Chapter 1

“Dammit Logan, quit your bloody dallying and load the feed.” Lee bellowed from the other side of the truck. “Wyatt’s doing all the work.”

Logan tossed a look over his shoulder, taking his eyes from the pretty brunette for a moment, “Sure thing pa.” he called before settling his eyes back on her, “Duty calls Natalie.” He smirked completely unaffected by his father’s bellowing.

“No problem.” She said starting to back up and casting an unsure glance at his father. Every time she met Lee Strickland he was intimidating to her. Half the time he didn’t say a word and she still felt his presence. However, when he did speak, he had this voice that was able to elicit responses from people other than his sons. Logan might not seem affected but she nearly jumped to his commands. He was an old time cowboy who raised his sons under the same traditions as he was raised. Although she knew they probably had to deal with an incredible amount of discipline growing up, they sure turned into fine men. Her eyes guided to the oldest brother just emerging from the warehouse where they kept the feed.

Wyatt Strickland was every bit a cowboy like his father. She was sure that she was in love with him. When she was sixteen she was with her father when they delivered a load of lumber out to the ranch and he was working on a fence close to the road. It was a hot day so he’d disposed of his shirt and was bare from the waist up. His horse was tied to a post close by with his shirt tossed absently on the saddle horn. She even remembered the color. Pale green.

The presence of the horse let her know that he rode out to fix the fence and didn’t take the truck. It was admirable to her that he did things that way. Most men checked the fences by vehicle. At least she thought they did.

Nothing could erase that memory from her mind. He was incredibly tan, muscular and coated with a layer of perspiration while he concentrated heavily on the task at hand, not even seeming to notice the truck go by. He wore his cream Stetson pulled low over his brow to protect his face from the sun and the vision was incredibly sexy.

Her eyes watched him in the side mirror until he was out of sight. To a young naïve girl at the time, it was an incredible sight and she never forgot it. Even now she was remembering that day as if it happened just yesterday until Logan’s voice pulled her back to the present.

“Tell Missy, I’ll phone her later.” Logan said giving her a charming grin that worked quite well on the opposite sex when he wanted it to. Yet, Natalie’s eyes were drawn to something else past him but she nodded that she heard him.

As he turned to do as his father asked, he saw what drew her attention. He spotted Wyatt coming out of the warehouse with a fifty five pound bag of feed on each shoulder.

Because he wore a sleeveless t-shirt his thick arms were clearly visible as they surrounded each sack revealing the size of the muscles that he possessed. Muscles all earned from hard work. Not once did he break stride or slow down showing that it was no effort at all to tote such weight and he’d already made half a dozen trips.

Logan shook his head. When his brother was around women didn’t notice him at all and he was quite conceited where his looks were concerned. Logan knew he had charm and the looks to back it up, but Wyatt had that thick, hard body and although he wasn’t ugly he had a quiet strength about him that attracted women. Yet, he didn’t indulge as often as Logan did.

Logan wasn’t soft and flabby by any means because he’d worked alongside Wyatt since he was five, but his older brother had a good forty five pounds of muscle on him he was sure of it. It wasn’t that Logan was lazy, it was just that his brother worked like a bloody machine and Logan needed a social life.

As Wyatt turned to go back to the warehouse Logan fell in step beside him, “Natalie Taylor is watching you.”

Wyatt shrugged as he entered the building “She’s not my type.”

Logan smiled as Wyatt tossed another two bags on his thick shoulders. Natalie Taylor was the daughter of the General store owner that also sold bulk feed and lumber. It was the only store like that to serve their community of around twenty-two thousand including the surrounding ranchers and farmers. She was quite pretty, but young. He was sure she wasn’t even twenty yet, and Wyatt was twenty seven, two years his senior. However, if he thought she was a little freer with her affections, like her older cousin Missy, he would have gone out with her years ago. Still, there was that other thing. She wasn’t interested in him.

Missy on the other hand gave him what he wanted, when he wanted. She was the daughter of a lawyer and her family was quite well off. She liked to play the deviant child and go against her parents, so Logan snatched her up. She certainly wasn’t a virgin when they had sex for the first time, but he definitely wasn’t complaining. He picked her up in the bar and rocked his truck for almost three straight hours. Ever since then it had been a routine to get together. He liked her because of what she could do, but he certainly didn’t love her and she definitely wasn’t a girl you’d take home to mom.

After he packed two sacks on his shoulders mimicking Wyatt’s load, he walked toward the truck following him. He could see Natalie sweeping off the porch of the store. Unlike Missy, Natalie was definitely someone you’d take home to mom. Already he knew his mom would adore her. Yet again, she wasn’t interested in him and he doubted very much that he could fall in love with her. He liked feisty experienced women. Even Missy didn’t bring that affection out of him and she was more along his expectations experience wise.

She glanced up and smiled at him before she cast one in Wyatt’s direction then quickly resumed her chore. She was shy around Wyatt, but she was nice to him and he liked that about her. Her hair was really long and although she had it in a braid down her back, he was sure it reached her bottom. He’d never seen it unbound. Her eyes were a stunning jade green and when he first met her, he’d thought she had contacts but when he took a closer look he realized that they were actually her own. A man could get lost in large gorgeous eyes like that, but again, it wasn’t him she was interested in.

She moved here four years ago when her mother died. Apparently the story was that her parents had divorced and she stayed with her mother when her father moved back to Martindale where he was born. It took him almost three months to get that out of her. Now she talked to him easily, but unlike other women that he spoke too, Natalie showed absolutely no attraction toward him and it took him some time to figure out why.

Wyatt.

There was no doubt that Wyatt was attractive to the opposite sex, but he didn’t seem to take much notice in it. It probably had something to do with his responsibilities at the ranch. As it was, their father put most of it on him. Logan was fine with that because he liked to have a bit of a life besides cattle.

Problem was, his strong quiet attitude made him more striking. He’d heard it quite often from women when his brother was around.

There was another reason why he probably wasn’t that interested in a relationship. The last serious relationship he was in was disastrous. He was engaged once several years before Natalie moved here, but it turned out she was not faithful. Whenever Wyatt went out of town, she indulged herself with other men. Logan was pretty sure that destroyed him for getting involved again after all they’d been dating since high school.

She was still around town married to a banker, but he knew that she was still up to her old ways. Rumours carried easily around here. It was obvious now that back then she wanted a man with money and their family didn’t have any. Wyatt was trying to save for the big wedding she wanted along with the engagement ring, but thankfully he’d found out about her before he paid for anything. Since then, oil was discovered on their land and Logan could have laughed in her face when she found out the family was now richer than her now banker husband.

She’d even called a few times after that, but Wyatt didn’t acknowledge her or even answer the call. He never let on that he had any harsh feelings over it, but then again, that was Wyatt. Emotions weren’t something he advertised openly.

Even though they had money, plenty of it, their father made sure that the two of them never got out of a hard day’s work. If people thought that Wyatt could look hard at times, their father took the cake. He was a large man, something Wyatt inherited in stature whereas Logan was leaner, in an athletic sense. Both of them possessed their father’s height and although the man was in his seventies, he still stood over six feet tall. In the past few years he had slowed down some. Others didn’t notice, but his sons did. Oh, he still tried to keep up with them, but to save his pride; they would go out of their way to complete tasks prior to him getting there.

He tossed the two oat sacks on top of Wyatt’s in the back of the truck and turned to follow him back to the warehouse. Then he noticed Wyatt glance over at Natalie who had her back turned while continuing to sweep off the porch of the store. It was very subtle, almost invisible and Wyatt didn’t even slow his stride when he did it, but Logan probably knew his brother better than anyone. Wyatt wouldn’t have even spent one iota on something that didn’t interest him. Everything he did had a purpose.