by Leslie North
Chapter 1
Randy McCall maneuvered his truck down the worn, dusty road that led to his next stop, the old Fincher property, which straddled the edge of the Winding Creek, Montana town line. Although everyone in town still called it the Fincher place, in truth it hadn't been occupied by the Fincher family, or anyone else for that matter, in at least a decade. In a place like Winding Creek, leaving a place didn't erase the former owners’ name. The Fincher property would continue being the Fincher place in the minds of the people of Winding Creek no matter who decided to buy the place.
"Won't make things easy for her," he muttered to himself, wincing as he bounced out of a particularly intense pothole. He let loose a string of curse words that would have made a sailor blush and downshifted his truck into the next lowest gear.
It wasn't only the potholes that had him in such a rotten mood. As things stood, he wouldn't have been in good spirits no matter what he was doing, not while he was in Winding Creek, anyhow. Though he'd been back home for some months now, things hadn't gotten any easier. He kept expecting to wake up feeling more resigned to his new circumstances, but so far, he was seeing little progress in that area.
Hands tight on the steering wheel, he mentally ticked off points for the thousandth time—as if repetition might alter things. His parents were dead, and that wasn't going to change. He and his two brothers were in charge of the ranch now, and according to their parents' will, all three of them had to live on the ranch for a full year before the estate could be properly settled, unless a particular set of extenuating circumstances presented itself. Initially, the oldest brother, Trevor, had carried the burden while Randy and Carson had tied up loose ends in their lives. Now, however, Trevor was married to Lacey with a new baby on the way and two businesses to take care of. He still helped care for the McCall ranch when he could spare the time, but these days Randy bore most of the responsibility, at least when Carson was away at one of his rodeo circuit stints.
Randy’s frustrated thoughts broke off as he pulled up in front of the Fincher farm's main house, and he let out a low whistle. “No wonder they’re calling her crazy,” he said quietly.
Randy had dim memories of visiting the Fincher farm a time or two with his parents and brothers when he was small, but it certainly hadn't looked then the way it did now. The house itself was a rambling, two-story structure, with porches on both the first and second stories. He remembered playing up on that second-floor balcony with one of the Fincher boys, tossing water balloons down onto the heads of their unsuspecting victims. The way it looked now, though, there was no way that someone, even a child, could stand on that balcony without falling through. The whole house appeared to be sorely in need of attention, like a thoroughly exhausted person caving in on himself. What was left of the formerly white paint, peeling off in small sheets, had a decidedly gray tint. Nothing about the house screamed "this is a place I want to live," and for the life of him, he couldn't understand why the "crazy lady" would have gotten it in her head to purchase the place. He understood even less when two little kids came barreling out through the rickety front door, slapping at each other as they went.
“No!” the angelic blonde girl screeched, flailing at the boy coming after her at top speed. “Don’t touch me, Andy!”
Andy, a shorter-haired copy of the girl, proceeded to do the opposite of what his sister demanded. He grabbed for her hair with his grubby little hands, crowing with delight as his fingers caught hold. The girl shrieked again, louder this time, then burst into loud, unhappy sobs.
"Good lord, isn't anybody taking care of them?" Randy grumbled, climbing out of his truck and heading toward the porch steps. He was looking forward to the arrival of Trevor and Lacey's kid, but otherwise, he preferred to keep children at arm's length.
"That's enough, both of you!" shouted a harried-sounding female voice from inside the house. Seconds later, the screen door banged open, and a woman Randy could only assume was the children's mother shot out onto the porch.
“Please, Andy, leave your sister alone!” she cried, taking the little boy by the wrist and untwining his fingers from his sister’s halo of golden curls.
“We’re just playing, Mamma,” Andy whined before peeking around his mother’s legs to stick out his tongue at his sister.
“Are you now?” the woman said with a strained laugh. “Because from where I’m standing, mister, Amelia doesn’t seem to be having a very good time. Are you, baby?”
"I dunno," the small girl answered sullenly, her eyes cutting to her little family and then back down to the dirty wooden slats of the porch. "There's a man, Mommy. A man looking."
The woman's head snapped up, her eyes landing on Randy with laser precision. The expression on her face stopped him in his tracks. He wasn't actually doing anything wrong—he had a reason to be on her property, yet seeing her reaction to his presence, he felt like a criminal caught in some terrible act.
“I’m sorry,” she said, narrowing her admittedly lovely blue eyes at him with obvious mistrust. “Who are you? And why exactly are you hanging around my front porch?”
“I’m not,” he answered quickly, mortified when his voice cracked on the last word. “I mean, I’m here on business.”
“Business?” she repeated, her skepticism growing more acute. “What kind of business? If you’re here trying to sell something—”
"No," he interrupted, his eyebrows rising in surprise. "I'm not a salesman. Somebody here called the vet’s office to schedule a visit. I was under the impression that you had a horse that needed seeing to, but if I'm mistaken, I'll gladly be on my way."
“No,” she sighed, her shoulders slumping as she ran her hand through her hair distractedly. “I’m sorry, I forgot you were coming today. I’ve got a lot going on right now with all this.”
She made a general gesture at the house and surrounding land as she spoke, and it was all Randy could do to hold back a bark of disbelieving laughter at what could easily win the title of understatement of the year. Part of him wanted to ask what she had been expecting when she’d decided to purchase a strawberry farm sight unseen. The gossip around town was that the woman was from San Francisco, that she'd never set foot in Montana in her life before scooping up the Fincher farm. If she'd known anything about buying and selling land, or better yet about farms, she would have known the price she’d paid for the place fell squarely in the category of “too good to be true.”
It looked to Randy like she'd plunged headfirst into a conundrum she had no idea how to get herself back out of again. She already had more on her plate than she could rightly manage, and now here he was, about as far from wanting to be involved as a man could get.
"Maybe you can show me to the barn?" he said, careful to keep his voice casual. "I can help you get one thing checked off your to-do list, at least."
“Of course,” she said, starting down the porch steps without further hesitation. “You probably already know where it is if you’re from around here, though. Seems like the people in Winding Creek know everything there is to know about anything around here.”
Randy thought he heard a trace of resentment there, and although he had no interest in getting involved in that, either, he couldn't say he exactly blamed her. People in small towns like Winding Creek could be brutal, especially when an outsider was involved. The townspeople would likely still be referring to this woman as the crazy strawberry lady ten years from now. Assuming she lasted that long.
“I can surely see how it might feel that way, ma’am,” he said, glancing behind him as he walked to meet her. Both chubby little blond children were following at his heels, their eyes wide and full of expectation.
"Ugh, let's not do that, okay?" the woman said, fixing him with an expression of pure disgust as he reached her. "People have never referred to me as ma'am before, and I'm not keen on starting now. My name is Heather. Heather Browning."
"All right then, Heather, good to meet you.” He held out his hand. “My name is
Randy McCall. My family has a ranch on the outskirts of town," he added with his politest smile, trying to remain friendly in the face of her terse introduction.
She missed the smile, and the extended hand, her gaze fixed firmly on the barn. “It’s this way,” she said, all business.
He withdrew his hand and casually slipped it into his jacket pocket. Honestly, that was probably for the best. Randy would have to be dead not to notice how good-looking Heather Browning was, even as a city girl playing country. Her hair was just as blonde as her children’s, hanging in loose curls halfway down her back. She wore a white tank and a pair of jeans that must have been made explicitly for her, and peeking out at the bottom, he saw a shiny new pair of cowboy boots. The look was surprisingly natural on her, and Randy was pretty sure that if he hadn't known something of her background, he would have thought she was exactly where she belonged.
Grab your copy of The Cowboy’s Rescue (McCall Ranch Brothers Book Two)
January 9, 2020
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BLURB
Ian Grant isn’t a man who accepts help easily. After promising his young son that he could participate in the strawberry festival, and then missing the admittance deadline, Ian’s in a bind and forced to ask the mayor for a favor. The mayor agrees, on one condition: his niece has run into hard times and needs a safe place to stay: Ian’s place to stay. She’s great with kids and Ian needs someone to look after his rambunctious son Andy while he ranches. Ian agrees, expecting some college-aged girl who’d flunked Algebra. Instead, he finds a full-grown woman—a beautiful and sassy one to boot.
Katie Rylie has always dreamed of helping others by teaching them to cook. Her online persona was thriving—until a scandal with her forthcoming cookbook rocked her career. Not only did she have to pay back the entire advance, but her once-loyal fan base has turned against her. Defeated and with nowhere to go, Katie feels it’s better to hide out in the country until she can get her life back together. The offer of a free home, an open range, and a wily six-year-old to focus on sounds like just the escape she needs.
When Andy’s diet restrictions force Katie to become creative in the kitchen, she finds herself drawn back into the food world, just as she’s falling in love with Ian and Andy. But Ian, who likes having control of everything, doesn’t know how to ask Katie to become a permanent part of their lives.
If their love is ever going to work, Ian and Katie will need to learn that having it all doesn’t mean giving anything up.
Grab your copy of The Cowboy’s Surprise Nanny (Grant Brothers Series Book 1)
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EXCERPT
Chapter 1
The summer was shaping up to be one for the records, Ian reckoned. He could smell it in the air, feel the extra electricity crackling. On the Grant Ranch, left to him after the crash that killed both of his parents, Ian was careful to look after the state of the land. It was going to be hot as well as dry, and fires were a real danger. They were what he needed to be spending his worrying on: the fires, the cattle. Instead, he was standing in front of the courthouse and trying to talk himself into stepping inside.
“Not taking off my damned hat,” he muttered grimly. Talking to himself in the middle of the sidewalk wasn’t the brightest idea, but he wasn’t feeling particularly bright. He was feeling more like putting his fist through the wall. Everything in him told him to turn around and climb back into his truck, to get back to the ranch where things made sense and his presence was actually useful.
“Stop it,” he growled to himself, arming the sweat off his brow and starting up the courthouse steps. It was for his son he was making this trip. For Andy, six years old and only starting to feel back to himself this week.
Ian liked living in Canyon, Texas, most all of the time. It was a small place, only 16,000 people give or take. The kind of town where people could still leave their doors unlocked and kids rode bikes down back roads without parents worrying about them being snatched up. It was his town, the place he’d lived his whole life. He liked most everything about it but the doctors and the hellhole that passed for a hospital. Those doctors hadn’t done a thing while his wife wasted away with the cancer that came on fast as lightning and ate her up from the inside out. He wouldn’t have taken Andy at all if he’d thought he could help it, only the kid had been in so much pain; his hands clapped over his ears and his head rocking back and forth. The doctors performed surgery, putting tubes in his ears, and Ian had spent the last three weeks of Andy’s recovery white knuckling it, ready to knock out the first doctor who even looked at him the wrong way. He had been too busy worrying himself to keep track of what he needed to be doing, and he had messed up. That was why he was here; to right a wrong. For Andy.
“Hey there, Grant,” Bobby, the courthouse’s one security guard greeted in his slow drawl.
“Bobby,” Ian answered, tipping his hat in salutation. The two men stood there sizing each other up for a minute, Bobby eyeing Ian’s hat and Ian waiting to tell him he wasn’t going to take it off. Bobby must have sensed his fighting mood, because after a second, he shook his head and waved him on through. Ian sauntered down one corridor and up another until he reached the door with “Mayor Clark” embossed across it in gilded gold letters. Ian clenched his jaw, took a deep breath, and rapped his knuckles on the door twice, hard and fast.
“Enter.” Clark’s voice sounded unforgivably pompous. Ian remembered being a kid when Mayor Clark and his daddy had been friends. Back then, his face had always been red with too much beer, and people called him Bubba instead of Mayor.
“Howdy, Mayor,” he said, letting himself in the office and shutting the door behind him. Mayor Clark sat behind an enormous mahogany desk, his ample sides spilling over the arms of his desk chair. His face was still red, specifically his nose, and Ian guessed the man had moved from his beer habit to hard liquor a while back. When he looked up, though, he looked genuinely pleased to see Ian, and Ian guessed that was a good thing. He was here to ask the big man a favor, after all. He hated asking for favors, but he was going to do it, by God.
“Ian Grant!” Mayor Clark exclaimed, moving as if to get up but only making it half-way before giving up and extending his hand for a shake, “As I live and breathe. Didn’t expect to see you here today, son. How the hell are ya?”
“I’m good, Mayor. Happy you had the time,” Ian answered, shaking Clark’s hand before settling uneasily onto one of the guest chairs. Clark rolled his eyes and made a waving off gesture.
“No need for all of that, Ian. I’ve known you since you were still in diapers. Just call me Bubba. That’ll do me just fine.”
“Don’t think I can do that, Mayor, especially when I’m here to ask for a favor.”
“Are you now?” Mayor Clark asked, leaning back in his chair and causing the thing to groan loudly in protest. “Why don’t you tell me what it is?”
“It’s about my boy,” Ian went on, “it’s about Andy.”
“Anything I can do, it’s done. I have to tell you, I’ve been meaning to drop in on you two, see how you’re faring with everything so different, and then with Andy being in the hospital. I’m ashamed of myself for letting things go this long,” he said, shaking his head. Whether it was genuine or not, he certainly did look sorry.
“Don’t trouble yourself. I’m just here to ask you if there’s any way you can help get Andy into the Strawberry Fest. I know the deadlines passed and I’m sick about not registering him. Only with the hospital stay these last three weeks, it plain slipped my mind. The thing is, I told him while he was in there that once he was healed, he’d get to be a part of the Strawberry Fest. I guess you could say it was a bribe and now I can’t make good.”
“Say no more. I’ve got the schedule right here, and I happen to know for a fact that there’s one slot open. It’s in—” He broke off, rummaging through his mounds of crap until he landed on the paper he was looking for. He squinted, scanne
d down the length of it, then nodded his approval.
“Did you find something?” Ian asked. Mayor Clark waited for a beat more, then looked up and grinned.
“I sure did. One slot left in the cooking area. Think your boy would be interested in that?”
“I can’t say he’s had much experience, but I’ll say yes. It’s a hell of a lot better than not being there at all,” Ian answered, more grateful than he was comfortable admitting. He watched Andy’s name being penciled in and when it was done, Ian leaned back in his chair and actually sighed with relief. As it turned out, the relief was premature.
“So,” the mayor continued, “now that that’s done, let me ask you a question.”
“Sure,” Ian asked, immediately on his guard again, “shoot.”
“I heard through the grapevine that Carol just retired. Any truth to that?” Mayor Clark asked. His voice was too careful, too nonchalant. That was never a good sign.
“That’s true, she did. She deserves it. She’s worked hard for my family for a long time.”
“She sure did. A hell of a housekeeper,” the mayor agreed, nodding profusely.
“She was more than a housekeeper. She’s like family,” Ian contradicted, bristling a little at the comment. Mayor Clark held up both hands in a surrender gesture and nodded agreement.
“I have no doubt. She’s a fine woman, Carol is. And I assure you, I don’t mean to pry. I only ask because there’s something I would love for you to do for me if you can find it in your heart.”
“Say the word,” Ian answered, crossing his arms over his chest. This was why you didn’t ask for help. It always came with strings attached. But if there was a price to be paid for having the chance to keep his word to his son, he’d pay it—whatever it was.
“It’s about my niece, Katie. She’s fallen onto some hard times, and I would love to help her out. With getting her confidence back, you understand. She’s on the way to becoming a fine woman herself if we can steer her in the right direction.”