id="u0289fa81-bfaa-5af1-9105-eb9017d2fbf0">
They’d grown up together.
He’d spent summers at his uncle’s ranch, and she and her brothers had become friends with him. He’d been tall and thin, a bit gangly and a little on the quiet side. She’d found a hundred ways to make his life hell because of it, and he’d done the same to her.
But the Jake Canfield standing by her now was far from a thin, quiet boy. The image of him in the pond had been burned into her memory as permanently as another memory of him. If she’d realized it was him she was watching from the tall grass— She shook her head. She should have known, instead of convincing herself she’d dreamed that he’d spoken to her.
“Right, Erin?”
Lost in thought, she glanced up at him. “Hmm?”
“We were just talking about what a scrawny, ornery tomboy you were when we were growing up.”
“No more scrawny than you,” she said, but it lacked the bite it needed. She had to be careful. If she let him, he’d tear her heart out. Again.
The Cowboy
Meets His Match
Roxann Delaney
ROXANN DELANEY doesn’t remember a time when she wasn’t reading or writing, and she always loved that touch of romance in both. A native Kansan, she’s lived on a farm, in a small town and has returned to live in the city where she was born. Her four daughters and grandchildren keep her busy when she isn’t writing or designing websites. The 1999 Maggie Award winner is excited to be a part of the Mills & Boon® Cherish™ line and loves to hear from readers. Contact her at [email protected] or visit her website, www.roxanndelaney.com.
MILLS & BOON
Before you start reading, why not sign up?
Thank you for downloading this Mills & Boon book. If you want to hear about exclusive discounts, special offers and competitions, sign up to our email newsletter today!
Or simply visit
Mills & Boon emails are completely free to receive and you can unsubscribe at any time via the link in any email we send you.
For all those who are a part of the adoption triad—adoptees, adoptive parents and birth parents—may your lives be filled with love, understanding and acceptance.
Contents
Stretching out her legs in the tall grass, with her eyes closed and her back against the rough bark of a tree, Erin Walker smiled at the sound of a fish breaking the surface of the water. Content, she pulled in a breath of warm, June afternoon air and started to toe off her boots. But the sound of a second, a third and then a fourth splash followed, all louder and each sounding closer than the one before.
That was no fish.
She sat up straight, her heart rate increasing as she looked out onto Lake Walker, the large pond on the ranch near Desperation, Oklahoma, where she’d grown up. That was when she spotted the naked man, standing not twenty yards away in the pond.
Erin felt an eerie flash of déjà vu but blamed it on the shock of the moment. Surely he hadn’t seen her. If he had, he would have left immediately. Instead, he stood hip deep in the water, his back to her, his arms stretched above his head, flexing muscles that would have caused a half-blind ninety-year-old spinster to suffer a case of the vapors.
If only he’d turn around.
Just as she finished the thought, he started to do exactly that. She quickly but
