two and two, he didn’t seem to like the conclusion he reached. A little of that impudence faded. In fact, the weariness that settled onto his face said a lot about just how frequently he came upon situations exactly like this one. For whatever reason, he chose to deal with the barking dog first.

  “Pirate, sit,” he ordered, proving that someone with a sense of humor had named the dog based on the lopsided black patch surrounding one eye. Pirate obeyed at once, tongue lolling as he gazed adoringly at his master.

  Mr. Watkins seemed grateful that at least someone in the family minded him. He patted the dog’s head absentmindedly as he focused his attention on his sons.

  “I assume you two are responsible for this,” he said with an air of parental resignation.

  “Yes, sir,” Timmy said.

  His father nodded at the expected admission, then turned his full attention on Dani.

  “I’m Slade Watkins. As I suppose you’ve gathered, these are my sons,” he said as if under the circumstances he very much regretted the fact.

  At that precise moment Dani wouldn’t have cared if he’d admitted parenting Jack the Ripper. The effect of all that blatant masculinity directed her way was enough to make her knees go weak. Obviously it had been way too long since she’d met anyone with Slade Watkins’s credentials in the masculinity department.

  Now, for the very first time in her life, she understood what Sara and Ashley had been talking about when they’d described that pit-of-the-stomach excitement that they’d felt when they’d met their respective mates. It was a sensation she’d been virtually certain less than an hour ago that she would never experience.

  She was so lost in thought, so caught up in the new sensations dazzling her that it took some time before she realized that Slade Watkins was talking to her.

  “The boys will pay for the pies,” he assured her, scowling at the two offenders.

  His expression was daunting enough that any other child would have quivered with dread. Not these two, Dani noted with a measure of admiration.

  Timmy straightened his shoulders with a touch of defiance. Despite his berry blue face and the accusations and counteraccusations being hurled only moments before, Kevin physically aligned himself with his brother. Side by side, they presented a united front.

  “Why should we?” Timmy demanded, no longer nearly as accommodating as he’d been before his father’s untimely arrival. “It’s just some dumb old pies. They shouldn’t have been out here on the porch in the first place. Whoever heard of putting pies outside or baking so many at once, anyway? She was practically begging somebody to take them.”

  “You don’t take what’s not yours,” Slade pointed out. “I don’t care where it is. Not only that, Ms. Wilde earns a living from baking these pies.”

  Dani was startled by his awareness both of her identity and of the livelihood she made from selling baked goods, jams and canned fruits and vegetables through the nearby general store. Given the indecent prices tourists paid for these homemade, gourmet items, a few wasted pies were going to make very little difference in her overall income for the month. She was about to tell Slade Watkins exactly that when he caught her gaze. There was a grim, steely-eyed warning in his expression that kept her silent.

  “What would each pie sell for?” he asked.

  “Ten dollars,” she said in a rush. Okay, she was cheating a bit, but she couldn’t charge these children what some tourist would have paid. Even at the cut rate, the two wide-eyed boys stared at her in dismay.

  “Ten whole dollars?” Timmy asked incredulously. “For each one?”

  “Actually, I think she’s giving you the wholesale price,” Slade Watkins told his son. “The sticker in the store says fift
een.”

  “But, Dad, that’s our whole allowance for the next two years, probably,” Kevin protested. “Timmy’s and mine. We won’t even be able to play a video game or rent a movie or anything.”

  “You should have thought of that before you walked onto this porch.”

  “We just wanted to taste one,” Kevin whispered. “We haven’t had homemade pie since Mama–”

  Slade Watkins cut him off as if the mention of their late mother was impossible to bear. “That is not the point. If you wanted pie, you should have told me.”

  “Like you can bake,” Timmy muttered.

  “I could have bought one of these,” Slade pointed out. “That is, if you hadn’t ruined them all.” His gaze returned to Dani. “How many were there?”

  That look on his face demanded the truth, not another of her fibs. “A dozen,” she confessed.

  “That’s like a hundred dollars or something,” Timmy said, clearly stunned.

  “A hundred and twenty,” his father corrected. “I’d say you’re going to be very busy this summer earning extra money to pay off your debt.”

  Shock spread across Kevin’s round face. “But, Dad, we’re just little kids. You can’t make us get jobs.”

  “No, but I can give you chores,” he said sternly. “Lots and lots of chores. So many chores that you’ll fall into bed exhausted every single night and won’t have one minute left over for mischief.”

  Despite Slade’s forbidding expression and his unspoken warning not to interfere, Dani took pity on the boys. They hadn’t meant any real harm. They couldn’t have known these pies were her livelihood. They’d just missed their mother’s baking. Her heart ached for them.

  “Perhaps we could work out an arrangement,” she said as two pairs of hopeful eyes instantly fixed on her. “You could do some chores for me to earn the money.”

  Their expressions brightened at once. Clearly they felt that she’d be a far less stern taskmaster than their father. They probably figured they could con her out of a share of baked goods, too.

  “Like what?” Timmy asked.