With the Texas temperatures rising, resisting each other becomes impossible...
Despite the pressure to three-peat, Shane McKay refuses to indulge his mother’s fantasy of having all three of her sons married to the three Reynolds sisters. Even if Shane and the gorgeous Megan are the last holdouts. Both of them firmly refuse to be corralled into a relationship neither of them wants. That is until one summer storm forces them into the barn...and into each other’s arms.
Now the handsome cowboy wants nothing more than to privately raise the heat—again and again—between them. But with parents matchmaking, brothers and sisters interfering, and the gossips of Coldwater speculating, Shane and Megan have no choice. So they put on a PDA that will have the whole town talking for years to come! Leaving Shane and Megan to wonder if there’s some serious substance to this sizzling hook-up.
Lone Star Midnight
Delores Fossen
USA TODAY bestselling author Delores Fossen has had more than one hundred novels published, with millions of copies of her books in print worldwide. She’s received the Booksellers’ Best Award and the RT Reviewers’ Choice Best Book Award, and was a finalist for the prestigious RITA® Award. In addition, she’s had nearly a hundred short stories and articles published in national magazines. Married to an air force colonel, Delores is the mother of four children and has lived in England and all over the United States. She’s had a variety of careers and jobs: an air force captain, a special-ed teacher and a rehab counselor. None was as fun or challenging as the time she spent as a stay-at-home mom. You can get updates about Delores’s books or contact her through her website at www.deloresfossen.com.
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
EXCERPT FROM UNDER THE COWBOY’S PROTECTION BY DELORES FOSSEN
CHAPTER ONE
SHANE MCKAY DECIDED this particular engagement party fell into the category of a fresh level of hell. A Coldwater, Texas, celebration with side orders of matchmaking and noses stuck in places where they shouldn’t be.
The nose nearest to him, other than his own, belonged to his mother, Annette. While she lifted her glass of champagne to the newly engaged couple—Shane’s brother Jacob and Jacob’s fiancée, Ella Reynolds—Annette was no doubt planning to make certain that in the near future, there would be another engagement announcement.
Shane’s.
Of course, since he was the oldest of her three sons and because she was a romantic at heart, Annette had been plotting for years. And since he was mule-headed and wouldn’t be pushed into considering her choice of potential mates, he had been plotting for years how to stop her efforts.
He wasn’t making a whole lot of progress in that area.
At best he could call the battle a draw thus far, but the fact that this particular battle just kept waging on and on was wearing thin. What he had to guard against was it eventually wearing him down. No way did he want to give in to this.
“Don’t they just look so perfect together?” his mom asked, tipping her head to Jacob and Ella, who were clinging to each other while guests gave them congratulations and best wishes. There was lots of oohing and aahing over Ella’s engagement ring.
Shane made a mild sound of agreement to his mother’s question, and he kept sipping his beer. However, he had to admit to himself that, yes, Jacob and Ella did look perfect, happy and totally wrapped up in each other. Shane figured that was what his mother wanted for him, that she only had his best interests at heart, and that was why he didn’t curse aloud when she kept motioning for Megan Reynolds to come their way.
Megan was Ella’s oldest sister, and she was across the room next to her own mother. Her mom was almost certainly doing to Megan what Annette was doing to him. Mrs. Reynolds was no doubt inserting her nose in Megan’s business—and matchmaking.
Shane didn’t have to hear what the woman was saying because Megan and he had been on the receiving end of such matchmaking attempts for about three years now. Ever since Shane’s brother Liam had married Megan’s sister Janie. Now a second Reynolds sister was marrying a second McKay brother, which made them all “double in-laws,” as his mother referred to it.
The in-laws wanted to make it a triple with Megan and him. But it wasn’t going to happen. No way in hell.
Thankfully, Megan was on the same page about this because she just waved and smiled at his mother as if she’d totally misunderstood Annette’s gesture for her to come over. Megan then turned away, and from over the top of her champagne glass, she made a sweeping glance around the room, her attention on everything but Shane and his mom.
Megan looked about as comfortable as a lone turkey in a pen on Thanksgiving morning.
Not that she in any physical way resembled a turkey. Nope. The Reynolds sisters were all lookers, with their sunny blond hair and sea-blue eyes. Megan was the prettiest of the bunch, too, and under different circumstances, Shane would have definitely been interested.
But this wasn’t different circumstances.
It was a war of wills against their parents, and it was a war he intended to win. Plus, he’d made a habit of not dating women in their small hometown of Coldwater, where gossips gabbed about such things as casually as they poured their morning coffee. He preferred his private life to stay private.
“I’ll see if Charlotte is ready to turn on the music,” his mother said.
Megan’s mom, Charlotte, was the matriarch of the Reynolds clan and his own mother’s best friend. They were also the top coconspirators in the “get Shane and Megan together” plot.
Their dads, Dave Reynolds and Phil McKay, weren’t innocent, though.
Along with also being lifelong friends, their third-generation ranches bordered each other. They even shared the same creek for watering their livestock. Shared ranch hands sometimes, too, during peak seasons. Since Shane and his brothers all worked the McKay ranch with their folks and Megan and her sisters worked the Reynolds’ ranch with theirs, it made for a lot of overlap.
While neither of their fathers had said anything about merging their ranches, Shane suspected that was in the backs of their minds as the men both approached retirement age. And now that Jacob and Ella were getting married, Shane and Megan were the only cogs in that potential merging wheel. It would tie up everything in a pretty bow if all the McKay offspring was married to all of the Reynolds’.
Shane didn’t care squat about pretty bows. Plus, if their parents were truly set on a merger, they could do that without Megan and him being married—an argument that Shane would use if and when the subject came up.
His mom nudged him with her elbow. “Maybe you can find a partner and have a dance.”
No. He wouldn’t. That’s because there were only two people who weren’t coupled up in the great room of the Reynolds’ house, they were Megan and him.
“I think I’ll grab another beer,” Shane insisted.
Ignoring Annette’s sigh of disappointment, he started for the kitchen, making his way through the house that he knew as well as his parents’ and his own. He’d attended plenty of meals, barbecues and parties here. Lots of memories, and they’d been good ones until the matchmaking had started. He was thirty-four now, and there didn’t seem to be an end to it in sight. He suspected that part of his mother’s plan of attack was just to wear him down until he gave in.
Shane snagged another beer from the fridge just as he heard the music start. It was dancing time, which meant he needed to make himself scarce. He didn’t want to be on the dance floor with Megan so tha
t everyone could speculate about how long it would be until they were dancing at their own engagement party.
“Keep private stuff private,” he grumbled to himself.
Weaving his way through the other guests milling around in the kitchen, he headed out the back door and onto the wide wraparound porch. A spring drizzle had just started, but it didn’t nix his plans for a walk.
Heck, a whiteout blizzard wouldn’t have stopped him.
Needing to put some distance between him and the guests, especially his mother, he started for the stables and the adjacent corrals. The Reynolds’ ranch bred and raised some top-notch cutting and quarter horses, and he could pass time by checking out the new stock.
The drizzle quickly turned to rain, so he was wet by the time he reached the stables. It actually felt good because even though it was only April, the temps were well into the nineties.
Like everything else on the Reynolds’ ranch, the stables were also top-notch. There were double doors at each end of the building, and both were open to bring in the fresh air. The scents of the horses, hay and feed mingled with that of the rain. Familiar scents that steadied his nerves. Just being out of the house steadied him even more.
He walked down the row of stalls and located a friendly face. A piebald gelding. Tucking his boot on the bottom rung of the stall gate, Shane settled in to finish his beer. However, he’d barely gotten started when he heard the sound.
Hurried footsteps.
They weren’t coming from the front of the stables, though, but rather the back, and several moments later, he saw Megan running inside. She, too, was wet and, maybe because she was shaking off the rain, she didn’t see him.
That gave Shane a moment to rein in the groan that was forming in his throat. It was a conditioned response, but then he realized the groaning was normally because when he saw her, one of their mothers tended to be with her and trying to bring them together. But Megan was alone. And looking as if she, too, was in escape mode.
Actually, she looked good, period.
The rain had caused her pale blue dress to cling to her, and Shane bit back a different kind of groan when he saw the outline of her nipples. Normally, he only saw her in jeans and boots because she worked with the horses, but right now he was seeing a lot more of her than he usually did.
She had great legs to go along with those attention-grabbing nipples.
Megan jolted when she finally spotted him, her shoulders snapping back, her eyes going wide. And then she did something that had Shane chuckling. She groaned. The chuckling stopped her groan and had her looking at him with suspicion.
“No parents?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Unless they’re hiding in one of the stalls, we’re clear.”
The next sound Megan made was a sigh of relief, which caused her breasts to do what he could only describe as heave. So, yeah, he noticed her nipples again. To stop further noticing, Shane turned his attention back to the gelding.
“They’re relentless,” Megan grumbled, coming closer. “And my mom is the worst of the bunch.”
Shane could have argued that point, attributing that particular title to his own mom, but then he didn’t know what kind of pressure Charlotte Reynolds was putting on Megan. Probably a lot.
When Megan stopped beside him, he caught her scent, more musky than flowery, but it was all woman. Something he wished he hadn’t noticed. It seemed to be his day, though, for noticing things about her that caused his own body to tighten.
“Your mom’s looking for you, to talk you into asking me to dance,” she went on. “I’m considering faking a sprained ankle.”
“I was going for a leg cramp. Perhaps temporary paralysis.”
Now she chuckled, but hers was a lot sexier than his. It was low and smoky. And again, all woman.
He cursed himself. Geez. It wasn’t as if he’d never been this close to her. Heck, they sometimes worked together. Not in a while, though, since they’d both been avoiding each other. But Shane was now just as annoyed with his reaction to her as he was with the parental matchmaking.
“This is Checkers,” she said, introducing him to the gelding. She ran her hand over the horse and then gave the gelding a kiss on the neck.
Hell.
Really? Now he was going to react to that, too? Apparently so, and it was a punch-in-the-face reminder that he needed to take the time to be with a woman. Not this woman, though. Especially not this woman.
“Checkers will be going to Shelby McCall’s tomorrow,” Megan explained. Thankfully, she hadn’t noticed that Shane was ogling her. “She bought him because he’s sweet and gentle, and she can use him when she gives riding lessons.”
Like everybody else in Coldwater, Shane knew Shelby. Along with teaching city kids to ride, she boarded and trained horses at her small ranch just outside of town. “She has an eye for the ones who’d be good with kids,” Shane commented.
Megan made a sound of agreement, and with that topic of conversation apparently exhausted, the silence came, and it didn’t settle well around them. Megan looked out the stable door as if she might make a run for it, but at that exact moment, the sky unzipped, and the rain started coming down in thick sheets. Complete with thunder and even a zip of lightning.
Great. Now he had a choice to make: risk being struck by lightning or stay put with Megan and the lust-triggering thoughts that he was having about her.
“What do you think my chances are of being killed if I go outside in that?” Megan asked.
That shouldn’t have made him smile. But it did. Because it was a reminder that he’d always enjoyed her sense of humor...until they’d become lepers to each other. Too bad about the leper part, since they’d been friends when they were kids.
“Tell you what,” he said. “Why don’t we declare a temporary truce? You don’t want me and I don’t want you, so we could make this a sort of safe zone. After all, I can’t see our moms risking death or ruined clothes to come out here to waylay us again.”
Megan made another sound of agreement, took his beer and had a sip. “You’re right.” And then she smiled.
Oh, man. Not a smile. It lit up her face, which was already too lit up for his liking. Actually, a lot of things about her fell into the “too” category right now. Her hair was too hot clinging to her cheeks and shoulders. Her eyes too welcoming when he knew there wasn’t actually a welcome there.
Or was there?
Her gaze slid down to the front of his shirt—which was also doing some clinging—before she cleared her throat and looked away. This time, there was some heat mixed with the silence.
“Uh, how’s your house coming along?” he asked. It was a safe enough subject. Boards, nails, drywall, plumbing...and in the middle of those images, he saw Megan all wet from the rain and sliding her gaze over more of him than just his shirt.
So, apparently not a safe enough subject after all.
“The barn and fencing are done. So is the electricity and plumbing. I have a bathroom now,” she said. Megan then made a so-so motion with her hand as she added, “There have been some delays with the rest, though, because of all the rain we’ve been having. Still, I should be able to move in next month. That’s when my lease is up on my rental house in town.”
Shane had already estimated that timing. That’s because he’d seen her place just a week earlier when he’d been checking fences in the back pasture. Her house would be as far away from her folks as she could get while still remaining on Reynolds land. Something that Shane totally understood since he’d done the same thing in relation to his parents’ place when he’d had his place built six years ago.
“I’ve been spending a few nights at the new place,” Megan explained. “A lot of the inside isn’t done yet, but I put a bed on the back porch. I wish I could move in sooner,” she added, her attention drifting back to the house. “Now that Ella’
s engaged, the pressure will be even more intense. You don’t want to know how many times a reminder will come up that I’m about to be thirty-two. Words like biological clock will be muttered under breaths. I’ll get withering on the vine looks from them.”
He nodded and had a sip of his beer before offering her one. “I’ll get mutterings about how sad it is that I’m not settled and how I must get lonely at night.”
She took another sip of his beer and smiled. When she handed him back the bottle, her fingers brushed against his. Just a simple little touch of damp skin against damp skin, but it caused him to look at her.
Their gazes collided.
And held.
Mercy. She was beautiful, and there was suddenly a whole lot of heat zipping between them. She glanced at his shirt again. He glanced at her nipples. The glances turned to long, lingering looks.
They muttered curses in unison.
“You’re the last man on earth I want,” she said.
“Ditto,” he agreed. “Last woman on earth.”
But that didn’t stop Shane from debating with himself over what he was about to do. Then he quickly settled that debate and went for it. He hooked his hand around the back of Megan’s neck and pulled her to him.
And nope, it sure as heck didn’t stop him from kissing her.
CHAPTER TWO
OH, MY.
Those were the first words that went through Megan’s head when Shane’s mouth landed on hers. Oh, my. Then, Oh, no. Followed by words that neither of them likely would want said aloud.
Oh, yes.
Talk about an instant heat generator. That’s exactly what the kiss was. And it was way more than that because it tasted like Shane himself. Like something she shouldn’t want, but did. And she wanted it bad.
His mouth pressed against hers as if he owned it. And for the moment, he evidently did. Apparently, he took ownership of the rest of her, too, because he slid his other arm around her and yanked her to him.
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