didn’t want just any man...she wanted this man. Her desire for him had nothing to do with her gratefulness. It had nothing to do with his protecting her.
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Be sure to check out the previous books in this exciting miniseries:
Cowboys of Holiday Ranch
Where sun, earth and hard work turn men into rugged cowboys...and irresistible heroes!
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Dear Reader,
Having just come home from the Romance Writers of America conference in New York City where I was celebrated for my 150th book with Harlequin, I’m happy that I’m just as excited about this book as I was with the publication of my very first.
Flint McCay is at a crossroads in his life as a cowboy on the Holiday Ranch. He knows the time is quickly approaching when he will have to stop being a cowboy. When that time comes he’ll move into the cabin he built in the woods and spend the rest of his life alone.
And then he finds Madison Taylor hiding out in the barn and his life is turned upside down. Madison has secrets, and unless she learns to trust Flint, they are secrets that just might get her killed.
I really hope you enjoy their story and, as always, keep reading!
Carla Cassidy
Contents
Note to Readers
All of the cowboys from the Holiday Ranch surrounded him. Their fists pummeled him. He tried to defend himself but there were too many of them. Each blow shot pain through him. His ribs screamed in protest and his aching knees finally buckled beneath him. When he fell to the ground they viciously kicked at him. His mouth filled with the coppery taste of blood, even though most of the blows were to his body and not to his face or head.
Help! The plea screamed over and over again in his head, but there was no help coming. In complete defeat, he curled up into a fetal ball on the lush green grass and prayed for it to stop.
Flint McCay came awake suddenly. Pain...it racked his body and for several long moments he didn’t move. He stared out the nearby window where the first light of dawn cast slivers of light.
The dream had been so strange. There was absolutely no way the other men on the Holiday Ranch would ever beat him up. They were his brothers. It was a brotherhood forged in painful childhoods and in second chances and them all growing up together here on this ranch.
He winced as he changed positions. No, his pain wasn’t from his fellow cowboys. It was from years of his own choices and a recent diagnosis that had unsettled him.
He groaned as he finally moved to a sitting position on the side of the twin-size bed. When Cass Holiday had hired a dozen young runaway boys to work at the ranch, she’d made sure they each had their own rooms in the building the men referred to as the cowboy motel.
Each man had a private room with an adjoining bathroom. The rooms were small, holding only a twin bed and a chest of drawers. It was to the bathroom Flint now headed, hoping a long, hot shower would loosen up tight muscles and ease some of his pain.
Years of bull-riding had taken its toll on him. There wasn’t a bone in his body that hadn’t been broken or sprained over the years. Now he had a trunk full of trophies,
