ma’am. Zach Dalton.”
Her bare lips formed a perfectly pretty O, but Zach allowed himself to admire the sight for only a few seconds. He wasn’t about to let this dizzy woman distract him from his objective. Zach was on a mission. He knew exactly what he wanted and had already decided the best way to go about getting it.
“Dalton? Are you related to the other Daltons who live around here?” she asked.
“That’s right. There’s a bunch of us, ma’am. I’m related to all of them.”
The phone on the desk began to ring, and while she eyed it with an annoyed glare, a male voice in a back room yelled, “Are you asleep out there, Lydia? Pick up the damned phone!”
“Excuse me, Mr. Dalton. I’ll be with you in a moment,” she promised.
While she answered the phone, Zach turned and looked through a dusty plate glass window at North Main Street of downtown Rust Creek Falls, Montana. This early-September morning, the sun was shining warmly, kissing the changing leaves on the trees that grew at intervals along the concrete sidewalk. The slow, two-lane traffic was made even slower by a pair of big cattle trucks working their way to the main highway leading to Kalispell. With autumn weather soon coming, the ranchers were already sorting and selling, preparing for the long, cold months ahead.
Before Zach could let himself think about all the tragedy that had occurred back on his family ranch in Hardin, he heard the woman behind him speaking in an impatient voice.
“No. Not tonight. I have to go now, Mom. I have a customer. Bye.”
When he heard the phone click into place, Zach turned back to the desk to see the young woman, who appeared somewhere near his age, shoving away the tangle of curls falling about her face. She was wearing a green, loose-fitting T-shirt with the logo of some unknown rock band plastered across a pair of rounded breasts. Apparently the newspaper staff enjoyed a very relaxed dress code, Zach decided.
“Sorry about that,” she said. “Now if you’ll tell me again exactly what it is you want, I’ll see that your ad makes the next issue.”
His gaze dropped to the nameplate resting precariously on one corner of the crowded desk. “‘Lydia Grant. Assistant Manager,’” he read, then lifted a questioning glance to her. “Is that you?”
Her head made a quick bob, causing several curls to plop onto her forehead. “That’s me. Assistant manager is just one of my roles at the Gazette. I do everything around here. Including plumbing repair. You need a faucet installed?”
“Uh, no. I need a wife.”
The announcement clearly took her aback. “I thought I misheard you earlier. I guess I didn’t.”
Enjoying the look of dismay on her face, he gave her a lopsided grin. “Nope. You didn’t hear wrong. I want to advertise for a wife.”
Rolling the pencil between her palms, she eyed him with open speculation.
“What’s the matter?” she asked. “You can’t get a wife the traditional way?”
As soon as Zach had made the decision to advertise for a bride, he’d expected to get this sort of reaction. He’d just not expected it from a complete stranger. And a female, at that.
“Sometimes it’s good to break from tradition. And I’m in a hurry.”
Something like disgust flickered in her eyes before she dropped her gaze to the scratch pad in front of her. “I see. You’re a man in a hurry. So give me your name, mailing address and phone number and I’ll help you speed up this process.”
She took down the basic information, then asked, “How do you want this worded? I suppose you do have requirements for your...bride?”
He drew up a nearby plastic chair and eased his long frame onto the seat. “Sure. I have a few. Where would you like to start?”
She looked up at him and chuckled as though she found their whole exchange ridiculous. Zach tried not to bristle. Maybe she didn’t think any of this was serious. But sooner or later Lydia Grant, and every citizen in Rust Creek Falls, would learn he was very serious about his search for a wife.
He hung his hat on his knee and raked a hand through his thick black hair. “Okay. Let’s start with her age. I’d like for her to be between twenty-two and twenty-five.”
“That sort of narrows things down, doesn’t it?” she asked as she quickly scribbled down the information.
“Well, since I’m twenty-seven, having my wife a few years younger would be best for me.”
“So you’re not attracted to older women?”
He frowned. “I’ve never dated an older woman. If that answers your question.”
She shot him a clever smile. “Too adventurous for you, I suppose.”
He should probably remind this woman that his personal preferences were none of her business. But she was so damned cute and quirky that he hated to come across like a jerk.
“Something like that,” he said. “As for other requirements, put down that she needs to be an excellent cook and homemaker. I love homemade pies and I hate messy houses.”
She began to write again. “You want that last sentence in the ad?”
“Uh, no. That was for your benefit. Just to explain,” he added.
She glanced up at him and he noticed the corners of her lips were curved into an impish smile. “No need to explain to me, Mr. Dalton. You’ll probably want to explain to the women who answer this ad, though. So are there any more conditions you require of your...applicants?”
She made the whole thing sound so calculated and sterile. It wasn’t going to be like that, Zach promised himself. When he started dating the right woman, he figured there would be plenty of fireworks to heat things up.
“Well, yes, there are more. It’s absolutely necessary that she loves kids.”
“Kids,” she repeated as she continued to rapidly write across the pad. “So you plan on having children with the woman who ends up meeting everything on your checklist?”
“She’ll be my wife. Naturally I plan to have children with her. And plenty of them, I might add.” He gestured to her notepad. “And you might as well add that she needs to get along with dogs and horses. No—change that line. She’ll need to love dogs and horses, just as much as she loves kids. I’m a rancher. So things would never work if the woman shied away from animals.”
“Dogs and horses. Got it.” She lifted those sparkling blue eyes back to his face. “Is there anything else? What about looks? Do they matter?”
Zach folded his arms against his chest. “I’m flexible. As long as she’s tall and willowy with long, straight hair, I’ll be satisfied.”
“I’ll say one thing, Mr. Dalton, you know what you want.”
“I like to think so, ma’am. You see, I’m a doer. I’m not one to wait around and watch the leaves fall
