Tall, Dark, and Cowboy, a special six-box boxed set, releases June 3, 2014, and includes my Somebody Like You along with full-length books by Katie Lane, Ruth Ryan Langan, Molly Cannon, Laura Drake, and Erin Kern.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Annelise Montjoy motored her
Harley along what appeared to be the town’s main street. This was Maverick
Junction?
A blue Cadillac, surely old
enough to be in a museum, was parked nose-in to the curb. An incredibly ugly
dog sat in the front seat.
Thank God, this, the final
destination of her cross-country trip from Boston, was temporary. It looked
like the kind of place you ran away
from, not to. If luck was on her side, she’d be out of here in a couple weeks
at the most.
And then a store door opened and
her breath caught. Go, Texas! Look at
that cowboy. So different than any of the men in her life. So…intriguing. She
slowed to nearly a standstill and watched as he swiped an arm across his
forehead, then dumped a grocery bag in the back seat of the old Caddy.
Cracking open a bottle of water,
he turned his head in her direction. Her breath hitched as his gaze ran lazily
over her, her bike. Then he snagged a Styrofoam cup from inside his car and
filled it before setting it on the blistering pavement for the dog waiting
patiently beside him.
Leaning against the faded fender,
he thumbed back his battered Stetson and chugged the rest of the water.
Twisting the cap back on, he tossed the bottle into the recycling bin beside
the grocer’s door.
Annelise pulled her bike into a
parking space across the street, deliberately turning her back on the stranger.
While his clothes might have been stereotypical cowboy--worn jeans, a faded
tee-shirt, cowboy boots and hat—he took everything from simmer to boiling point.
The jeans hugged long legs, while the shirt stretched taut across his muscled
chest. There was something very alluring about him and that surprised her. He
wasn’t the kind she was usually drawn to.
He shouldn’t appeal to her.
He did.
Not so much as a breeze stirred.
The flag on the post office hung limp, and the cheerful red, white, and blue
balloons someone had hung outside a beauty salon drooped listlessly.
Unable to stop herself, she
peeked in the bike’s rearview mirror. Cowboy was bent over, talking to the dog.
Quite a view, but she wasn’t here to admire a fine jean-clad butt. She needed
something cold to drink and something light to eat. Then she’d go in search of
Dottie Willis and the apartment she’d rented over the internet. Maverick
Junction, Texas. Annelise wished she was driving through, wished she could view
it as simply a spot on the map where she’d stopped for lunch one summer day.
