Stryker's Wife (Man of the Month) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Cover Page

  Excerpt

  Dear Reader

  Title Page

  Books by Dixie Browning

  About the Author

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Epilogue

  Copyright

  “Debranne, I’ve Got A Proposition For You….”

  No, dammit, not a proposition, a proposal! Kurt scowled at his reflection in the mirror, one side of his face covered with lather, as he tried to compose a brief, carefully worded proposal of marriage that could not possibly be construed as a declaration of love.

  He had decided that genuine liking mixed with a hefty dose of lust was not too bad a basis for a marriage. Especially considering the fact that so many marriages based on undying love ended up on the rocks.

  Right. So he would start by pointing out that fact, and then he would say, “So you see, we’re not talking romance here. All I’m looking for is a simple, straightforward, mutually beneficial agreement.”

  The shower droned on, the mirror steamed up. Kurt swore and cleared a patch with his forearm. “Jeez,” he muttered. “How could any woman in her right mind refuse a proposal like that?”

  Three very different sexy bachelors say “I do!” You met the tall one in Alex and the Angel (September 1995), the dark one in The Beauty, the Beast and the Baby (March 1996); now meet the handsome one!

  Dear Reader,

  The holidays are always a busy time of year, and this year is no exception! Our “banquet table” is chock-full of delectable stories by some of your favorite authors.

  November is a time to come home again—and come back to the miniseries you love. Dixie Browning continues her TALL, DARK AND HANDSOME series with Stryker’s Wife, which is Dixie’s 60th book! This MAN OF THE MONTH is a reluctant bachelor you won’t be able to resist! Fall in love with a footloose cowboy in Cowboy Pride, book five of Anne McAllister’s CODE OF THE WEST series. Be enthralled by Abbie and the Cowboy—the conclusion to the THREE WEDDINGS AND A GIFT miniseries by Cathie Linz,

  And what would the season be without HOLIDAY HONEYMOONS? You won’t want to miss the second book in this cross-line continuity series by reader favorites Merline Lovelace and Carole Buck. This month, it’s a delightful wedding mix-up with Wrong Bride, Right Groom by Merline Lovelace.

  And that’s not all! In Roared Flint is a secret baby tale by RITA Award winner Jan Hudson. And Pamela Ingrahm has created an adorable opposites-attract story in The Bride Wore Tie-Dye.

  So, grab a book and give yourself a treat in the middle of all the holiday rushing. You’ll be glad you did.

  Happy reading!

  Senior Editor

  and the editors of Silhouette Desire

  Please address questions and book requests to:

  Silhouette Reader Service

  U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269

  Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3

  Stryker’s Wife

  Dixie Browning

  Books by Dixie Browning

  Silhouette Desire

  Shadow of Yesterday #68

  Image of Love #91

  The Hawk and the Honey #111

  Late Rising Moon #121

  Stormwatch #169

  The Tender Barbarian #188

  Matchmaker’s Moon #212

  A Bird in the Hand #234

  In the Palm of Her Hand #264

  A Winter Woman #324

  There Once Was a Lover #337

  Fate Takes a Holiday #403

  Along Came Jones #427

  Thin Ice #474

  Beginner’s Luck #517

  Ships in the Night #541

  Twice in a Blue Moon #588

  Just Say Yes #637

  Not a Marrying Man #678

  Gus and the Nice Lady #691

  Best Man for the Job #720

  Hazards of the Heart #780

  Kane’s Way #801

  *Keegan’s Hunt #820

  *Lucy and the Stone #853

  *Two Hearts, Slightly Used #890

  †Alex and the Angel #949

  †The Beauty, the Beast and the Baby #985

  **The Baby Notion #1011

  †Stryker’s Wife #1033

  Silhouette Special Edition

  Finders Keepers #50

  Reach Out To Cherish #110

  Just Deserts #181

  Time and Tide #205

  By Any Other Name #228

  The Security Man #314

  Belonging #414

  Silhouette Romance

  Unreasonable Summer #12

  Tumbled Wall #38

  Chance Tomorrow #53

  Wren of Paradise #73

  East of Today #93

  Winter Blossom #113

  Renegade Player #142

  Island on the Hill #164

  Logic of the Heart #172

  Loving Rescue #191

  A Secret Valentine #203

  Practical Dreamer #221

  Visible Heart #275

  Journey to Quiet Waters #292

  The Love Thing #305

  First Things Last #323

  Something for Herself #381

  Reluctant Dreamer #460

  A Matter of Timing #527

  The Homing Instinct #747

  Yours Truly

  Single Female (Reluctantly) Seeks…

  Silhouette Books

  Silhouette Christmas Stories 1987

  “Henry the Ninth”

  Spring Fancy 1994

  “Grace and the Law”

  *Outer Banks

  †Tall, Dark and Handsome

  **Daddy Knows Last

  DIXIE BROWNING

  is celebrating her sixtieth book for Silhouette since 1980 with the publication of Stryker’s Wife. She has also written a number of historical romances with her sister under the name Bronwyn Williams. A charter member of Romance Writers of America, a member of Novelists, Inc., Browning has won numerous awards for her work. She divides her time between Winston-Salem and the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

  One

  Inhaling the familiar aroma of salt, diesel fuel and fish, Kurt Stryker tilted the fighting chair, propped his feet on the transom of his charter boat, the R&R, and sipped his first beer of the day. Life, on the whole, was good, he decided. Idly, he watched through a forest of masts and outriggers as the sun slipped slowly beneath the surface of the Atlantic.

  “How many o’ them things have you had?” his young mate demanded from the pier, having just arrived with their evening meal. “There’s coffee in the pot if you want sump’n to drink.”

  “One. This is it.” Kurt held up the brown bottle.

  A skeptical look on his freckled face, Frog boarded the boat carrying a paper sack of burgers and fries and a king-size cola. Kurt silently cursed the drunken bastard who had spawned the kid and dragged him all over the country, leaving him with more than his share of scars. Kurt knew about scars. He had already dealt with his own, but then, his were mostly the visible kind. Frog’s were the kind that had to be found before they could be healed.

  “Did you pick up the mail?” he asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Well?”

  The boy shrugged his bony shoulders. “Usual stuff.”

  Which meant bills. At fourteen, Frog Smith could barely read. Kurt had enrolled him in the local school, much to the boy’s disgust. In their spare time, between charters and maintenance work, he tutored him in readin
g, math, navigation and survival skills.

  Frog had already mastered a few survival skills that Kurt, after years of flying search-and-rescue missions for the U.S. Coast Guard, had never even considered. Their relationship had progressed over the past two years from combativeness through wariness to a mutual respect. And perhaps something more, at least on Kurt’s part.

  Frog handed over a few rumpled envelopes, and Kurt quickly scanned the return addresses. “Jones’s Hardware. That’ll be the paint.” The R&R was one of the few remaining wooden charter boats along this section of the North Carolina coast. He’d bought her for a song and spent a fortune bringing her up to standard. In a year or so, he might spend another fortune on a first-class fiberglass job.

  Then again, he might not. Wood was good. Classic, you might say.

  He examined another envelope but didn’t bother to open it. Pierce’s Electronic Repair. “This one’s going to bust the bank,” he muttered. It took more than a compass, a flare and a few life jackets to operate legally these days.

  “We broke?” There was anxiety in the boy’s voice.

  “Nah, we’re not broke, but we’re going to have to hustle if we plan to buy that house out on Oyster Point.”

  “Hey, who needs a house? We got us a place to live.”

  “We need a house, that’s who. Anywhere else, we wouldn’t get away with living aboard the R&R. There’s rules—”

  “Ah—rules is for fools,” Frog said dismissively.

  Shaking his head, Kurt quickly scanned the rest of the mail. No cancellations. Thank the Lord for small favors. The season was winding down. Barring storms, he still had five more charters on the book, but he was determined to make it through an entire season in the black before dipping into his retirement fund for a house that was in even worse shape than the boat had been when he’d bought it.

  Actually, his first season as captain of his own boat had been pretty successful so far. He liked to think it was because he was damned good at what he did, but it probably had more to do with the fact that his rates were the cheapest along this section of the coast. The R&R was hardly a luxury yacht. Bottom-of-the-line carpet to cover the hatches. Ditto the plumbing fixtures. But she had a pair of dependable Detroit diesels and a hull that had been designed specifically for the waters around the Outer Banks.

  “Three burgers? Who’s the third one for?” Kurt asked as Frog ripped into the sack.

  “Hey, I’m a growing kid, awright?”

  “I told you you need milk with your meals, not all those colas.”

  “I ain’t growing all that much.” The towheaded teenager bit off a third of his first cheeseburger.

  “Done your homework yet?” Kurt asked after awhile.

  “Aww, man—you’re worse’n Pa ever was.”

  Kurt doubted that. From what he’d been able to put together from the locals and a few of Frog’s remarks, the boy’s parents had migrated from somewhere out west doing odd jobs and knocking over the occasional convenience store. The mother had dropped out of sight several years ago. Nobody knew where she was. Frog and his old man had wound up at Swan Inlet, where that gentleman had found temporary work driving a fish truck. When he’d been sober enough. He’d been headed north with a load of gray trout when he’d tried to beat a fast freight train to a crossing. It was discovered during the cleanup of the ensuing wreckage that fish wasn’t all he’d been transporting.

  Frog had already gone to earth by the time the first social worker had come sniffing around. It had been generally assumed that he’d moved on, and that was the end of that. Three weeks later, when he was caught shoplifting food at a neighborhood supermarket, one of the locals had offered him a room and a job. The boy had declined. Claimed he was seventeen, used to being on his own.

  He was fourteen. His voice was still in the process of changing. He’d been bunking aboard a dry-docked commercial fishing boat and doing odd jobs around the marina when Kurt had bought the boat right out from under him, so to speak, and had more or less inherited the kid. They were a team now. A pretty good one, although Frog didn’t always agree with that assessment.

  “Homework,” Kurt reminded him now.

  “Hell, man, you told me yourself you never got no degree. What’s the big deal?”

  “Didn’t get a degree, not never got no. Don’t swear, and we’re talking high school diploma now. A diploma is a big deal. We’ll talk about your degree later.”

  “If I’m still around,” Frog muttered.

  “You’ll be around.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “Yeah. Who else is going to keep me on course? One beer, no smokes and no fast women?” Kurt grinned. Slipping off his eye patch, he scratched his head where the tapes tied in back. “A man’s gotta have someone he can count on when the chips are down.”

  Frog nodded sagely. “A guy to watch his back and see don’t nobody break no bottle over his head.”

  Kurt didn’t bother to correct his grammar. Rome wasn’t built in a day. Right now he was more concerned with teaching the boy trust, responsibility and the advantages of a basic education. “You got it, kid.” He held up a palm. Frog high-fived him just as a woman emerged from the fifty-five-footer on the other side of the finger pier and sent him a speculative look.

  “Captain Stryker, isn’t it? You took out that fishing party from Kinston? I heard you guys when you went out this morning. I was still in bed.”

  “Sorry if we disturbed your sleep, ma’am.”

  “Ma’am. That’s cute. And Captain—you can disturb my sleep any old time.” She smiled. She had a pretty smile. At least most people would call it pretty. For some reason, it made Kurt nervous.

  “Shark off the port beam,” Frog mumbled under his breath. He was grinning from ear to ear. One of his chief sources of amusement since they had teamed up had been watching women’s reactions to Kurt and Kurt’s reaction to women.

  “Ever do any moonlight cruises?” the woman inquired, her voice laced with all sorts of possibilities.

  Frog covered a snort of laughter with a grimy hand. Ignoring him, Kurt concentrated on not staring at the woman’s sagging halter. What was inside it wasn’t sagging. Not at all.

  “Er, ah…” He cleared his throat.

  “I’ve heard it can be awfully nice offshore on a calm night.”

  “Long’s you wear plenny o’ clothes. Them vampire skeeters’ll be all over you the minute the wind drops off,” Frog put in with a knowing snicker.

  “Stow it,” Kurt growled quietly. He had no intention of taking the woman up on whatever it was she was hinting at. Nevertheless, it was the captain’s decision to make, not his mate’s.

  And the captain was single, dammit. He was male. He might be an aging, one-eyed gimp with a lousy track record where women were concerned, but that didn’t mean he was out of the race. Not by a long shot. If he wanted a woman, he would damn well have one. And regardless of what he’d said earlier, he didn’t need any smart-mouth kid to run interference for him.

  She kept looking at him. Kurt was used to having women look at him. His nickname in college had been Handsome. Which had embarrassed the hell out of him, even more than the stuttering that had made his life miserable all through grade school.

  Which was one of the reasons he was still somewhat socially retarded. His two best friends back in high school, Gus and Alex, had teased him about being shy. Their girlfriends had thought he was cute.

  Cute! Judas priest. That was even worse than being shy!

  He’d been a damn good football player in his high school and college days, though, which had probably accounted for his popularity with women. There was sure as hell nothing out of the ordinary about dark blond hair, gray eyes and his father’s square jaw and blunt nose.

  After he’d dropped out of college and joined the Coast Guard, the uniform had only seemed to add to the attraction. Unfortunately, it had been too late to do him much good. The woman he’d been in love with at the time had preferred Alex’s money
to Kurt’s good looks or Gus’s rough charm.

  Dina. All three of them had been in love with her. She’d chosen Alex, and eventually, Kurt and Gus had gotten over her.

  At least, Kurt had. Since then he’d gotten over a number of lesser attractions before getting involved seriously again. Then, ironically, it had been his lack of looks that had done him in. He’d still been pretty much of a physical wreck when Evelyn had left him leaning on his crutch at the altar.

  Idly, he wondered what Dina and Evelyn would have made of a dinky little no-stoplight fishing village like Swan Inlet.

  What would they have made of Frog? A homely kid who was all long, skinny limbs, big feet and tough talk.

  He couldn’t picture either one of them being content to live aboard a reconstituted commercial fishing boat with no Jacuzzi, no maid service—not even a CD player. The whole idea struck him as amusing and just a bit sad.

  So, okay. Maybe he would go ahead and start the process of buying that house. He had a family now—or as much of a family as he was ever apt to have. After nearly twenty years of pulling up stakes every three years, moving from base to base—from Carolina to California, from Hawaii to Alaska to the U.S. Virgin Islands—he was more than ready to settle down.

  “Captain Stryker? I’m pretty much at loose ends almost every evening,” the woman in the loose halter said, her voice a husky invitation.

  Kurt shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “Yes, ma’am. The thing is, I’m…uh, booked up pretty solid.”

  Frog smirked.

  The woman sniffed.