Excerpt!
Brody hung up, shifted the truck into drive, and after checking his side mirror, guided the truck back onto the road. When he’d gotten the call from Heather saying that she’d gotten pregnant during their one-night stand, Brody’s world had flipped upside-down. Those long months when she didn’t call, he’d nearly worried himself to death thinking about her and his unborn son’s welfare.
After Riley arrived, he’d learn how to work while worrying, and he’d learned how to deal with missing his son. He pushed through the heartache and focused on the job he had to do. Brody was pushing now, but he wasn’t making much headway.
He turned off the main road and followed the five-mile gravel road to Darby’s place. He parked in the shade of a juniper tree and slid out, making sure he had the satellite phone and his slicker before reaching to the back for his rifle.
As he headed towards the horse trailer, he saw a gnarled finger hook around one of the yellow, sunbaked curtains hanging over a dingy window. A second or two later, the front door opened, and Darby’s unmistakable form filled the shadow. A dingy gray pinch-front hat, a bushy ocher- colored beard, thin ribs, and bowlegs that resembled a wishbone clad in dirty jeans.
By Brody’s estimation, the man was near seventy. He’d never married and the only children he had were the bedraggled Australian cattle dog he called Fred and a horse that looked to be as old as Darby.
Darby let the screen door slam shut, nearly clipping Fred’s tail as he trotted out the door behind him. He stopped at the edge of the porch and bit into the half of a sliced sandwich, chewing slowly like a cow enjoying the first taste of spring grass. “You alone?”
Brody opened the trailer door. “Yeah, I’m alone.”
Now was not the time for brooding reflection or an in-depth analysis of how accurate the old man’s words were. His impatience had destroyed one of the best chances he’d had at building intimacy with a woman he was in love with, and his son was in another state.
Rescuing love is never easy…
Veterinarian Dr. Louisa Coldiron comes from a long line of hardworking, rough riding, straight-shooting cowboys. Her father and brothers are cowboys and nearly every male in the small town of Santa Camino, Texas, is, was, or will be a cowboy. And experience has taught her that when a cowboy gets thrown into the mix, something gets broken.
Falling in love with the horses she helps to rescue is easy. Pretending she isn’t falling for the sexy cowboy who teaches them to trust again…?
Not so much.
After years of roaming, Brody Vance feels he’s finally found a home at the Promise Point Horse Rescue Ranch and a woman he could easily love. But he knows a wounded heart when he sees one. Louisa has more in common with her patients than she’s willing to admit.
Coaxing Louisa’s skittish heart into letting him take the reins of passion will take Brody’s tender expertise.
Author bio:
Mina is the author of the Coldiron Cowboys series and the Rough Creek series (2020 IMADJINN AWARDS FINALISTS).
She and her husband live on a farm in the beautiful Appalachian Mountains. Along with reading and writing, she enjoys painting, photography, baking, and spending time with her rescue dogs, miniature horses, and donkeys. https://www.instagram.com/minabeckett/
Life in her corner of the world consists of long winter nights curled up by the fire, cheering on her favorite football teams in the fall, enduring March Madness in the spring and walking barefoot through her garden with a cold jar of tea in the summer ─ fireflies at sunset accompanied by a serenade of crickets and frogs, and lazy nights in the porch swing.
