The Navy SEAL's E-Mail Order Bride (Heroes of Chance Creek) Read online

  By any means necessary.

  The angled logs, which had scared her from a distance, were even more frightening up close. They were too wide and slick to shimmy up. Running at them full tilt was the only way to reach the top. Regan backed up, took a deep breath and raced for the nearest one. She saw Mason’s worried expression, saw him reach his hands out to catch her should she fall, then her full attention was on the log itself.

  Her momentum carried her halfway up and she kept moving, knowing if she stopped she’d slide right back down. She pitched forward as her feet lost their grip, and as she fell she caught the top of the log and held on for dear life.

  Once more Mason came to her aid. He held a hand beneath the bottom of one of her feet, giving her just enough traction to push up and onto the horizontal log that formed the balance beam itself. Sitting on one end of it, legs dangling to either side, she caught her breath.

  And realized this obstacle was all but impossible.

  The log was thick, but not thick enough to make the crossing comfortable. Balance had never been her strong suit. There was no way she could stand up and walk along the log, let alone move along it as fast as Mason had.

  “You can cross it just as you are,” Mason said in a conversational tone. “That’s how we all started.”

  “To hell with that.” Regan got to her knees. Wobbled. Found what little balance she had. She stood up slowly, nearly tipping over several times.

  “Regan, trust your instincts. You know if you can do it or not.”

  She couldn’t do it. She knew that as plain as the nose on her face, but that meant nothing. She’d do it just to show him that you could do something impossible if you believed in yourself enough.

  “Find something dead ahead to focus on. Don’t look down.”

  A branch on a pine tree ahead of her had been sawn off some years ago. About fifteen feet off the ground, its stump kept her gaze level.

  She began to walk.

  Everything else faded away. Her focus tightened to the sawn-off branch stub, the log beneath her feet and Mason’s quiet voice leading her across the distance to the other side.

  She steadied as she went, finding a concentration she never knew she had. Now the end of the log was fifteen feet away. Ten feet. Five feet.

  “You can do it.”

  Regan started, wavered, caught herself.

  Ran the last few feet—

  And pitched over the side.

  “Regan!”

  Her fall took less than a moment, but it was long enough for her to brace for the impact. An impact that didn’t come.

  Mason caught her in his arms and crushed her to his chest. “Regan. Are you okay?”

  She blinked at him through suddenly-full eyes when she saw the love and concern in his face.

  “I knew you would catch me.” She reached up and kissed him, crushing her bare breasts against his chest. Mason moaned against her as she turned in his arms.

  “Let’s go back to the Hall.”

  She pulled back. “Not until we see who wins this race. And by the way—you still have to do the balance beam.” She wrenched out of his arms and darted away, laughing at Mason’s disbelieving shouts behind her.

  She stayed ahead of him until she reached the salmon ladder. Faced with this impossible obstacle, she didn’t know what to do.

  “Girls do twenty pull-ups,” Mason called as he leaped past her, grabbed the bar on his salmon ladder, pulled up and pumped his legs to pop it up a rung.

  Pull-ups? When was the last time she’d done pull-ups?

  She got started, doing four quickly, but slowing down for five, six and seven. She had to pause to rest between each one until she reached ten, and then she thought she couldn’t do anymore. She jumped down and paced in a circle, noticing only then that Mason had slowed down, too. Last time he had popped right up the ladder, one rung after another.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Pulled a muscle in my arm.” He scrunched his face into an exaggeration of pain.

  “Looks more like you’re constipated.”

  Mason laughed and dropped from the salmon ladder. He looked surprised to find himself on his feet beneath it.

  “Better start over, sailor!”

  She gripped the pull-up bar again. Did two more. Three. Four. The spaces between pull ups got longer and longer. Five. Six. Seven.

  Suddenly Mason began to pop up the ladder again. At her shout of frustration, he yelled down, “A miraculous recovery!”

  She pulled up again for all she was worth. Eight. Nine.

  Ten.

  She leaped down and ran for the finish line, the thud behind her telling her Mason was done with his obstacle, too. There was no way she could beat him in a flat out sprint. This called for deviousness.

  As his footsteps pounded up behind her, she leaped sideways, crashed into him and knocked them both to the ground.

  “What the hell?”

  Before he could catch his bearings, she shimmied beneath him, slipping her jean shorts and panties off right over her shoes. Suddenly naked, she popped up from under him and danced around, then dashed for the finish line.

  “Wait—Regan!”

  He came after her, caught her around the waist and they crashed to the ground again.

  “Damn it. This isn’t how you run an obstacle course,” Mason protested. He’d fallen in such a way as to cushion the blow for her.

  She smothered his protests in kisses. “But it’s a lot more fun, isn’t it?”

  “You’d better not do this when my brothers get home.”

  She hopped off of him and but before she could made a break for the finish line, he was on his feet, pulling her into a searing hot kiss. Regan forgot the obstacle course momentarily. It had been a few days since they’d been together and her body wanted more. He fumbled with his belt, and she helped him undo it, then struggled with the button of his jeans. She pulled him along toward the finish line as she worked on it, unzipping his fly, reaching into his pants.

  Taking hold of him.

  She wrapped her free arm around his neck, kissed him and stroked him all at once, still retreating backward. She had to get to the finish line.

  Mason kicked off his shoes, shucked off his jeans as they went and pulled them free of his legs, then lifted her right off her feet, wrapping her legs around his waist.

  Regan let out a cry as he pressed against her core, forgetting everything but Mason. When he laid her down on the ground she welcomed his weight on top of her.

  He gathered her close, kissing her mouth, her jaw, her throat, tracing his lips down to circle her breasts. Regan, coming alive beneath him, couldn’t get enough. She wanted him closer. Wanted him inside of her.

  When he pulled away she cried out in disappointment.

  “Regan, honey.” He let the moment draw out, his gaze searching hers. “Will you marry me?”

  “Yes!” She didn’t have to think about it. Didn’t care what their future brought. All she wanted was him. To be with him. He kissed her long and thoroughly, then lowered his face to rasp his cheek over the delicate skin of her breasts. The stubble of his beard chafed her, but she reveled in it, gasping with pleasure. When he took a nipple into his mouth, she arched back with a low, animal moan.

  He laved her nipples to peaks, cupped and squeezed her full breasts and worshipped each of them in turn. When he sank lower, she writhed at the exquisite torture of his tongue exploring her sensitive folds.

  “You need to cancel that doctor’s appointment,” he said, pulling away momentarily. “We’ll start a family the old-fashioned way whenever you’re ready.”

  “Right now,” she gasped. “Mason, right now.”

  He stilled. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “But—”

  “Mason!”

  Her cry of frustration must have convinced him, because he surged up over her, nudged her thighs apart roughly with his own and found her hot, wet and ready for him. He positi
oned himself, pulled Regan close and surged inside her.

  She cried out her pleasure and he did it again, his strong hard strokes quickly driving her to the brink of passion. “Mason—”

  He got the message. He stroked into her again and again, laced his fingers with hers up over her head, exposing her to his view, and increased his pace, pulling out and thrusting in until she rocked with his movements, gasping and crying out. Mason pumped his body, his muscles gripping and releasing, and worked Regan over and over until she went right over the edge with another cry. Bucking and grunting his release too, he collapsed on top of her, fighting for breath.

  When her heart rate had slowed and Regan came back to herself, she marveled at the man above her and how much she loved him.

  Speaking of which.

  She turned her head and spotted the white posts of the finish line just behind her. She untangled her fingers from Mason’s, reached up to press her mouth to his, raised her arm up and over her shoulder and smacked her hand down on the dirt.

  “I won!”

  * * *

  Mason had just gotten out of the shower when two trucks drove up the lane. Peering out of the tower bedroom curtains, he pulled on fresh clothes quickly and was downstairs before the truck doors opened and a handful of men and women spilled out.

  “Mason?” the man in the lead called out to him. A tall cowboy with dark hair and blue eyes, he looked familiar and Mason searched his memory until he placed him.

  “Noah Turner?”

  “Got it on your first try.” Noah came to shake his hand. “You remember Liam.”

  “Of course.” He shook Liam’s hand, too.

  “And Stella and Maya.”

  Mason had known all four of the Turner siblings back in his school days. Emma Larson had driven the second truck and she came up to say hello. He wondered who the others were. The three men bore a resemblance to Noah and Liam, but he didn’t recognize them.

  “Nice of you to come to call. Let me round up Regan and we’ll make you all some lunch.”

  “This isn’t a social call, Mason.”

  Damn. His good mood began to fade. Were they here to collect another debt? Did Noah think he needed to bring a posse?

  “We’re here to work,” one of the men he didn’t know said. “Where do we start?”

  His expression must have conveyed his confusion. Emma stepped forward. “Allen James spread the word around that you and Regan could use some help out here. Regan mentioned something similar the night she helped me with my loan paperwork, so I decided it was my turn to lend a hand. The rest of the gang decided to tag along.”

  “These troublemakers are my cousins—Eli, Brody and Alex Turner,” Noah put in. “They moved to town to help us out last year, after my father had a stroke. Now we’re working the Flying W together.

  Mason quickly shook hands with all of them, but he felt like he couldn’t keep up. “You’re here to help? You sure my uncle Zeke doesn’t owe you money?”

  Noah chuckled. “Heard about that, too. Don’t worry—I’m too cheap to lend money to anyone. And even if I had, I’d still come to help you. I know you won’t hit me up for cash.”

  “Don’t be too sure.” Mason couldn’t keep the sour note out of his voice. “You haven’t seen the state of the place.”

  The women went inside to find Regan, while the men headed out to the pasture with the unfinished fence. In no time at all, they’d completed that job and had moved on to another pasture, working together with the ease of long acquaintances, until Mason felt almost redundant. He missed Regan’s cheerful presence working beside him—and their games—but he was more grateful than he could say to have the extra hands.

  The Turners were all strong men who’d been working on ranches for years, so the job went smoothly. Soon after lunch—a picnic prepared by the women and brought out to them to eat on a checkered tablecloth—they caught up to where Mason had wanted to be.

  “You must have things to do back at your place,” he said to the others. He didn’t know how he’d accomplish the rest with a single set of hands, but he didn’t want to impose on friends.

  “I’d say there’s more to do here.” Noah cocked his hat back and rubbed his wrist over his forehead. The day was warmer than it had been.

  “There’s a lot more,” Mason admitted.

  “You got a list or is it in your head?” Liam asked.

  Mason pulled the rumpled timeline from the front seat of his truck and showed them. Liam, tall and dark like his brother, about twenty-six years old to Noah’s twenty-eight, looked it over. “I reckon we could give you a few hours a day for the next week or so and get it all done.”

  “We can put the word out, too,” Noah said. “There are lots of people who remember your family, Mason. They’ll want to help all they can. You’ve got your plan. It’ll just be a matter of delegating jobs when people show up.”

  Mason nodded. Just what he’d hoped for when he’d first arrived in town. “I appreciate what you’re doing.”

  “What’s next?” Alex asked, flipping a hammer in his hand. The Colorado Turners bore a distinct family resemblance to Noah and Liam—strong, broad-shouldered, clear-eyed.

  “We’ve got a couple more pastures to do. Then we need to fix the roof of the Hall.”

  Five pairs of eyes turned toward the tall structure. Noah scratched his head. “No offense, but I’m not looking forward to that.”

  * * *

  Regan came to the front hall when she heard voices calling her name and found three women looking for her. She recognized Emma Larson, but the other two were strangers.

  “Hi, Regan. I brought you some company,” Emma said. She made the introductions, telling Regan that Stella and Maya lived on the Flying W ranch with their brothers and cousins, who had come to help Mason with the rest of the fencing.

  Regan led them all out to the back porch and served them lemonade. “I was just about to make lunch.”

  “Let the men work a bit and then we’ll help you. We can have a picnic,” Emma suggested. “I brought some goodies along, too. I hoped you’d taste-test them.” She patted the basket she carried. She seemed excited and before Regan could ask if she’d had any news, she burst out, “I got my loan! I know your help made all the difference. I’m going to tell everyone about what you did. You’ll be swimming in customers for your consulting services.”

  “That’s wonderful!” Regan hugged her. “I’m so happy for you. When will the purchase go through?”

  “Next month. I can’t wait. I’m finally going to have my own bakery.”

  “Will you sell cupcakes?” Stella Turner was a vivacious brunette with laughing hazel eyes.

  “Of course. I’ll sell everything I can think of.”

  Stella peered down the track where the men had disappeared to the far pastures. “Normally I’d be out there with the men,” she confided to Regan. “I work the ranch with my brothers and cousins. Live for riding horses and all that. But I wanted to meet you first. Allen James thought you were just the ticket for Mason. I can see what he means.”

  Maya was quieter, but no less welcoming. Twenty-four, with light brown hair and blue eyes, she seemed a little dreamy. Regan wondered if a man was the subject of those dreams, but there was no ring on Maya’s finger and she didn’t feel she knew the young woman well enough to ask.

  “How are you adjusting to ranch life?” Stella didn’t hide her curiosity. “Emma says you’re a city girl.”

  “That’s right. At first it was a bit of a shock, but I think I’ll get used to it okay. I love the view and the quiet. I like working with Mason, too,” Regan said.

  “Are you two getting married?” Maya asked shyly.

  Regan smiled. “Yes.” The thought made her tingle down to her toes.

  “It takes courage to move to a new place and start over.” Emma made a face. “I’m so glad to be coming home. Are you settling in okay? You haven’t been much to town.”

  “We haven’t had time. It
’s been a little lonely,” Regan admitted, “but I was lonely in New York, too. My two best friends had moved away.” She hadn’t spoken to either of them in weeks now. She’d hesitated to call and tell them what she’d been doing. Traveling to Montana with a man she’d just met? They’d both be on planes to fetch her home first thing.

  “Well, now you have three friends. I’m glad you’ve moved here. Chance Creek can use some new blood now and then.”

  Regan returned Emma’s smile. The woman was glowing with happiness over getting her loan, and she felt gratified she’d played a small part in helping her secure it. Would there be enough consulting work in Chance Creek to make money? She didn’t know, but if the last few weeks had been any indication, there was plenty of work here on the ranch for her to do. Maybe consulting could be a part-time gig. She liked Emma, Stella and Maya. They were practical women with a fun-loving streak. The kind of friends she liked the best. She was beginning to think that life on the ranch would be far more active and interesting than life in the city had ever been.

  “Do you have plans for fixing up the Hall?” Emma asked.

  Regan snapped back to the present. Did she ever. “Want a tour?”

  The women eagerly got to their feet. As Regan led them around the first floor, she discussed all the ideas she had so far. “I told Mason to get his mother to send us pictures of the way it used to be furnished so I can try to replicate it.”

  Maya gasped. “I know where to start. Redder’s Auction House. That’s where Zeke brought all the things he wanted to sell.”

  Stella turned on her. “How on earth do you know that?”

  “Deal told me. My boyfriend,” she explained to Regan. “Art Redder is his uncle and he works for him sometimes, clearing out houses and loading up trucks. Deal told me once that Zeke Hall kept bringing things in one at a time to Art and it was driving Art crazy. He likes to buy big lots all at once. That’s how he makes his money.”