A Cowboy Christmas Miracle (Burnt Boot, Texas Book 4) (25 page)

It wasn’t the time or the place to tell the girls that part of the marriage problems had been her fault. Isaac thought he was getting a socialite who loved the fast lane, and he never would have asked her to marry him if he’d realized that she wasn’t ready to break all ties to her country roots.

“We are going to love this new ranch so much that we’ll never look back at the old one. Even though they don’t have any ranchin’ experience, I wonder if you two are big and mean enough to show those two boys that nobody can outwork three tough O’Donnell women.”

Jett unfolded her arms, leaned up from the backseat of the bright-red dual-cab truck, and patted her mother on the shoulder. “They ain’t got a chance in hell.”

“Jett!” Bella scolded.

“Well, Uncle Cash says that, and nobody fusses at him. Besides, I believe it. We’re tough and mean, and we can out-ranch any old boy in the state of Texas,” Jett said.

“We’ve got a week to pack all our things, put them in storage, and load up the truck with what we need for a month,” Adele said as she turned east toward Gainesville.

Adele’s cell phone rang, and she fished it out of her purse to find a picture of her sister, Cassie, smiling at her. She answered it on the fourth ring and hit the Speaker button so they could all hear.

“We have not bought the ranch yet,” she said and went on to tell her sister the deal that Walter had come up with.

Cassie giggled the whole way through the story.

“What’s so funny about that?” Adele asked.

“Those boys don’t stand a chance—not any one of them: the grown one or the two kids,” Cassie said. “I’ll put my money on my sister and my nieces any day of the week.”

“Yes!” Bella and Jett squealed at the same time.

“Thank you, Aunt Cassie. We won’t let you down,” Jett said.

“What are you doing today?” Adele asked her sister.

“Haulin’ hay, but I’d rather be doing something else in the hayloft,” Cassie said.

“Cassandra Grace O’Donnell!” Adele raised her voice.

“Don’t you double-name me. Only Mama gets to do that, and I was talking about kissing my boyfriend. He’s really good at kissing.” Cassie laughed.

“I miss y’all,” Adele said wistfully. “If I buy this ranch, I’m having a big Fourth of July party to celebrate. Y’all had better be there.”

“Wild horses couldn’t keep me away. Is this new cowboy sexy? Maybe I’ll visit for a weekend between now and then,” Cassie said.

“No!” The girls’ loud voices bounced around in the truck cab.

“Why? Don’t you want to see me?” Cassie asked.

“We love you,” Bella said, “but we don’t want Remy Luckadeau in the family at all, and if he sees you, then he’ll fall in love with you. Besides, we like Clinton just fine. Go kiss him in the hayloft, and stay away until the ranch belongs to us.”

“If you promise to work hard and show that Mr. Jones that you are the right people to sell his ranch to, then I’ll stay away until you’ve run those old boys off your land. But, girls, Clinton and I broke up last week. The new man in my life is Dusty Dillard,” Cassie said seriously.

“Is he as pretty as Clinton?” Bella asked.

“No, but he’s a lot nicer,” Cassie said.

“I thought Clinton was nice, and I like his name better than Dusty,” Jett said.

“Wait until you meet him. Are you taking Blanche?” Cassie asked.

“Of course,” Jett answered quickly. “We wouldn’t leave her behind. Mama, please tell me that man didn’t say we couldn’t bring Blanche.”

“Mr. Jones said that we could bring our personal belongings, and since Blanche is our personal cat, then I expect we’ll take her with us. Besides, I asked about bringing a cat, and he said it was fine,” Adele said.

“The old hussy would die if you left her.” Cassie laughed again. “Isn’t she about ready to pop out another litter in the next couple of weeks?”

“Yes, she is,” Bella said. “And I hope both of them boys hate cats.”

“And you, Sister Adele? How do you feel about living with a cowboy?”

“I’m not living with him. I’m sharing a house with him for only one month. And don’t call me Sister Adele. I’m not a nun,” Adele said curtly.

“These past two years you have been.” Cassie giggled. “Promise you’ll call me often,” she said. “Got to go. The hay wagon is here, and it’s time to stack bales.”

The window on the phone went dark, and Adele hit the End button. She caught a movement in her peripheral vision and glanced to the right to see two little boys glaring at her from the windows of a black truck. A whole month with those two smart-ass kids just might make her move all the way to Wyoming or Montana.

She looked in the rearview mirror, and there was her daughter, Jett, giving the boys the old stink eye. The truck sped on by her, and she lost sight of it. No doubt about it—this was going to be a long month.

My eyes misted when I finished writing this last book in the Burnt Boot series. I’ve come to love these characters with their feuding and their passion so much. But like one of my readers reminded me recently, the stories never really end because they can be reread over and over again. With that in mind, I hope you’ve enjoyed this series and that it is one of those that will go on your shelf for you to reread occasionally.

I would like to thank Sourcebooks for buying this series, especially Dominique for buying my first cowboy book eight years ago; Deb Werksman for being my editor through many, many books; Susie Benton for all her amazing help; and all those folks behind the scenes who create amazing covers and do promotion work. And a huge thank-you to my fantastic agent, Erin Niumata, who has been with me for seventeen years. That’s longer than a lot of Hollywood marriages last, folks!

To my readers: keep your boots on. There are more cowboys on the way, and a Luckadeau and an O’Donnell are about to vie for a particular ranch down in north central Texas. Also, thank you from the depths of my heart for supporting me. Y’all are truly awesome!

Merry Christmas to you all!

New York Times
and
USA Today
bestselling author and RITA finalist Carolyn Brown has published more than seventy books. Her bestselling cowboy romance series include the Lucky trilogy, the Honky Tonk series, the Spikes & Spurs series, the Cowboys & Brides series, and the Burnt Boot, Texas series. She has also launched into women’s fiction with a Texas twang. She and her husband, a retired English teacher, make their home in southern Oklahoma. They have three grown children and enough grandchildren to keep them young. When she’s not writing, she likes to spend time in her backyard with her two cats, Boots Randolph Terminator Outlaw and Chester Fat Boy, and watch them protect the yard from vicious critters like field mice, crickets, and spiders.

Big Sky Cowboys

by Nicole Helm

Big Sky Christmas

Thack Lane has his hands full. For the past seven years, he’s been struggling to move on from his wife’s tragic death and raise a daughter all by his lonesome. He doesn’t have time for himself, much less a cheerful new neighbor with a smile that can light up the ranch.

Christmas spirit? Bah, humbug.

With Christmas right around the corner, Summer Shaw is searching for somewhere to belong. When her neighbor’s young daughter takes a shine to her, she is thrilled. But Thack is something else altogether. He’s got walls around his heart that no amount of holiday cheer can scale. Yet as joy comes creeping back to the lonely homestead, Summer and Thack may just find their happily ever after before the last of the Christmas miracles are through…

Praise for
Rebel Cowboy
:

“A beautifully crafted romance.” —
USA Today Happy Ever After

“A true page-turner.” —
Publishers Weekly

For more Nicole Helm, visit:

www.sourcebooks.com

Texas Rodeo

by Kari Lynn Dell

Texas Homecoming

Violet Jacobs is fearless. At least, that’s what the cowboys trusting her to snatch them from under the hooves of bucking bulls think. Outside the ring, she’s got plenty of worries rattling her bones: her young son, her mess of a love life, and lately, her family’s struggling rodeo. When she takes business into her own hands and hires on a hotshot bullfighter, she expects to start a ruckus, but she never expected Joe Cassidy. Rough-and-tumble, cocky and charming, Joe’s everything a superstar should be—and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out he’s way out of Violet’s league.

Joe came to Texas to escape a life spiraling out of control. He never planned on sticking around, and he certainly never expected to call this dry and dusty backwater
home
. But Violet is everything he never realized he was missing, and the deeper he’s pulled into her beautiful mess of a family, the more he realizes this fierce rodeo girl may be offering him the one thing he could never find on his own…

Praise for Kari Lynn Dell:

“An extraordinarily gifted writer.” —Karen Templeton, three-time RITA award-winning author

For more Kari Lynn Dell, visit:

www.sourcebooks.com

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!

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