Spotlight – The Comeback Cowboy

24 Monday Apr 2023

Posted by romanticreadsandsuch in Blog Tour, Sneak Peek

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Caitlin Crews, Jackie Ashenden, Jasper Creek series, Maisey Yates, Nicole Helm, The Comeback Cowboy

THE COMEBACK COWBOY is a Western-themed anthology featuring four stories from bestselling authors Maisey Yates, Nicole Helm, Jackie Ashenden and Caitlin Crews!

The Comeback Cowboy

Jasper Creek Series

by Jackie Ashenden, Caitlin Crews, Nicole Helm, Maisey Yates

ISBN: 9781335508188

Publication Date: April 25, 2023

Publisher: Canary Street Press

Blurb:

They may not have been friends when they were younger but now, they’ll work together to save the camp that saved them and, maybe, even find love in the process…

The alumni of Camp Phoenix, a summer program for at-risk youth, may have grown apart but, when they learn the camp has fallen into disrepair, they answer the call for help. Now successful adults, the four women pledge to restore the grounds to their former glory, if long-standing rivalries and old flames don’t get in the way first….

Attorney Ashlynn Cook owes her life to Camp Phoenix and is determined to save the camp…but who’s going to save her from the temptation of long-time crush US Marshal Oakley Traeger? The daughter of the camp’s founder, Cassidy McClain has always wanted to follow in her law-abiding father’s footsteps, but fellow alum Duke Cody might have her breaking all the rules. Bree White fought hard to break away from her criminal family and all of the reminders of her past until Officer Flint Decker brings all those feelings back and more. And Kinley Parker never left Camp Phoenix, dedicating her life to it, and has no time for pushy cowboys like Jackson Hart until butting heads leads to sparks.

*****

Excerpt:

The One with the Hat by Jackie Ashenden

CHAPTER ONE

Bree White walked quickly over the gravel of the parking area and she didn’t look back. Time was of the essence.

She’d arrived at Camp Phoenix, the summer camp for juvenile delinquents that had changed her life back when she’d been fourteen, a full thirty minutes before she was supposed to, mainly so she could claim the best cabin before everyone else arrived—and she wasn’t ashamed to admit it.

It was a little surprising that Jackson Hart, the former DEA agent who’d bought the run-down camp and sent out the call for volunteers to help get it ready for a new season of campers, wasn’t here to greet her. He was apparently living in the shabby house near the camp entrance, but she hadn’t seen hide nor hair of him.

Then again, she was early. And she didn’t mind not seeing Jackson. He’d been his usual drill-sergeant self, harassing her relentlessly to volunteer to help, and while she was all about helping, she wasn’t a fan of being told what to do. Never had been.

Even ten years ago, when she’d been sent to Camp Phoenix by Sheriff Bill McClain, the man who’d started the camp, she’d hated all the rules and regulations, and had chafed against them. Yet those same rules and regulations had given her a structure and routine that her chaotic childhood never had. They’d changed her life.

Camp Phoenix had basically been the best thing to ever happen to her. That’s why she was here. And it wasn’t anything to do with Jackson Hart, so much as it was her, wanting to give back. Perhaps help change a few lives the way hers had been changed, and for the better. She was looking forward to it.

Bree paused in front of the small cluster of buildings surrounded by a green lawn and bordered by tall pines. Everything looked…smaller than she remembered, not to mention a lot more neglected. There were a few dilapidated cabins that were the bunk rooms, and the big dining hall where Mrs. Zee, the cook, used to reign supreme. The showers and bathrooms were in their own building, and then there was the administration cabin. And over there by the dining hall, the art hall that was once run by Gale Lawson.

And…ugh. There was Hollyhock Hill, which all the campers had to climb at 6:00 a.m. every morning to raise the flag, and where the day’s chores were handed out.

She’d never been much of a morning person, but that, in particular, had felt like torture. Well, they were all adults now, and presumably, there would be no 6:00 a.m. wake-up calls this time around.

The camp looked deserted, which was good, so Bree headed over to the least-run-down-looking of the cabins, where the counselors used to sleep. Jackson had said at least one of the cabins was better than the others, so she was assuming it was this one, and that she could claim it for herself.

She assumed no one would be sharing like they once had, when it was ten to a room. At least, she wouldn’t be sharing; not these days. She’d come a long way from her past and her family of low-level criminals who expected her to follow the same path they had. Now she had her own place in Jasper Creek and a great job as a real estate agent. She didn’t have to steal for a living like her folks had.

And all thanks to Camp Phoenix.

Nothing at all to do with Flint Decker.

Bree scowled as she headed toward the old counselors cabin, trying to shove off the irritating reminder that Flint Decker had been her arresting officer back when she’d been fourteen. He’d caught her shoplifting from the local 7-Eleven, which was something she did not like to remember, if she could help it.

A bit difficult not to be reminded, though, when Jasper Creek had been virtually wallpapered with his handsome, arrogant face thanks to the sheriff’s elections a couple of months back. She hadn’t been able to get away from it. Even more annoying that he’d won the election. By a depressing margin.

She had nothing to do with him these days, determinedly ignoring him whenever they passed each other on the street. And she definitely didn’t look behind her as he went by, noting the breadth of his shoulders, his narrow hips, long, powerful legs, and—

Bree nearly tripped over a piece of wood that seemed to be lying randomly in the grass, and only just stopped herself from an ignominious face-plant.

Damn new sneakers. Nothing to do with thinking about stupid Flint. She’d bought them especially for tramping about the camp and they were already giving her blisters.

She took a quick look around to see if anyone else had turned up to witness her embarrassing stumble, but the place was still deserted.

Just as well.

Bree examined her brand-new, spotless blue jeans for any suspicion of dirt, but they seemed to have escaped. She brushed them off just in case, since she wasn’t a fan of dirt. She wasn’t a fan of jeans either, but the little business skirts she usually wore weren’t very practical, so she’d gone on a bit of a shopping spree.

She wasn’t that sullen, angry teen who had turned up at camp with nothing, not even a sleeping bag.

She’d come prepared this time.

She approached the cabin and cautiously pushed open the door.

It was one room with a wooden floor and three sturdy wooden bunk beds pushed up against the unlined walls. The floor looked clean, at least, but one of the bunk beds had no mattresses, which left four beds to choose from. It smelled a bit musty but nothing an open window wouldn’t fix.

Bree gave herself a moment to frown at the spiderwebs in the ceiling between the rafters, then directed her attention to which bunk to choose. One of the top bunks, of course, since those had always been the most prized. Back in the day, there used to be battles. There was one girl, Violet Cook, who Bree had taken an instant dislike to, and one day, she’d hung Violet’s sleeping bag from a tree before stealing her bunk. That had earned her toilet cleaning for a week, but it had been worth it.

Of course, she’d never do anything like that now. Now she loved her life and was no longer angry at the entire world.

Moving over to the bunk beside the window, she carefully examined the mattress on the top bed, since that seemed to be the least lumpy, and decided it would do.

She didn’t like being uncomfortable, but camp—as Sheriff McClain had always said—wasn’t about being comfortable, so she’d resigned herself to a bit of discomfort. Not that she had a choice, since her house was having its plumbing upgraded and she couldn’t be there anyway. Really, coming to camp was excellent timing in many ways.

Bree put her little suitcase onto the bottom bunk in preparation for unpacking.

Other people would be arriving, she assumed. Given Jackson’s insistence on the importance of getting the camp up and running before the end of June, and given how he was a bossy asshole, he’d probably called every single person who’d ever stayed here and guilt-tripped them into helping.

She hoped they would be nice people, not—

“Please don’t tell me we have to share. Goddamn Jackson.”

Bree froze. She recognized that voice. No. Did it have to be? Not Violet Cook, whose sleeping bag she’d stolen. Not Violet Cook, who’d treated every day at camp like she was auditioning for Survivor and had basically lorded it over everyone, trying to prove she was the baddest.

Surely, she wasn’t here. Surely not.

Yet the door was already opening and in came a small, stunningly pretty woman with long, wavy black hair, black eyes, and wearing the most ridiculously feminine and flouncy maxidress Bree had ever seen. She tottered in on sky-high wedges, towing behind her a huge bright pink suitcase, and the moment she spotted Bree, she stopped dead.

The world’s most awkward silence fell as ten years vanished in the blink of an eye.

“Great,” Violet said, scowling. “Bree White. What the hell are you doing here?”

Bree had an urge to scowl back, but she forced it aside. She wasn’t fourteen and feral anymore. She was twentyfour and a professional, with a reputation for being the nicest Realtor at her agency. Violet might not have changed, but Bree certainly had.

“Hi, Violet,” she said, smiling determinedly. “Nice to see you. We should definitely catch up later, after you’ve found your own cabin. I think the one next door is still free—”

“Unfortunately, we’re sharing,” Violet interrupted, obviously unimpressed. “None of the other cabins are habitable.” Bree blinked. That was not what Jackson had said. “Sharing? What? But I thought…” She trailed off as Violet, ignoring her, eyed the bunk bed Bree was standing next to before moving over to the bunk pushed up against the opposite wall.

Bree opened her mouth to try to make the silence more pleasant, when the cabin door opened again, and two more women came in.

This time she barely stifled a groan. Kinley Parker and Clementine McClain? Seriously? She hadn’t known Kinley that well. She’d been so shy and quiet she’d virtually blended into the wallpaper, but apparently lived in Jasper Creek, not that Bree had ever seen her around. Clementine, on the other hand, was Sheriff McClain’s daughter, and Bree remembered her as being the biggest tattletale ever at camp, treating every rule like it was handed down by God himself. No wonder she’d ended up as the sheriff’s deputy, or so Bree had heard.

Anyway, this was great. Just great. So, what? She had to share her cabin with all three of them? Unacceptable. She was going to need a word with Jackson.

Keeping her smile pasted on, Bree directed it to Kinley and Clementine. “Oh, wow, you guys are here as well? How great is this?”

Kinley clearly did not think this was great. Her brown eyes were woeful behind her large glasses as she looked at the bunk situation, and Bree found herself putting a possessive hand on the top bed of the bunk she’d chosen. “Sorry, this one’s mine.”

“And don’t even think about the top bunk here,” Violet said without turning around. “It’ll have my pillow on it in approximately two seconds.” She’d opened her giant pink suitcase on the bottom bunk, and had pulled out a softlooking pillow in a pillowcase embroidered all over with wildflowers, and… Were those fairy lights?

Kinley sighed, glanced at the third mattress-less bunk and sighed again. “I guess I’m here, then,” she said and shuffled over to the bunk where Bree stood. “Do you mind if I take the bottom?”

Bree gave her the biggest smile she could manage. “No, not at all.”

“Uh, hi.” Clementine gave a nervous-looking wave, an equally nervous-looking smile on her face. Her hair was still as red as Bree remembered, and she still had as many freckles.

She glanced with some trepidation at Violet’s bunk and the only other habitable bed. “Um, well, I suppose I’ll take this one.”

Violet had now put her pillow on the top bunk and was in the process of hauling out what appeared to be bed linens, along with what were definitely fairy lights.

“I don’t think we’re allowed those in here,” Clementine said as she stared at the bed currently taken up by Violet’s giant case. “The fairy lights, I mean. At least, I don’t think you can?”

“Too bad,” Violet said. “I’m not doing lights-out at nine. Especially not when I want to read. Plus—” she sent a challenging look to the room in general “—they’re pretty.” Her gaze settled on Bree. “This bed stays mine, okay?”

Bree’s smile became fixed. Dammit. It appeared Violet hadn’t forgotten the whole sleeping bag/bunk stealing incident. “No problem,” she said brightly.

Kinley, meanwhile, had sat down on the bunk underneath Bree’s, squeezing herself awkwardly between Bree’s case and the end of the bed.

And suddenly, it was too much. The room felt tiny and there were too many people in it, people she didn’t like and didn’t know, and none of this was anything like what she’d expected.

There had to be somewhere else she could stay. In fact, she’d take it up with Jackson right now.

Her smile felt fake and forced, but if she didn’t smile, she was going to end up growling, and she didn’t want to growl. She wasn’t a feral beast.

“I’m just going to…um…” She went over to the door and paused. “No one touch my stuff.”

It wasn’t until she’d gone through it that she realized what she’d said. As if she were fourteen again, hating the camp, and Sheriff McClain, and basically everyone who’d forced her here.

Ugh. She had to make sure she didn’t fall back into old patterns. That meant no growling or getting angry, or being generally unpleasant. She was Bree White, the friendliest, most professional, most successful Realtor in her agency, and sharing a cabin with three of her enemies from a particularly dark time in her life wasn’t that bad.

Still. It was worth checking other options, just to be sure. Bree stopped outside the cabin, looking around at the rest of the camp. Where the hell could Jackson be?

Then, from around the corner of the dining hall, came a man wearing a very familiar hat. A battered black cowboy hat.

And her heart sank all the way into her brand-new sneakers.

So. Not only was she bunking with her three sworn enemies, but he was here too?

Please not him. Anyone but him.

But the man striding over the grass toward her didn’t miraculously turn into someone else. He was tall, but then, he always had been. Even at twenty, his shoulders had been broad and his chest wide. The black cotton of the T-shirt he wore was stretched lovingly over a chest and shoulders that seemed even wider and more muscular ten years later. On the T-shirt there was a picture of a cabin in gold with a phoenix above it, wings outswept, and the words Camp Phoenix above, while underneath the cabin was the camp motto. Rise Up. Her brain had barely registered the T-shirt before it got distracted by the way the worn denim of his jeans clung to his narrow hips and powerful thighs.

Not that she was noticing his thighs. Not when eyes greener than the grass beneath her feet were focused on hers with magnetic intensity.

Flint Decker. Sheriff Flint Decker and his stupid hat.

Okay, if Jackson wasn’t around, then she’d have a few words about sleeping arrangements with the sheriff himself.

Bree lifted her chin and prepared to do battle.

Excerpted from The Comeback Cowboy by Jackie Ashenden, Caitlin Crews, Nicole Helm, Maisey Yates.
Copyright © 2023 by Harlequin Enterprises ULC.
The One with the Hat Copyright © 2023 by Jackie Ashenden.
The One with the Locket Copyright © 2023 by Caitlin Crews.
The One with the Bullhorn Copyright © 2023 by Nicole Helm.
The One with the Trophy Copyright © 2023 by Maisey Yates.
Copyright © 2023 by Jeff Johnson, interior illustrations. Published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

*****

Author Info:

USA Today bestselling, RITA-nominated, and critically-acclaimed author Caitlin Crews has written more than 100 books and counting. She has a Masters and Ph.D. in English Literature, thinks everyone should read more category romance, and is always available to discuss her beloved alpha heroes. Just ask. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her comic book artist husband, is always planning her next trip, and will never, ever, read all the books in her to-be-read pile. Thank goodness.

Author Website

Facebook: @Megan Crane and Caitlin Crews

Instagram: @meganmcrane

Goodreads

Nicole Helm writes down-to-earth contemporary romance and fast-paced romantic suspense. She lives with her husband and two sons in Missouri. Visit her website: http://www.nicolehelm.com

Author Website

Facebook: @Nicole Helm

Instagram: @nicole_t_helm

Goodreads

Maisey Yates is a New York Times bestselling author of over one hundred romance novels. Whether she’s writing strong, hard working cowboys, dissolute princes or multigenerational family stories, she loves getting lost in fictional worlds. An avid knitter with a dangerous yarn addiction and an aversion to housework, Maisey lives with her husband and three kids in rural Oregon. Check out her website, maiseyyates.com or find her on Facebook.

Author Website

Facebook: @Maisey Yates

Instagram: @maiseyyates

Goodreads

Jackie Ashenden writes dark, emotional stories with alpha heroes who’ve just got the world to their liking only to have it blown wide apart by their kick-ass heroines. She lives in Auckland, New Zealand, with her husband the inimitable Dr Jax and two kids. When she’s not torturing alpha males, she can be found drinking chocolate martinis, reading anything she can lay her hands on, wasting time on social media, or forced to mountain biking with her husband.

Author Website

Twitter: @JackieAshenden

Facebook: @The House of Ashenden

Goodreads

*****

Spotlight – The Lost and Found Girl

26 Tuesday Jul 2022

Posted by romanticreadsandsuch in Blog Tour, Sneak Peek

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Maisey Yates, The Lost and Found Girl

The small Oregon town of Pear Blossom welcomes the return of its prodigal daughter Ruby McKee. Found abandoned as a baby by the McKee family, Ruby is the unofficial town mascot, but when she and her adoptive sisters start investigating the true circumstances around her discovery, it soon becomes clear that this small town is hiding the biggest, and darkest, of secrets. A raw, powerful exploration of the lengths people go to protect their loved ones, for fans of Lori Wilde and Carolyn Brown.

The Lost and Found Girl

by Maisey Yates

ISBN: 9781335503206

Publication Date: July 26, 2022

Publisher: HQN Books

Blurb:

Ruby McKee is a miracle.

It’s a miracle she survived, abandoned as a newborn baby. A miracle that she was found by the McKee sisters. Her discovery allowed the community of Pear Blossom, Oregon, broken by a devastating crime, to heal. Since then, Ruby has lived a charmed life. But she can’t let go of the need to know why she was abandoned, and she’s tired of not having answers.

Dahlia McKee knows it’s not right to resent Ruby for being special. But uncovering the truth about sister Ruby’s origins could allow Dahlia to carve her own place in Pear Blossom history… if she’s brave enough to follow her heart.

Widowed sister Lydia McKee doesn’t have time for Ruby’s what if’s – when Lydia’s right now is so, so hard. Her husband’s best friend Chase might be offering to share some of the load, but can Lydia ever trust her instincts around him?

Marianne Martin is glad that her youngest sister is back in town, but balancing Ruby’s crusade with the way her own life is imploding is turning into a bigger chore than she imagined. Especially when Ruby starts overturning secrets about the past that Marianne has spent a lifetime trying to pretend don’t exist.

And when the truth about Ruby’s miraculous origins, and the crime from long ago, turn out to be connected in ways no one could have expected, will the McKee sisters band together, or fall apart?

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Powell’s

*****

Excerpt:

one

Ruby

Only two truly remarkable things had ever happened in the small town of Pear Blossom, Oregon. The first occurred in 1999, when Caitlin Groves disappeared one fall evening on her way home from her boyfriend’s family orchard.

The second was in 2000, when newborn Ruby McKee was discovered on Sentinel Bridge, the day before Christmas Eve.

It wasn’t as if Pear Blossom hadn’t had excitement before then. There was the introduction of pear orchards—an event which ultimately determined the town’s name—in the late 1800s. Outlaws who lay in wait to rob the mail coaches, and wolves and mountain lions who made meals of the farmers’ animals. The introduction of the railroad, electricity and a particularly active society of suffragettes, when women were lobbying for the right to vote.

But all of that blended into the broader context of history, not entirely dissimilar to the goings-on of every town in every part of the world, as men fought to tame a wild land and the land rose up and fought back.

Caitlin’s disappearance and Ruby’s appearance felt both specific and personal, and had scarred and healed—if Ruby took the proclamations of various citizens too literally, which she really tried not to do—the community.

Mostly, as Ruby got out of the car she’d hired at the airport and stood in front of Sentinel Bridge with a suitcase in one hand, she marveled at how idyllic and the same it all seemed.

The bridge itself was battered from the years. The wood dark and marred, but sturdy as ever. A white circle with a white 1917, denoting the year of its construction, was stenciled in the top center of the bridge, just above the tunnel that led to the other side, a pinhole of light visible in the darkness across the way.

It was only open to foot traffic now, with a road curving wide around it and carrying cars to the other side a different way. For years, Sentinel Bridge was closed, and it wasn’t until a community outreach and education effort in the mid nineties that it was reopened for people to walk on.

Ruby could have had the driver take her a different route.

But she wanted to cross the bridge.

“Are you sure you want me to leave you here?” her driver asked.

She’d told him when she’d gotten into his car that she was from here originally, and he’d still spent the drive explaining local landmarks to her, so she wasn’t all that surprised he didn’t trust her directive to leave her in the middle of nowhere.

He was the kind of man who just knew best.

They’d just driven through the town proper. All brick—red and white and yellow—the sidewalks lined with trees whose leaves matched as early fall took hold. It was early, and the town had still been sleepy, most of the shops closed. There had been a runner or two out, an older man—Tom Swenson—walking his dog. But otherwise it had been empty. Still, it bore more marks of civilization than where they stood now.

The bridge was nearly engulfed in trees, some of which were evergreen, others beginning to show rusted hints of autumn around the edges. A golden shaft of light cut over the treetops, bathing the front of the bridge in a warm glow, illuminating the long wooden walk—where the road ended—that led to the covered portion, but shrouding the entrance in darkness.

She could see what the man in the car saw. Something abandoned and eerie and disquieting.

But Ruby only saw the road home.

“It’s fine,” she said.

She did not explain that her parents’ farm was just up the road, and she walked this way all the time.

That it was only a quarter of a mile from where she’d been found as a baby.

She had to cross the bridge nearly every day when she was in town, so she didn’t always think of it. But some days, days like this after she’d been away awhile, she had a strange, hushed feeling in her heart, like she was about to pay homage at a grave.

“If you’re sure.” His tone clearly said she shouldn’t be, but he still took her easy wave as his invitation to go.

Ruby turned away from the retreating car and smiled, wrapping both hands around the handle of her battered brown suitcase. It wasn’t weathered from her own use. She’d picked it up at a charity shop in York, England, because she’d thought it had a good aesthetic and it was just small enough to be a carry-on, but wasn’t like one of those black wheeled things that everyone else had.

She’d cursed while she’d lugged it through Heathrow and Newark and Denver, then finally Medford. Those wheely bags that were not unique at all had seemed more attractive each time her shoulders and arms throbbed from carrying the very lovely suitcase.

Ruby’s love of history was oftentimes not practical.

But it didn’t matter now. The ache in her arms had faded and she was nearly home.

Her parents would have come to pick her up from the airport but Ruby had swapped her flight in Denver to an earlier one so she didn’t have to hang around for half the day. It had just meant getting up and rushing out of the airport adjacent hotel she’d stayed in for only a couple of hours. Her Newark flight had gotten in at eleven thirty the night before and by the time she’d collected her bags, gotten to the hotel and stumbled into bed, it had been nearly one in the morning.

Then she’d been up again at three for the five o’clock flight into Medford, which had set her back on the ground around the time she’d taken off. Which had made her feel gritty and exhausted and wholly uncertain of the time. She’d passed through so many time zones nothing felt real.

She waved the driver off and took the first step forward. She paused at the entry to the bridge. She looked back over her shoulder at the bright sunshine around her and then took a step forward into the darkness. Light came up through the cracks between the wood on the ground and the walls. At the center of the bridge, there were two windows with no glass that looked out over the river below. It was by those windows that she’d been found.

She walked briskly through the bridge and then stopped. In spite of herself. She often walked on this bridge and never felt a thing. She rarely felt inclined to ponder the night that she was found. If she got ridiculous about that too often, then she would never get anything done. After all, she had to cross this bridge to get home.

But she was moving back to town, not just returning for a visit, and it felt right to mark the occasion with a stop at the place of her salvation. She paused for a moment, right at the spot between the two openings that looked out on the water.

She had been placed just there. Down on the ground. Wrapped in a blanket, but still so desperately tiny and alone.

She had always thought about the moment when her sisters had picked her up and brought her back to their parents. It was the moment that came before that she had a hard time with. The one where someone—it had to have been her birth mother—had set her down there, leaving her to fate. To die if she died, or live if she was found. And thankfully she’d been found, but there had been no way for the person who had set her there to know that would happen.

It had gotten below freezing that night.

If Marianne, Lydia and Dahlia hadn’t come walking through from the Christmas play rehearsal, then…

She didn’t cry. But a strange sort of hollowness spread out in her chest.

But she ignored it and decided to press on toward home. She walked through the darkness of the bridge, watching as the light, the exit loomed larger.

And once she was outside, she could breathe. Because it didn’t matter what had happened there. What mattered was every step she had taken thereafter. What mattered was this road back home.

She walked up the gravel-covered road, kicking rocks out of her way as she went. It was delightfully cold, the crisp morning a reminder of exactly why she loved Pear Blossom. It was completely silent out here except for the odd braying of a donkey and chirping birds. She looked down at the view below, at the way the mist hung over the pear trees in the orchard. The way it created a ring around the mountain, the proud peak standing out above it. A blanket of green and gold, rimmed with misty rose.

She breathed in deep and kept on walking, relishing the silence, relishing the sense of home.

She had spent the last four years studying history. Mostly abroad. She had engaged in every exchange program she could, because what was the point of studying history if you limited yourself to a country that was as young as the United States and to a coast as new as the West Coast.

She could remember the awe that she’d experienced walking on streets that were more than just a couple of hundred years old. The immense breadth of time that she had felt. And she had… Well, she had hoped that she would find answers somewhere. Because she had always believed that the answers to what ails you in the present could be found somewhere in the past.

And she’d explored the past. Thoroughly. Many different facets of it. And along the way, she done a bit of exploring of herself.

After all, that was half the reason she’d left. To try and figure out who she was outside of this place where everyone knew her, and her story.

Though, when she got close to people, it didn’t take long for them to discover her story. It was, after all, in the news.

Of course, she always found it interesting who discovered it on their own. Because that was revealing.

Who googled their friends.

Ruby obviously googled her friends, but that was because of her own background and experience. If those same friends had an equally salacious background, then it was forgivable.

But if they were boring, then she found it deeply suspicious that they engaged in such activities.

She came over a slight rise in the road and before her was the McKee family farm. It had been in the McKee family for generations. And Ruby felt a profound sense of connection to it. It might not be her legacy by blood, but that had never mattered to the McKees, and it didn’t matter to her either. This town was part of who she was.

And maybe that was why no matter how she had searched elsewhere, she was drawn back here.

Dana Groves, her old mentor, had called her six months ago to tell her an archivist position was being created in the historical society with some newly allocated funds, and had offered the job to Ruby.

Ruby loved Pear Blossom, but she’d also felt like it was really important for her to go out in the world and see what else existed.

It was easy for her to be in Pear Blossom. People here loved her.

It had been a fascinating experience to go to a place where that wasn’t automatically the case. Of course, she hadn’t stayed in one place very long. After going to the University of Washington, she had gotten involved in different study abroad programs, and she had moved between them as often as she could. Studying in Italy, France, Spain, coming to the States briefly for her graduation ceremony in May, and then going back overseas to spend a few months in England, finishing up some elective study programs.

But then, she’d found that instructive too. Being in a constant state of meeting new people. And for a while, the sheer differentness of it all had fed her in a way that had quieted that restlessness. She had been learning. Learning and experiencing and… Well, part of her had wondered if her first job needed to be away from home. To continue her education.

But then six months ago her sister’s husband had died.

And Dana’s offer of a job in Pear Blosson after she finished her degree had suddenly seemed like fate. Because Ruby had to come and try to make things better for Lydia.

Marianne and Dahlia were worried about Lydia, who had retreated into herself and had barely shed a single tear.

She’s acting just like our parents. No fuss, no muss. No crying over spilled milk or dead husbands.

Clearly miserable, in other words.

And Ruby knew she was needed.

One thing about being saved, about being spared from death, was the certainty you were spared for a reason.

Ruby had been saved by her sisters. And if they ever needed her…

Well, she would be here.

Excerpted from The Lost and Found Girl by Maisey Yates.
Copyright © 2022 by Maisey Yates.
Published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

*****

Author Info:

Maisey Yates is a New York Times bestselling author of over one hundred romance novels. Whether she’s writing strong, hard working cowboys, dissolute princes or multigenerational family stories, she loves getting lost in fictional worlds. An avid knitter with a dangerous yarn addiction and an aversion to housework, Maisey lives with her husband and three kids in rural Oregon. Check out her website, maiseyyates.com or find her on Facebook.

Author Website: http://www.maiseyyates.com/
Facebook: Maisey Yates
Twitter: @maiseyyates
Instagram: @MaiseyYates

*****

Spotlight – Unbridled Cowboy

27 Friday May 2022

Posted by romanticreadsandsuch in Blog Tour, Sneak Peek

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Four Corners Ranch series, Maisey Yates, Unbridled Cowboy

Unbridled Cowboy

Four Corners Ranch series

by Maisey Yates

ISBN: 9781335503213

Publication Date: May 24, 2022

Publisher: HQN Books

Blurb:

Welcome to Four Corners Ranch, where the west is still wild…and when a cowboy needs a wife, he decides to find her the old-fashioned way.

Cowboy Sawyer Garrett has no intention of settling down. But when he becomes a single dad to tiny baby June, stepping up to the responsibility is non-negotiable. And so is finding a wife to be a mother to his infant daughter. So he decides to do it how the pioneers did: He puts out an ad for a mail order bride.

Evelyn Moore can’t believe she’s agreed to uproot her city life to marry a stranger in Oregon. But having escaped one near-disastrous marriage, she’s desperate for change. Her love for baby June is instant. Her feelings for Sawyer are more complicated. Her gruff cowboy husband ignites thrilling desire in her, but Sawyer is determined to keep their marriage all about the baby. But what happens if Evelyn wants it all?

*****

Excerpt:

CHAPTER ONE

“There’s no way around it. I’m going to need a wife.”

Sawyer Garrett looked across the table at his brother, Wolf, and his sister, Elsie, and then down at the tiny pink bundle he was holding in his arms.

It wasn’t like this was an entirely new idea.

It was just that he had been thinking the entire time that Missy might change her mind, which would put him in a different position. She hadn’t, though. She had stuck to her guns. When she found out she was pregnant, she told him that she wanted nothing to do with having a baby. She wanted to go through with the pregnancy, but not with being a mother. Not even when he proposed marriage. Oh, they hadn’t been in a relationship or anything like that. She was just a woman that he saw from time to time.

In fact, Sawyer Garrett could honestly say that he had a very low opinion of relationships and family.

Present company excluded, of course.

But when Missy had said she was pregnant, he’d known there was only one thing to do. His dad had been a flawed man. Deeply so. He’d acted like the kids were an afterthought and all he’d really done was let them live under his roof.

Sawyer wanted more for his child. Better. He’d determined he would be there, not just providing housing and food, but actually being there.

If he could spare his child the feeling of being unwanted, he would.

And that was where this idea had been turning over in his head for a while.

The fact of the matter was, Garrett’s Watch had a lousy track record when it came to marriage.

The thirteen-thousand-acre spread had been settled back in the late 1800s, with equal adjoining spreads settled by the Kings, the McClouds and the Sullivans, all of whom had now worked what was known in combination as Four Corners Ranch in the generations since.

And where the Garrett clan was concerned… There was nothing but a long history of abandonment and divorces. The one exception being Sawyer’s grandparents. Oh, not his grandfather’s first marriage. His biological grandmother had run off just like every other woman in their family tree. As if the ground itself was cursed.

But then the old man had happened upon an idea. He thought to write a letter to one of the newspapers back east asking for a woman who wanted to come out to Oregon and be a mother to his children. They’d had the only successful marriage in his direct line. And it was because it was based on mutual respect and understanding and not the emotional bullshit that had been a hallmark of his own childhood. He barely remembered his own mother. He remembered Wolf’s and Elsie’s, though. Two different women. Only around for a small number of years.

Just long enough to leave some scars.

Hell, he didn’t know how he wound up in this position. He was a man who liked to play hard. He worked hard. It seemed fair enough. But he was careful. He always used a condom. And Missy had been no exception. He’d just been subject to that small percentage of failure. Failure.

He hated that. He hated that feeling. He hated that word. If there was one thing he could fault his father for it was the fact that the man hadn’t taken charge. The fact that he just sat there in the shit when everything went to hell. That wasn’t who Sawyer was. But Sawyer had to be responsible for his siblings far sooner than he should’ve had to be, thanks in part due to his father’s passivity. If there was one thing Sawyer had learned, it was that you had to be responsible when responsibility was needed.

He wasn’t a stranger to failing people in his life, but unlike his father, he’d learned. He’d never let anyone who needed him down, not again.

“Marriage,” Wolf said. “Really.”

“Unless you and Elsie want a full-time job as a nanny.”

Elsie snorted, leaned back in her chair and put her boots up on the table—which she didn’t normally do, but she was just trying to be as feral as possible in the moment. “Not likely,” she said.

“Right. Well. So, do you think there’s a better idea?”

“Reconsider being a single father?” Wolf said.

“I am,” Sawyer said. “I’m aiming to find a wife.”

Wolf shook his head. “I mean, reconsider having a baby at all.”

A fierce protectiveness gripped Sawyer’s chest. “It’s a little late, don’t you think?”

“Wasn’t too late for Missy to walk away yesterday,” Wolf said.

“Too late for me,” Sawyer said.

It had been. From the moment he’d first heard her cry. The weight of… Of everything that he felt on his shoulders when this tiny little thing was placed into his arms. It was difficult to describe. Impossible. He wasn’t good with feelings when they were simple. But this was complicated. A burden, but one he grabbed hold of willingly. One he felt simultaneously uniquely suited for and completely unequal to. He didn’t know the first thing about babies. Yeah, he had done quite a bit to take care of Elsie and Wolf, and… He could see where he’d fallen short. Elsie was just a hair shy of a bobcat in human form, and Wolf suited his name, and, well…big, a little bit dangerous, loyal to his pack, but that was about it.

“It’s not too late,” Elsie said. “In the strictest sense. You haven’t even given her name.”

No. It was true. He hadn’t settled on anything yet. And he knew there was paperwork that he had to do.

“You want me to give her back?” He shook his head. “It’s not like I have a receipt, Els.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Elsie said. “It’s just… It’s a hard life here.”

“And I aim to make it a little less hard.”

“So, you’re going to… What? Put an ad in the paper?”

“Granddad did,” he said.

And it had changed their lives for the better. The history of Garrett’s Watch might be rich with failed love stories, but it was a marriage of convenience that had brought real love to the ranch.

Their grandmother—their real grandmother (blood didn’t matter here, staying mattered)—had loved them all with a ferocity their own mothers hadn’t managed, let alone their father.

She had taught Sawyer to tie his shoes and ride a bike. She’d hugged him when he’d fallen and scraped his knees.

She taught him tenderness. And he was damned grateful for it now, because he had this tiny life in his care, and if it weren’t for her, he would have never, ever known where to begin.

And thanks to his grandfather, he knew what else he might need.

However crazy his siblings thought it was.

“It’s not 1950,” Wolf pointed out.

Though, sometimes, on Four Corners you could be forgiven for not realizing that. For not realizing it wasn’t 1880, even.

Time passed slowly, and by and large the landscape didn’t change. Sure, the farm implements got a little bit shinier.

On a particularly good year, the savings account got a little bit fatter.

But the land itself remained. The large imposing mountains that surrounded the property that backed Garrett’s Watch. The river that ran through the property, cutting across the field and the base of the mountain. The pine trees, green all through the year, growing taller with the passage of time.

They were lucky to have done well enough in the last few years that the large main house was completely updated, though it was ridiculously huge for Sawyer by himself. Wolf and Elsie had gone to their own cabins on the property, which were also sturdy and well kept.

In truth, this whole thing with the baby had been a wake-up call. Because whether or not he could look out the window and see it, time was passing. And when Missy had asked him what he wanted to do about the baby, the answer had seemed simple. It had seemed simple because… He had no excuse. He had plenty of money, and had the sort of life that meant he could include a kid in most anything. His dad had done him a favor by showing him what not to do. They were largely left to their own devices, but it was a great place to be left to your devices. And he’d had to ask himself… What was he hanging on to? A life of going out drinking whenever he wanted, sleeping with whoever he wanted.

He was at the age where it wasn’t all that attractive, not anymore.

Thirty-four and with no sign of change on the horizon. In the end, he decided to aim for more. To take the change that was coming whether he was ready or not.

Turns out not very ready. But again, that was where his plan came in.

“I’m aware that is not 1950,” he shot back at his brother. “I can…sign up for a… A website.”

As if he knew how the hell to do that. They had a computer. Hell, he had a smartphone. They had a business to manage and it made sense. But the fact remained, he didn’t have a lot of use for either.

Elsie cackled, slinging her boots off the table and flipping her dark braid over her shoulder. “A website? I don’t think people swipe on their phones looking for marriage. I think they look for… Well, stuff you seem to be able to find without the help of the internet.”

His sister wasn’t wrong. He found sex just fine without the help of his phone. That was what Smokey’s Tavern was for.

“The way I see it,” Sawyer said, speaking as if Elsie hadn’t spoken, which as far as he was concerned was the way it should be with younger siblings, “marriage can work, relationships can work, as long as you have the same set of goals as the other person. It’s all these modern ideals… That’s what doesn’t work.”

“Which modern ideals?” Elsie asked. “The kind that saw every woman in our bloodline leaving every man in our bloodline all the way back to when people were riding around in horse-drawn carriages?”

“Yes,” he said. “That is what I mean. People thinking that they needed to marry for something other than…common need.”

He was pretty sure his grandparents had loved each other in the end. But it reminded him of something other than romance. It reminded him of his connection to the land. You cared for that which cared for you. It sustained you. You worked it, and the dirt got under your nails. The air was in your lungs. It became part of you. Of all that you were.

That was something better than romance.

Excerpted from Unbridled Cowboy by Maisey Yates.
Copyright © 2022 by Maisey Yates.
Published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

*****

Author Info:

Author Website: http://www.maiseyyates.com/

Facebook: Maisey Yates

Twitter: @maiseyyates

Instagram: @MaiseyYates

*****

Review – Sweet Home Cowboy

01 Friday Apr 2022

Posted by romanticreadsandsuch in Blog Tour, Book Review, Sneak Peek

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Book Review, Caitlin Crews, Jackie Ashenden, Jasper Creek Collection, Maisey Yates, Nicole Helm, Sweet Home Cowboy

Sweet Home Cowboy

A Jasper Creek Collection

by Maisey Yates, Jackie Ashenden, Caitlin Crews, Nicole Helm

ISBN: 9781335639967

Publication Date: March 29, 2022

Publisher: HQN Books

Blurb:

SWEET HOME COWBOY S is a Western-themed anthology featuring four stories from bestselling authors Maisey Yates, Nicole Helm, Jackie Ashenden and Caitlin Crews!

Four half sisters create the family they’ve always dreamed of in this enchanting quartet from bestselling authors Maisey Yates, Nicole Helm, Jackie Ashenden and Caitlin Crews.

The Hathaway sisters might have grown up apart, but when they agree to move to Jasper Creek, Oregon, to revitalize their grandfather’s farm, it seems a straightforward decision. Until they meet their neighborhood cowboys…

Sweet-natured Teddy has never met a man worth taking a risk on, until now. Tomboy Joey has more affinity with farm equipment than men, until a brooding cowboy changes her mind. Prickly baker Georgie can’t resist the temptation of the most forbidden cowboy of all, and sparks fly between ceramicist Elliot and the grumpy single-dad rancher next door.

The sisters’ feelings are anything but simple, but with the love and support of each other, they discover that a cowboy might be the sweetest thing of all about coming home.

*****

Excerpt:

PROLOGUE

It was never comfortable for people when four sets of violet eyes zeroed in on them with the level of intensity the Hathaway sisters could manage.

A fact the half sisters had learned when they’d first met at summer camp, thanks to their families, who’d been careful to give the girls the opportunity to meet each other, without the pressure of having to become friends or even real sisters.

But sisters they had become that first day at the age of thirteen. In each other, they’d found kindred spirits. Not just in the unusual color of their eyes, but in the depths of their passions, and in their driving need to forge family out of the fragments their father had left behind when he’d impregnated all their mothers at different points in the same year.

So that, as adults, though they lived in different parts of the country, they were the best of friends. Sisters, through and through, and when Georgie had informed them of Grandpa Jack’s heart attack in Jasper Creek, the rest had rushed to the small Oregon town to see what they could do.

Grandpa Jack looked at each of them with his usual squinty-eyed suspicion. Though their father had never made any effort to be a part of his daughters’ lives, Grandpa Jack had always made it clear he’d be there if needed.

But not to expect him to be cheerful about it.

“Didn’t all have to come,” he grumbled, shifting in his hospital bed.

“Well, of course we did. And we’ll stay until you’re on the mend,” Teddy said, patting his hand. The squinty-eyed suspicion became a full-fledged scowl as he pulled his hand away.

While Teddy was all about gestures of affection, Grandpa Jack was decidedly not.

Which made the fact Georgie was the only local granddaughter a blessing as she shared the discomfort with such goings-on. He turned his glare to her. “Didn’t have to call them.”

Georgie shrugged.

“She was right to,” Joey said firmly, meeting Grandpa Jack’s scowl with her own. “We won’t hear another complaint about it. A waste of time. You know how stubborn we are.”

Grandpa Jack grunted.

Elliot smirked. “Wonder where we got it.”

A nurse knocked on the door, then poked her head in. “Sorry, girls, it’s time to head home. Visiting hours are over.”

“Girls,” Elliot muttered under her breath with a considerable amount of disdain for the word.

But Teddy pressed a kiss to Grandpa Jack’s wrinkled forehead, Elliot touched his shoulder, and Georgie and Joey hovered at the door until they all left the room, chorusing goodbyes.

“I hate leaving him all alone,” Teddy said as Elliot linked arms with her. Teddy reached out and took Joey’s arm.

“He’ll be home soon enough,” Joey reassured her. She gave Georgie an apologetic shrug, then linked arms with her too, so they were a unit as they walked out of the hospital into the cool spring evening.

“He’s not going to let you fuss over him, Teddy. It isn’t his way,” Georgie said pragmatically as they walked to her truck.

Teddy frowned. “I think you misjudge my tenacity.”

Elliot’s eyebrows winged up. “Do we?”

Teddy wrinkled her nose, but didn’t argue with Elliot.

“I found an Airbnb closer to the hospital,” Georgie said, sounding tired as she climbed into the driver’s seat. “I knew this wouldn’t be a quick visit and we’d need more room than Felix and I have.” Georgie had grown up with her half brother right here in Jasper Creek.

The four sisters climbed into Georgie’s truck. Whatever belongings they’d packed were strapped into the bed of the truck from when Georgie had picked Joey and Teddy up at the airport this afternoon, after Elliot had driven down from Portland.

Georgie drove onto the highway, and it was only about fifteen minutes later she parked in front of a pretty little farmhouse just outside of Jasper Creek.

“This place is amazing,” Teddy said.

“Much better taken care of than the main house at Grandpa Jack’s property,” Georgie returned.

The women got out, grabbed what they’d need for the night, then headed inside.

“I’ll make us some dinner,” Teddy said, already moving for the kitchen.

“The host said she left some things for us to eat when we arrived,” Georgie replied, dropping her stuff in the front room.

They all descended on the kitchen, which was quaint and old-fashioned—something that suited all four women to the bone. On the table were a variety of baked goods.

“I found a teapot and some tea,” Teddy said.

“Scones and sweet rolls for dinner sounds good to me,” Joey said, already unwrapping the plate of baked goods and digging in.

Elliot found plates and set the table, shoving one at Joey as she’d already plowed through three-fourths of a scone.

“Do you think Grandpa Jack is stressed about the ranch? And that’s what caused this?” Teddy asked, fiddling with the stove.

“I think he’s an old man who eats poorly and smokes cigars regularly. But…” Georgie sighed.

“He’s been talking about selling off the last piece of land to Colt West next door. He’d keep the cabin and about an acre around it, but the rest would go to Colt.”

“Even the main house?” Joey asked, as she licked crumbs from her fingers.

“You could hardly call it that these days. It’s falling apart at the seams.”

Teddy frowned. “That’s just not right.”

Georgie shrugged. “He hasn’t lived in that house in decades. He’s a single, old, grumpy man. He’s finally accepting he can’t really take care of the ranch. Why not sell?”

“It’s our legacy,” Joey said. Then she looked around the table. “Isn’t it?”

“It’s our absent father’s legacy,” Elliot returned. “Assuming he’s still alive.”

All eyes turned to Georgie, who was the only one who’d ever had any contact with Mickey Hathaway. She lifted her shoulders. “Far as I know.”

Silence filled the room until Teddy’s teakettle began to whistle. She poured tea for everyone, then took a seat at the kitchen table. As far as she was concerned, this was all fate. The timing, the chance of all four of them coming here at a point in their lives where they got to decide what came next.

“We’ve always talked about how much we wanted to live there, so why don’t we?”

“Why don’t we what?” Joey replied, mouth full with her last bite of scone.

“Live there. Do what we all love to do. Put together some kind of…business. Honey, eggs,” Teddy said, pointing to herself. “Produce,” she said, pointing to Joey. “Ceramics.” Elliot’s specialty. “Our sweet Georgie’s baked goods,” she said, grinning at Georgie’s negative reaction to being called sweet.

“Most of us are already selling our wares anyway. Why don’t we do it here? The four of us.”

It would be more than the year her mother wanted, more than just learning some independence. It would be actually, hopefully permanently, forging that independence. Well, with her sisters. Which suited Teddy better. She didn’t want to be alone. She wanted to be a part of a family. Her family.

“You’d move here all the way from Maine?” Joey asked dubiously. “Leave your mother?”

Teddy sniffed. “I can leave my mother.” Then she wrinkled her nose. Subterfuge wasn’t her strong suit.

“She wants me to move out anyway.”

“Why?” her sisters demanded, offended on her behalf.

“She thinks I need a year of independence. To find my own way. Apparently twenty-five is too old to have always lived with your mother, according to her.”

When none of her sisters argued, she glared at them. “You agree with her?”

Elliot shrugged. “I don’t disagree with her.”

“Well, anyway, this would solve that, wouldn’t it? We can fix up the house. I’m sure some people need bee removal around here, so I’ll start a new hive. Buy new chickens. Elliot can drive her ceramics van down here. Joey, you could start the farm of your dreams with local produce and flowers—a brand-new challenge, all yours. Georgie, you can design the baking kitchen you’ve been planning since childhood. And we’ll be close enough to Grandpa to help him—and far enough away he won’t beat us away with sticks.”

They looked at Teddy, varying looks of consideration and concern on their faces. But as the idea took shape in Teddy’s mind, she knew it was exactly right. This wasn’t some new dream out of left field; it was an old dream.

And if she had to be independent, why not make that old dream a reality?

“We always wanted to live in one place. Like a real family,” Teddy said. She would have reached out and grabbed all their hands if she had three herself. As it was, she only looked at them imploringly. “Sisters. Live together. Work together. It’s the dream. Maybe something good can come out of Grandpa’s health scare. If Grandpa lets us live in the house, and we pool whatever our savings are together, it’s not a financial stretch. Elliot and I can keep our independent businesses running while we get our joint business set up. Then we split the farm profit four ways.”

“Profit. That is optimistic at best,” Georgie said.

“You know I am all about optimism,” Teddy returned.

A wind chime tinkled from the front room, which was odd considering there shouldn’t be enough wind to make it move here inside.

“Did someone leave the door open?” Joey asked, pushing back from the table. The girls got up and walked toward the door, which was indeed open.

“Look at that,” Elliot said.

They stepped out onto the porch together. Beyond the dogwood in the front just beginning to bloom, the sun was setting in a riot of colors—bright magentas, deep oranges, fading into lavenders and lighter pinks.

“It’s the most beautiful sunset I’ve ever seen.”

“That’s a tad dramatic, Teddy,” Georgie said gently, though her voice held all the awe of someone who agreed, but would never admit it.

“We have to do it,” Teddy said, her voice almost a whisper. “This is a sign. Don’t you believe in fate?”

Elliot nodded. “Yeah. I’m mobile. I go where I please. Why not right here?”

Georgie shrugged. “Don’t know about fate, but it wouldn’t change much for me, except you guys would be close. I’d like that. Felix is talking about leaving Jasper Creek.”

Teddy reached out, but Georgie stopped her with a quelling look. “It’s fine.” She offered a smile, or Georgie’s version of a smile anyway. “Especially if you guys are here.”

All eyes turned to Joey.

“I have to talk timing over with my mom. I don’t want to leave her short-staffed,” Joey said, her eyes still on the sunset. Then she pushed out a breath and looked at her sisters and grinned. “But why the hell not?”

Teddy smiled at the sunset, feeling a bit teary over the whole thing. But it was meant to be, she was sure of it. “Four Sisters Farm.” She looked at each of her sisters. “That’s what we can call it. Because it’ll be ours. Always.”

Excerpted from Sweet Home Cowboy
by Nicole Helm, Maisey Yates, Jackie Ashenden, Caitlin Crews.
Copyright © 2022 by Nicole Helm, Maisey Yates, Jackie Ashenden, Caitlin Crews.
Published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

*****

Review:

The four Hathaway sisters may not have grown up together, and they may be as different as can be, that doesn’t mean they don’t love each other deeply. So when the opportunity arises to make a life together in Jasper Creek, they don’t hesitate. But what started as a chance to be there for their grandfather and start a life together, quickly becomes so much more.

I gotta admit, I’m pretty impressed with how well these authors manage to blend their voices. I don’t think I would have known that the stories were written by different people if they didn’t tell me. Each one is an easy-to-read mix of humor and emotion, romance and familial bonds, but still highlights the distinctiveness of each sister and the cowboy who captures her heart.

The newest anthology in the Jasper Creek series is a delightfully fun read. While I haven’t read the first two, and you really don’t need to, I’m definitely adding them to my TBR pile.

*****

Author Info:

Author Website: http://www.maiseyyates.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MaiseyYates.Author/

Twitter: https://mobile.twitter.com/maiseyyates

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/maiseyyates/

Jackie Ashenden writes dark, emotional stories with alpha heroes who’ve just got the world to their liking only to have it blown wide apart by their kick-ass heroines.

She lives in Auckland, New Zealand, with her husband the inimitable Dr Jax and two kids. When she’s not torturing alpha males, she can be found drinking chocolate martinis, reading anything she can lay her hands on, wasting time on social media, or forced to mountain biking with her husband.

Author Website: https://www.jackieashenden.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jackie.ashenden

Twitter: https://mobile.twitter.com/jackieashenden

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jackie_ashenden/

Caitlin Crews is a USA Today bestselling, RITA-nominated, and critically-acclaimed author who has written more than 100 books and counting. She has a Masters and Ph.D. in English Literature, thinks everyone should read more category romance, and is always available to discuss her beloved alpha heroes. Just ask. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her comic book artist husband, is always planning her next trip, and will never, ever, read all the books in her to-be-read pile. Thank goodness.

Author Website: https://megancrane.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MeganCraneAndCaitlinCrews/

Twitter: https://mobile.twitter.com/megancrane

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/meganmcrane/

Nicole Helm writes down-to-earth contemporary romance and fast-paced romantic suspense. She lives with her husband and two sons in Missouri. Visit her website: http://www.nicolehelm.com

Author Website: https://www.nicolehelm.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorNicoleHelm

Twitter: https://www.instagram.com/nicole_t_helm/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nicole_t_helm/

*****

Spotlight – Rancher’s Forgotten Rival

19 Wednesday Jan 2022

Posted by romanticreadsandsuch in Blog Tour, Sneak Peek

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Carsons of Lone Rock series, Maisey Yates, Rancher's Forgotten Rival

Rancher’s Forgotten Rival

The Carsons of Lone Rock

by Maisey Yates

on-sale Jan.25

Harlequin Desire

Blurb:

Will amnesia turn these enemies into lovers? It’s a hero in distress, with a more than capable damsel on hand to save to him. Find out more about the book in this book #1 miniseries, Carsons of Lone Rock, by New York Times bestselling author Maisey Yates.

Welcome to Lone Rock, Oregon’s Wild West. Chance Carson is the one man in Lone Rock who gets Juniper all riled up. His family is ranching royalty. He’s arrogant, insufferable and obnoxiously charming—she’ll keep her distance, thanks. But when Juniper finds Chance Carson on her property, injured and without his memory, she saves his life…and sort of lets him believe he’s her ranch hand. Making the entitled rancher work a little is one thing…but actually liking the man is another. Falling for him? No way. And yet the passion between them is as undeniable as it is unexpected. Will it survive the truth?

Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/Ranchers-Forgotten-Rival-Claim-Cowboy-ebook/dp/B098P74ZKQ/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=THE+RANCHER%27S+FORGOTTEN+RIVAL+by+Maisey+Yates&qid=1637071359&qsid=133-7575147-1798556&sr=8-1&sres=1335735402%2CB09FSCDNZJ&srpt=ABIS_EBOOKS

Barnes & Noble:https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/ranchers-forgotten-rival-maisey-yates/1139758363?ean=9781335735409

Harlequin.com: https://www.harlequin.com/shop/books/9781335735409_ranchers-forgotten-rival.html

*****

Excerpt:

“You know, I take people to the hospital every day,” she said. “They don’t just go there to die. They go there to be healed. I understand that there can be bad traumatic memories connected to that. But… But the hospital can be a good thing.”

“Logically I know that. But…”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry that the first memory you’re having is so sad.”

“I think it’s probably the strongest one I have. Because I think I felt that sadness inside of me before I ever saw her face. What a hell of a thing. That I almost died. Out there in the field. When…”

“When what?” she whispered.

“My parents have been through enough,” he said. “She must’ve been my sister.”

“Oh.” The word left her body in a gust.

He knew what it was like to lose someone. He was…human.

Just the same as she was.

Just the same as they all were.

The Carsons and Sohappys weren’t so different.

She was hoping he might see that during this time, but she hadn’t expected it would be her own lesson.

She…she had never heard anything about that and she didn’t know why he thought it. Or if it was true. And it still settled hard in her chest.

He was getting way too close to remembering things, and it was getting… Dicey. It was one thing to think that she wanted to endear herself to him this way, but him sharing something personal like this, something he never would’ve shared otherwise, it felt like a violation. And she had never thought that she would feel like she violated Chance Carson. But this was different. The situation with his sister.

No. He had a sister. And she was alive and well.

Callie Carson was much younger than him, and she had gone off and married a rodeo cowboy who lived in Gold Valley.

But the way he was talking about it, it sounded like he was younger.

She felt hungry for more, but at the same time she didn’t want to press him. For so many reasons, but maybe the biggest one was her heart felt so tender right now. For him.

That wasn’t supposed to happen.

“All right,” he said.

He stood up, and she stood at the same time, ready to take his bowl from him.

“I can take the dishes.”

“Oh no, that’s okay,” he said, and she put her hand on the bowl, and her fingertips brushed his, and their eyes locked.

And she felt a frisson of something magical go through her. Something hot and delicious and sticky like cayenne honey, flowing all the way through her veins.

And she could hardly breathe around it. She could hardly think. All she could do was stare. And feel the thundering rhythm of her heart, like a herd of wild mustangs, the kind that you could find out here in Eastern Oregon, and she was sure that he could hear it too.

*****

Author Info:

*****

Spotlight – Rodeo Christmas at Evergreen Ranch

17 Friday Dec 2021

Posted by romanticreadsandsuch in Blog Tour, Sneak Peek

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Gold Valley series, Maisey Yates, Rodeo Christmas at Evergreen Ranch

Rodeo Christmas at Evergreen Ranch

A Gold Valley Novel

by Maisey Yates

ISBN: 9781335959171

Publication Date: October 26, 2021

Publisher: HQN Books

Blurb:

Gold Valley’s rodeo champion is facing the toughest challenge of his life – a Christmas wedding!

Legendary bull-rider Jake Daniels has only one plan this holiday season – to ignore the pain it always brings. Until his best friend Callie Carson shows up on his ranch with a marriage proposal! Jake has lived so close to the edge it’s a miracle he’s still alive – he knows all about risk. But marrying the woman he craves more than anything feels like the biggest risk of all.

Callie Carson might be rodeo royalty, but to fulfil her dreams of riding saddle bronc, she needs her inheritance. And to access that, she needs a husband. But Jake the husband is deliciously different from Jake the friend, especially after the wild heat of their wedding night! He was only supposed to be her cowboy for Christmas, but Jake’s every heart-stopping touch has Callie questioning how she’ll ever be able to walk away…

*****

Excerpt:

Chapter One

JAKE DANIELS HAD grown up knowing that life was short. When he was in high school, he’d lost his parents, and along with them, the sense that anything in this world was guaranteed.

That kind of thing changed a man.

It could make him afraid of his own shadow, worried about taking risks and filled with a sense of self-preservation.

It was either that, or he realized since there were no guarantees, he might as well go all in. Push those chips out to the center of the table and see if the gamble paid off.

He’d done some admittedly dumb stuff as a kid. Not gambling so much as acting out. But the rodeo had changed him. It had saved him.

He’d spent the last eighteen years gambling and doing pretty damn well for himself, it had to be said. Years spent in the rodeo, flinging himself around on the back of enraged bulls, had netted him a decent amount of money, and now that he was more or less ready to get out of the game, those winnings, and the amount of money his parents’ life insurance had left behind, had gotten him a big spread in Gold Valley.

He was going to be a rancher.

Not cattle, like his cousin Ryder. No. He was getting into horses. High-value breeds. Another gamble. It would either pay off, or ruin him.

That was the kind of life he liked. That was the kind of thing that made him feel alive.

And if this was retirement, hell, he was pretty damn into it. Thirty-two years old, and wealthy enough to figure out a way to live his dream. Not bad at all.

Of course, there were things he would miss about the rodeo. The people on the circuit were practically family now. So many years traveling around the same venues, getting busted up together, competing fiercely and going out for a beer after.

But it had been time to leave, and all it had taken was one fierce accident to teach him that.

And Gold Valley was his home, so this had been the place to go to when his time in the rodeo was done.

The day his parents had died, his aunt and uncle had also died, along with the mother of one of his closest friends. That had left a passel of orphaned children, a big old ranch that had once been run by their parents and a whole lot of chaos.

But it had been a good life. Other than all the crushingly sad parts.

His cousin Ryder had taken care of all of them, since he was the only one who’d been eighteen when the tragedy had happened.

He often wondered how they’d made it through without Ryder punching them all in the damn face.

He was sure that Ryder had wanted to from time to time.

Hell. Jake and Colt had been absolute assholes. Neither of them had handled losing their parents well. Well, was there a good way to handle that? He didn’t know. But at seventeen and fifteen, he and his brother had been mad at the world, and kicking against the one person who had been doing his best to help them.

They’d both left home and joined the rodeo, the Western take on running away and joining the circus.

It had taken some years and some maturity for him to fully appreciate what he’d had.

Because what Ryder had given to them had been bound up in his loss, and until he’d been in his midtwenties probably, he hadn’t fully been able to separate those two things and think of home, and his cousin, without a measure of pain and anger.

Even now, when he pulled into Hope Springs Ranch, a strange sensation took hold of him.

Nostalgia, grief and home, all rolled into one.

He’d been contending with it a lot lately, because his—for lack of a better word—retirement was still fairly new, and being in one place and not on the road was unusual for him.

But that was a choice he’d made, and one that was taking a bit of time for him to settle into. It had been just over three months, and it still felt…wrong in some ways.

It was easier to pretend that all your demons were dealt with when you just spent a good portion of the time running from them. Made things simple. At least as simple as they could be.

The problem was his demons had done a decent job of catching up to him on the circuit, and that was when he’d decided it was time to move on.

When Cal had fallen…

How could he live with something happening to his mentee? Cal was his best friend and with his guidance had gotten hurt.

No, that had brought him back to a dark, raw place. One he didn’t want to visit again.

That calm before the storm. That bright ray of sunshine revealed to be the headlights of a Mack truck bearing down on him.

He’d read that poem that said nothing gold could stay.

In his experience, it turned out gold was fleeting. And revealed to be fool’s gold on top of it.

Good never lasted.

And it was rarely real, anyway.

He’d been… Well, he hadn’t been thrilled about Cal wanting to come for Thanksgiving, but he felt responsible for the accident so in the end he hadn’t been able to say no.

He pulled his truck up to the front of the farmhouse, and the door opened, three dogs spilling out the front and down the front steps.

“Back, mutts,” he muttered when he got out of the truck, smiling affectionately at the creatures as he bent down and scratched them behind the ears.

He looked up and saw Sammy standing on the top step of the porch, her baby on her hip. Sammy was married to his cousin Ryder now, but she was another member of their ragtag family. She hadn’t lost her parents, but her situation at home, as he understood it, had been unacceptable, and when she was sixteen she’d come to live with them. She’d never left, and she and Ryder had gotten married a year earlier.

Finally, in his opinion.

The two of them had spent way too long dancing around the truth. Not that he could blame them. Nothing in his life had ever made marriage look particularly appealing. His parents…

His parents had been unhappy, slaves to a ranch and their children, to marriage vows they’d said to each other and had always seemed like they might regret.

For just a moment it had seemed like it might all be fixed. For just a moment it had seemed like they’d be okay.

Then it had all been destroyed.

That bright spot of hope swallowed by reality.

After years of unhappiness, his parents had just died.

Jake couldn’t imagine that kind of life.

“How you doing?” he asked.

Sammy shifted the baby from one hip to the other, the little girl reaching out and grabbing her mom’s blond hair. Sammy laughed and unwrapped the chubby fist from her curls. She looked happier than he’d ever seen her before.

He supposed for some people there was something to be said for this life.

God knew Ryder seemed happier.

But then, it was impossible for Ryder to seem more grim. Jake felt pretty guilty about that with the benefit of age and wisdom.

“Great,” Sammy said. “We’ve been seeing so much of you lately. I feel spoiled.”

“Well, that’s good, because it won’t take long for you to just feel sick of me.”

“Never,” Sammy said, coming down the steps and offering him a hug.

Sammy was like that. Effortless, easy affection with people around her.

He admired it, but he’d never much understood it. There was only one kind of touch he was free with. Sex was simple. And being a champion in the world of rodeo meant there was no shortage of buckle bunnies lining up to see if the rumors were true. His bull rides lasted eight seconds, and a ride in his bed lasted the whole night.

He took a lot of pride in the fact that he had staying power. That he gave a damn for the pleasure of the women who passed through his hotel rooms.

But that was as deep as he got.

“Come on in,” Sammy said. “Logan and Rose are already here. Iris and Griffin are on their way.”

It was strange to him that everybody had paired off now. Everybody except for himself, and his brother, Colt, who would rather take a stick between the eyes than settle down.

Jake was confident that would be his brother’s stance.

His brother was still going out hard in the rodeo. As far as Jake knew he wasn’t even interested in coming back to town and settling down the way Jake was, let alone getting married.

He walked into the living room, and noticed all the little changes.

Since Ryder and Sammy had gotten married, the place, which had actually been basically the same in all the years since their parents had died, had gotten a bit of a facelift.

Sammy had added a whole lot of real grown-up touches to it. Pretty things.

It was weird. Weirder that he cared.

Ryder came through from the kitchen and offered a greeting. “Good to see you.”

“You, too. Hey, Sammy,” Jake said. “Would it be all right if my buddy Cal came for Thanksgiving?”

“Sure,” Sammy said. “The more, the merrier.”

He was glad Sammy was thrilled. He was less thrilled. But there were a spare few things on God’s earth he saw as sacred. His friendship with Cal was one of them.

The accident might have been a catalyst for Jake deciding to leave the rodeo, but it was just damned cowardly to then deny his friend’s request to come visit. Why? Because he felt guilty about the fall?

Hell, yeah, he did.

But that didn’t mean he had to be happy about the visit. Though even just being away and out of the game, knowing he was just out of it now for good… There were things he missed. He was looking forward to having a few beers and talking about old times.

“Good,” Jake said.

Eventually, Iris and her new husband arrived, followed by Pansy and her husband, West, and West’s teenage brother, Emmett. West and Pansy had taken over the raising of the kid, since West’s mother wasn’t hugely into the maternal thing. Putting it mildly.

And while everything with his family was good—it always was—there was an indefinable feeling of…change.

Right. Well, you haven’t been here very much, so you don’t have the right to have an opinion about how things have changed.

That thought galled him a little bit.

And it was true enough. He’d been gone, seen to his own affairs all this time, and something that had given him a small measure of comfort was the fact that he could come home at any time and things would be roughly the way that he left them. But not so much anymore.

There were new people. New plates. The house was fuller than it had ever been, but that made it a little bit unrecognizable, too.

It was a whole damn thing.

He finished eating, and hung out for a while.

Then he bid everybody farewell, got in his truck and started on the road back to his ranch.

Settling in Gold Valley.

There was a time when he’d been sure he’d never do that. And as he drove down the familiar highway he had a strange sense of…dread.

He hated that.

He chased dread. The kind of fear that held other people down, he pursued it. He’d spent years riding bulls because he’d figured why not give fate the biggest middle finger of all.

It was the quiet moments that seemed to bring the fear. The still moments. The golden hour, when the sun lit up the world around him and everything looked new. And there would be a moment. A breath. Where peace rested in his soul.

And right on its heels came the hounds of hell.

The arena had stopped it. The pounding of hooves, the danger.

It was just that it had followed him to the arena now so he’d figured he’d take his chances here.

Maybe that had been a mistake.

Too late now.

He drove through town, trying to get a look at how it might seem if he were an outsider. If he was someone who hadn’t grown up here. The brick facades were the kind of thing tourists lost their shit over. But he lost the ability to see them a long time ago.

For him… For him, Gold Valley had just represented everything he lost.

He’d been running when he’d left.

He’d run for a long time. And he’d achieved a hell of a lot.

But whatever he thought he’d feel when he got here… He didn’t.

And so he was trying to see everything with new eyes, like he was a new man, because he felt just so damned much like the old one. And he wasn’t the biggest fan.

Hope Springs always put him in this kind of mood.

So he shrugged it off and started mentally going over the timeline that he had in place for getting his ranch going. His first five horses were coming at the new year.

It was a new challenge. And it reinvigorated him. That was the problem. The rodeo had gotten stale. He’d won everything twice. You didn’t get better than that. He’d done it twice in a row, and he didn’t want to get to the point where he wasn’t winning anymore.

He’d peaked. Basically.

So now he had to go find somewhere else to do that.

That was something, anyway.

It was one reason he’d backed his cousin Iris when she had decided to open her bakery.

He knew all about needing a change.

Maybe that meant he actually was still running.

None of it mattered now, though.

He hadn’t had enough to drink tonight because he’d needed to get his ass home, but he was going to open some whiskey the minute he got in the door.

The place was out about ten miles from town, a nice flat parcel of property with the mountains behind it. The house itself was a big, white farmhouse with a green metal roof. Different to the rustic place at Hope Springs, but he liked it. The driveway was gravel, long and winding, with tall, dense trees on either side of the road.

But when he came through the trees into the clearing where the house was, there was a surprise waiting for him in front of the house.

An old, beat-up pickup was parked there, and he could see a lone figure leaning up against the hood. He parked the truck and got out, making his way over to the figure.

In the darkness, he couldn’t quite make it out, but he had a feeling he knew who it was. Early and unannounced.

Entirely in keeping with what he knew of his friend.

“Cal?”

And two wide, brown eyes looked up at him from beneath the brim of a white cowboy hat, long, glossy brown hair shifting with the motion. “Jake. I’m really glad to see you. Because… I don’t just need a job. I need a husband.”

*****

Author Info:

Maisey Yates is a New York Times bestselling author of over one hundred romance novels. Whether she’s writing strong, hard working cowboys, dissolute princes or multigenerational family stories, she loves getting lost in fictional worlds. An avid knitter with a dangerous yarn addiction and an aversion to housework, Maisey lives with her husband and three kids in rural Oregon.

Author Website

Facebook: @MaiseyYates.Author

Instagram: @maiseyyates

Twitter: @maiseyyates

Goodreads

*****

Spotlight – Confessions from the Quilting Circle

10 Monday May 2021

Posted by romanticreadsandsuch in Blog Tour, Sneak Peek

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Confessions from the Quilting Circle, Maisey Yates

Readers are just loving Yates’s newest book!

*****

Confessions from the Quilting Circle

by Maisey Yates

ISBN: 9781335775856

Publication Date: 5/4/2021

Publisher: HQN Books

Blurb:

The Ashwood women don’t have much in common…except their ability to keep secrets.

When Lark Ashwood’s beloved grandmother dies, she and her sisters discover an unfinished quilt. Finishing it could be the reason Lark’s been looking for to stop running from the past, but is she ever going to be brave enough to share her biggest secret with the people she ought to be closest to?

Hannah can’t believe she’s back in Bear Creek, the tiny town she sacrificed everything to escape from. The plan? Help her sisters renovate her grandmother’s house and leave as fast as humanly possible. Until she comes face-to-face with a man from her past. But getting close to him again might mean confessing what really drove her away…

Stay-at-home mom Avery has built a perfect life, but at a cost. She’ll need all her family around her, and all her strength, to decide if the price of perfection is one she can afford to keep paying.

This summer, the Ashwood women must lean on each other like never before, if they are to stitch their family back together, one truth at a time…

*****

Excerpt:

March 4th, 1944

The dress is perfect. Candlelight satin and antique lace. I can’t wait for you to see it. I can’t wait to walk down the aisle toward you. If only we could set a date. If only we had some idea of when the war will be over.

Love, Dot

Present day—Lark

Unfinished.

The word whispered through the room like a ghost. Over the faded, floral wallpaper, down to the scarred wooden floor. And to the precariously stacked boxes and bins of fabrics, yarn skeins, canvases and other artistic miscellany.

Lark Ashwood had to wonder if her grandmother had left them this way on purpose. Unfinished business here on earth, in the form of quilts, sweaters and paintings, to keep her spirit hanging around after she was gone.

It would be like her. Adeline Dowell did everything with just a little extra.

From her glossy red hair—which stayed that color till the day she died—to her matching cherry glasses and lipstick. She always had an armful of bangles, a beer in her hand and an ashtray full of cigarettes. She never smelled like smoke. She smelled like spearmint gum, Aqua Net and Avon perfume.

She had taught Lark that it was okay to be a little bit of extra.

A smile curved Lark’s lips as she looked around the attic space again. “Oh, Gram…this is really a mess.”

She had the sense that was intentional too. In death, as in life, her grandmother wouldn’t simply fade away.

Neat attics, well-ordered affairs and pre-death estate sales designed to decrease the clutter a family would have to go through later were for other women. Quieter women who didn’t want to be a bother.

Adeline Dowell lived to be a bother. To expand to fill a space, not shrinking down to accommodate anyone.

Lark might not consistently achieve the level of excess Gram had, but she considered it a goal.

“Lark? Are you up there?”

She heard her mom’s voice carrying up the staircase. “Yes!” She shouted back down. “I’m…trying to make sense of this.”

She heard footsteps behind her and saw her mom standing there, gray hair neat, arms folded in. “You don’t have to. We can get someone to come in and sort it out.”

“And what? Take it all to a thrift store?” Lark asked.

Her mom’s expression shifted slightly, just enough to convey about six emotions with no wasted effort. Emotional economy was Mary Ashwood’s forte. As contained and practical as Addie had been excessive. “Honey, I think most of this would be bound for the dump.”

“Mom, this is great stuff.”

“I don’t have room in my house for sentiment.”

“It’s not about sentiment. It’s usable stuff.”

“I’m not artsy, you know that. I don’t really…get all this.” The unspoken words in the air settled over Lark like a cloud.

Mary wasn’t artsy because her mother hadn’t been around to teach her to sew. To knit. To paint. To quilt.

Addie had taught her granddaughters. Not her own daughter.

She’d breezed on back into town in a candy apple Corvette when Lark’s oldest sister, Avery, was born, after spending Mary’s entire childhood off on some adventure or another, while Lark’s grandfather had done the raising of the kids.

Grandkids had settled her. And Mary had never withheld her children from Adeline. Whatever Mary thought about her mom was difficult to say. But then, Lark could never really read her mom’s emotions. When she’d been a kid, she hadn’t noticed that. Lark had gone around feeling whatever she did and assuming everyone was tracking right along with her because she’d been an innately self focused kid. Or maybe that was just kids.

Either way, back then badgering her mom into tea parties and talking her ear off without noticing Mary didn’t do much of her own talking had been easy.

It was only when she’d had big things to share with her mom that she’d realized…she couldn’t.

“It’s easy, Mom,” Lark said. “I’ll teach you. No one is asking you to make a living with art, art can be about enjoying the process.”

“I don’t enjoy doing things I’m bad at.”

“Well I don’t want Gram’s stuff going to a thrift store, okay?”

Another shift in Mary’s expression. A single crease on one side of her mouth conveying irritation, reluctance and exhaustion. But when she spoke she was measured. “If that’s what you want. This is as much yours as mine.”

It was a four-way split. The Dowell House and all its contents, and The Miner’s House, formerly her grandmother’s candy shop, to Mary Ashwood, and her three daughters. They’d discovered that at the will reading two months earlier.

It hadn’t caused any issues in the family. They just weren’t like that.

Lark’s uncle Bill had just shaken his head. “She feels guilty.”

And that had been the end of any discussion, before any had really started. They were all like their father that way. Quiet. Reserved. Opinionated and expert at conveying it without saying much.

Big loud shouting matches didn’t have a place in the Dowell family.

But Addie had been there for her boys. They were quite a bit older than Lark’s mother. She’d left when the oldest had been eighteen. The youngest boy sixteen.

Mary had been four.

Lark knew her mom felt more at home in the middle of a group of men than she did with women. She’d been raised in a house of men. With burned dinners and repressed emotions.

Lark had always felt like her mother had never really known what to make of the overwhelmingly female household she’d ended up with.

“It’s what I want. When is Hannah getting in tonight?”

Hannah, the middle child, had moved to Boston right after college, getting a position in the Boston Symphony Orchestra. She had the summer off of concerts and had decided to come to Bear Creek to finalize the plans for their inherited properties before going back home.

Once Hannah had found out when she could get time away from the symphony, Lark had set her own plans for moving into motion. She wanted to be here the whole time Hannah was here, since for Hannah, this wouldn’t be permanent.

But Lark wasn’t going back home. If her family agreed to her plan, she was staying here.

Which was not something she’d ever imagined she’d do.

Lark had gone to college across the country, in New York, at eighteen and had spent years living everywhere but here. Finding new versions of herself in new towns, new cities, whenever the urge took her.

Unfinished.

“Sometime around five-ish? She said she’d get a car out here from the airport. I reminded her that isn’t the easiest thing to do in this part of the world. She said something about it being in apps now. I didn’t laugh at her.”

Lark laughed, though. “She can rent a car.”

Lark hadn’t lived in Bear Creek since she was eighteen, but she hadn’t been under the impression there was a surplus of ride services around the small, rural community. If you were flying to get to Bear Creek, you had to fly into Medford, which was about eighteen miles from the smaller town. Even if you could find a car, she doubted the driver would want to haul anyone out of town.

But her sister wouldn’t be told anything. Hannah made her own way, something Lark could relate to. But while she imagined herself drifting along like a tumbleweed, she imagined Hannah slicing through the water like a shark. With intent, purpose, and no small amount of sharpness.

“Maybe I should arrange something.”

“Mom. She’s a professional symphony musician who’s been living on her own for fourteen years. I’m pretty sure she can cope.”

“Isn’t the point of coming home not having to cope for a while? Shouldn’t your mom handle things?” Mary was a doer. She had never been the one to sit and chat. She’d loved for Lark to come out to the garden with her and work alongside her in the flower beds, or bake together. “You’re not in New Mexico anymore. I can make you cookies without worrying they’ll get eaten by rats in the mail.”

Lark snorted. “I don’t think there are rats in the mail.”

“It doesn’t have to be real for me to worry about it.”

And there was something Lark had inherited directly from her mother. “That’s true.”

That and her love of chocolate chip cookies, which her mom made the very best. She could remember long afternoons at home with her mom when she’d been little, and her sisters had been in school. They’d made cookies and had iced tea, just the two of them.

Cooking had been a self-taught skill her mother had always been proud of. Her recipes were hers. And after growing up eating “chicken with blood” and beanie weenies cooked by her dad, she’d been pretty determined her kids would eat better than that.

Something Lark had been grateful for.

And Mom hadn’t minded if she’d turned the music up loud and danced in some “dress up clothes”—an oversized prom dress from the ’80s and a pair of high heels that were far too big, purchased from a thrift store. Which Hannah and Avery both declared “annoying” when they were home.

Her mom hadn’t understood her, Lark knew that. But Lark had felt close to her back then in spite of it.

The sound of the door opening and closing came from downstairs. “Homework is done, dinner is in the Crock-Pot. I think even David can manage that.”

The sound of her oldest sister Avery’s voice was clear, even from a distance. Lark owed that to Avery’s years of motherhood, coupled with the fact that she—by choice—fulfilled the role of parent liaison at her kids’ exclusive private school, and often wrangled children in large groups. Again, by choice.

Lark looked around the room one last time and walked over to the stack of crafts. There was an old journal on top of several boxes that look like they might be overflowing with fabric, along with some old Christmas tree ornaments, and a sewing kit. She grabbed hold of them all before walking to the stairs, turning the ornaments over and letting the silver stars catch the light that filtered in through the stained glass window.

Her mother was already ahead of her, halfway down the stairs by the time Lark got to the top of them. She hadn’t seen Avery yet since she’d arrived. She loved her older sister. She loved her niece and nephew. She liked her brother-in-law, who did his best not to be dismissive of the fact that she made a living drawing pictures. Okay, he kind of annoyed her. But still, he was fine. Just… A doctor. A surgeon, in fact, and bearing all of the arrogance that stereotypically implied.

One of the saddest things about living away for as long as she had was that she’d missed her niece’s and nephew’s childhoods. She saw them at least once a year, but it never felt like enough. And now they were teenagers, and a lot less cute.

And then there was Avery, who had always been somewhat untouchable. Four years older than Lark, Avery was a classic oldest child. A people pleasing perfectionist. She was organized and she was always neat and orderly. And even though the gap between thirty-four and thirty-eight was a lot narrower than twelve and sixteen, sometimes Lark still felt like the gawky adolescent to Avery’s sweet sixteen.

But maybe if they shared in a little bit of each other’s day-to-day it would close some of that gap she felt between them.

*****

Author Info:

New York Times Bestselling author Maisey Yates lives in rural Oregon with her three children and her husband, whose chiseled jaw and arresting features continue to make her swoon. She feels the epic trek she takes several times a day from her office to her coffee maker is a true example of her pioneer spirit.

Author Website

Twitter: @maiseyyates

Facebook:@MaiseyYates.Author

Instagram: @maiseyyates

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*****

Spotlight – Claiming the Rancher’s Heir

10 Tuesday Nov 2020

Posted by romanticreadsandsuch in Blog Tour, Sneak Peek

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Claiming the Rancher's Heir, Gold Valley Vineyards series, Maisey Yates

Ooooh, an enemies-to-lovers marriage-of-convenience for the holidays … sounds fun!

*****

Claiming the Rancher’s Heir

Gold Valley Vineyards series

by Maisey Yates

ISBN: 9781335154002

Price: $7.99

On Sale Date: Nov 10, 2020

Blurb:

Arrogant, infuriating, insufferable… And the sexiest man she’s ever met.

Wren Maxfield hates Creed Cooper, but now she’s working with the wealthy rancher over the holidays! Those strong feelings hide undeniable chemistry…and one wild night results in pregnancy. Now Creed vows to claim his heir. That means proposing a marriage in name only. But as desire takes over, is that a deal they can keep?

Includes Rancher’s Wild Secret, a bonus story!

Emerson Maxfield is a sheltered beauty who never steps out of line. Now she must marry her family’s enemy before desire spells downfall for them all…

Harlequin: https://www.harlequin.com/shop/books/9781335154002_claiming-the-ranchers-heir-ranchers-wild-secret.html

B&N: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/claiming-the-ranchers-heir-ranchers-wild-secret-maisey-yates/1135079360?ean=9781335154002&st=AFF&2sid=HarperCollins%20Publishers%20LLC_7651142_NA&sourceId=AFFHarperCollins%20Publishers%20LLC

Amazon: https://www.amazon.ca/Claiming-Ranchers-Heir-Wild-Secret-ebook/dp/B081X8L4YB/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=Claiming+the+Rancher%27s+Heir+by+maisey+yates&qid=1599748181&sr=8-2

Indie Bound: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781335154002

Walmart: https://www.walmart.com/search/search-ng.do?search_query=9781335154002

*****

Excerpt:

Creed Cooper was a cowboy. A rich, successful cowboy from one of the most well-regarded families in Logan County. He also happened to be tall, muscular and in possession of the kind of good looks a lot of women liked.

As a result, nearly nothing—or no one—was off-limits to him.

No one except Wren Maxfield.

Maybe that was why every time he looked at her his hands itched.

To unwind that tight bun from her hair. To make that mouth, which was always flattened in disapproval—at least around him—get soft and sexy and get all over his body.

And he had that itch a lot, considering he and Wren were the representatives for their respective families’ vineyards. Rivals, in fact.

And she hated him.

She hated him so much that when she saw him her eyes flared with a particular kind of fire.

Fair enough, since he couldn’t really stand her either.

But somehow, years ago, a piece of that dislike inside him had twisted and caught hard in his gut and turned into an intensity of another kind entirely.

He was obsessed.

Obsessed with the idea he might be able to use that fire in her eyes to burn up the sheets between them.

Instead, he had to listen to her heels clicking on the floor as she paced around the showroom of Cowboy Wines, looking like a smug cat, making him wait to hear whatever plan it was she’d come to tell him about.

“Are you listening to me?” she asked suddenly, her green cat eyes getting sharp.

She was dressed in a tight-fitting red dress that fell to the top of her knees. It had a high, wide neck, and while it didn’t show a lot of skin, it hugged her full breasts so tight it didn’t leave a lot to the imagination.

Even if it had, his imagination was damn good. And it was willing to work for Wren. Overtime.

She had on those ridiculous spiked heels, too. Red, like the dress. He wanted to see her in only those heels.

He wasn’t into prissy women. Not generally. He liked a more practical girl. A cowgirl who would be at home on his ranch.

Wren looked like she never left her family showroom, all glass walls and wrought iron furniture. Maxfield Vineyards was the premier wine brand for people who were up their own asses.

And still, he wanted her.

That might be her greatest sin.

That she tested control he’d had firmly leashed for the last eighteen years and made him want to send it right to hell as he burned in her body.

Of all the reasons to hate Wren Maxfield, wanting her and not being able to do a damn thing to make himself stop was number one on the list.

He looked around the Cowboy Wines showroom, the barrels with glass tabletops on them, the heavy, distressed beams that ran the length of the room.

And then there was him: battered jeans and cowboy boots, a hat for good measure.

Everything a woman like Wren would hate.

A testament to just why there was no reason to carry a burning torch for her fine little body.

Too bad his own body was a dumbass.

“I wasn’t listening at all,” he said, making sure to drawl it. As slow as possible. He was rewarded with a subtle flare of heat in those eyes. “Make it more interesting next time, Wren. Maybe do a dance.”

“The only dancing I’ll ever do is on your grave, Creed.”

The sparring sent a kick of lust through him. They did this every time they were in a room together. Every damn time. No matter that he knew he shouldn’t indulge it.

But hell, he was afraid the alternative was stripping her naked and screwing her against the nearest wall, and that wasn’t a real option.

So verbal sparring it was.

“What did I die of?” he asked. “Boredom?”

Those eyes shot sparks at him. “It was tragic. You were found with a high heel protruding out of your chest.” Her magic lips curved upward and he felt it like she’d pressed them against his neck.

“Any suspects so far?”

“Your own smart mouth. Are you going to listen to me or not?”

“You’re already here. So am I. Might as well.”

He leaned back in his chair and, for effect, put his boots up on the table.

Her top lip curled up into a sneer, and that thrilled him just as much as if she’d crossed the room to straddle his lap. Okay, maybe not just as much, but he loved that he got to her.

*****

Author Info:

New York Times and USA Today Bestselling author Maisey Yates lives in rural Oregon with her three children and her husband, whose chiseled jaw and arresting features continue to make her swoon. She feels the epic trek she takes several times a day from her office to her coffee maker is a true example of her pioneer spirit.

In 2009, at the age of twenty-three Maisey sold her first book. Since then it’s been a whirlwind of sexy alpha males and happily ever afters, and she wouldn’t have it any other way. Maisey divides her writing time between dark, passionate category romances set just about everywhere on earth and light sexy contemporary romances set practically in her back yard. She believes that she clearly has the best job in the world.

Website: http://www.maiseyyates.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/maiseyyates/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MaiseyYates.Author/

*****

Book Review – Untamed Cowboy

23 Monday Jul 2018

Posted by romanticreadsandsuch in Book Review

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Book Review, Gold Valley series, Maisey Yates, Untamed Cowboy

My family took a vacation last week, so that’s why posts were MIA. We’re back now (for a couple of weeks anyway), so time for another book review!

Untamed Cowboy

A Gold Valley Novel

by Maisey Yates

In Gold Valley, Oregon, love might be hiding in plain sight…

Some things are too perfect to mess with. Bennett Dodge’s relationship with Kaylee Capshaw is one of them. They work together at their veterinary clinic and have been best friends for years. When Bennett’s world is rocked by the appearance of a son he didn’t know he had, he needs Kaylee more than ever. And he doesn’t want anything else to change. But then Kaylee kisses him, and nothing will ever be the same…

Kaylee’s done her best to keep her feelings for the man she’s loved since high school hidden away, but one unguarded moment changes everything, and now there’s no more denying the chemistry that burns between them. But the explosion of desire changes all the rules, and what’s left could destroy their bond—or bring them to a love that’s deeper than she ever imagined…

I loved the idea of these friends becoming more. They make sure a great duo that you know a relationship between the two of them would just be awesome. Unfortunately both have some hangups that are keeping them from pursuing anything more.

It’s totally understandable why Kaylee doesn’t want to risk her most important friendship for the chance of a romance. She needs Bennett so much that losing him would be devastating … but her heart wants more and it is not going to be ignored.

Thanks to Bennett’s childhood he has a huge need to plan. A romance of deep emotion doesn’t really fit well with that. He’s holding tight to his control but life does enjoy throwing people curve balls.

And seeing Bennett develop a connection to his son is the absolute best. Kaylee’s there for both of them, with a special connection with Dallas, but in the end the guys have to be the ones making it work. They both are so heartfelt and blunt, but hesitant too. They handle things their way – with humor and truth, laying it out but still being protective of themselves.

The connection & long-standing friendship between Kaylee & Bennett is just so heartwarming and their struggle over where the future might take them is very real. Some might find the push/pull of their emotions a little repetitive – it’s hard to let go and take a leap for something more when what you have is so very, very important to you. But what if it could bring you something so much more …? It’s a tough decision but you are going to enjoy being with them while they figure things out.

Spotlight – Wild Ride Cowboy

28 Monday Aug 2017

Posted by romanticreadsandsuch in Blog Tour, Contest, Sneak Peek

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Copper Ridge series, Maisey Yates, Wild Ride Cowboy

In Wild Ride Cowboy, Alex Donnelly returns to Copper Ridge, Oregon to keep a promise, but the last thing he expects is to fall for his best friend’s sister, Clara Campbell. Fans of Maisey Yates’ Copper Ridge series will love this sweet, sexy romance releasing August 29th!

*****

Wild Ride Cowboy

A Copper Ridge Novel

by Maisey Yates

Publisher: Harlequin

Release Date: August 29, 2017

Series: Copper Ridge #9

Genre: Contemporary Romance

ISBN: 9780373803644

Blurb:

He’s come back to Copper Ridge, Oregon, to keep a promise—even if it means losing his heart…

Putting down roots in Copper Ridge was never Alex Donnelly’s intention. But if there’s one thing the ex-military man knows, it’s that life rarely unfolds as expected. If it did, his best friend and brother-in-arms would still be alive. And Alex wouldn’t have inherited a ranch or responsibility for his late comrade’s sister—a woman who, despite her inexperience, can bring tough-as-iron Alex to his knees.

Clara Campbell didn’t ask for a hero to ride in and fix her ranch and her life. All she wants is the one thing stubborn, honorable Alex is reluctant to give: a chance to explore their intense chemistry. But Clara has a few lessons to teach him, too…about trusting his heart and his instincts, and letting love take him on the wildest adventure of all.

Add to your TBR list: Goodreads

Available: Amazon | Barnes and Noble | Kobo | iTunes

*****

Excerpt:

Reluctantly, she covered the coffee with a white to-go lid then turned to walk out the door. She didn’t make it very far, though, because she ran right into a brick wall.

Well, it wasn’t really a brick wall. It just felt like one. Large, hard and uncompromising. But breathing. Which brick walls definitely didn’t do.

“Clara Campbell. Fancy meeting you here.”

Clara blinked and stared up into Alex Donnelly’s forest-green eyes and felt a strange response that seemed to originate in her stomach and travel upward to her chest, where it twisted, hard and sharp.

After looking at Asher, his understated physique and much softer brown gaze, the sight of Alex was jarring. Too intense. Too masculine. Too a lot of things.

His dark hair wasn’t military short anymore. It was long enough to hang into his face. He pushed it back off his forehead and again, something twisted, low and deep inside of her.

And then it wasn’t only his features that seemed too sharp. It was seeing him at all. She had been studiously avoiding him ever since he had moved back to Copper Ridge. If ever she’d caught a glimpse of him out of the corner of her eye, she’d gone the other way.

The last time she’d seen him up close had been at Jason’s funeral.

Pain washed through her, canceling out all of the good Asher feelings from only a moment before.

No wonder she’d had such a strong, immediate response to the sight of Alex. The man was dragging a bunch of her baggage in with him. Another thing she liked about Asher. He was separate from her life. From her pain.

Alex was all wound up in it.

“Hi, Alex,” she said, clutching her coffee cup tight, the warmth bleeding through to her palms. Which she was grateful for at the moment since her stomach had gone ice-cold at the sight of him.

“I’ve been meaning to stop by,” he said.

“That’s really okay,” she said, and she meant it. More than okay. Jason’s death meant that she was alone. Both of her parents were already gone. They’d had children later in life, and when her mother had gotten sick, her father had done everything he could to make his wife comfortable as her health declined. She’d died when Clara was twelve. And there had been no amount of preparation that could soften the blow. No amount of expectedness that could have made it feel less like a giant, ugly hand had reached into their life and wrenched the beauty out of it, leaving nothing but a dark abyss.

*****

Author Info:

Since then it’s been a whirlwind of sexy alpha males and happily ever afters, and she wouldn’t have it any other way. Maisey divides her writing time between dark, passionate category romances set just about everywhere on earth and light sexy contemporary romances set practically in her back yard.

She believes that she clearly has the best job in the world.

*****

Giveaway:

Harlequin is offering one (1) lucky winner a $25 Amazon Gift Card!

http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/b050ef29404/

*****