Brenda Minton - The Cowboy Lawman

A Love Worth Fighting For

When Slade McKennon comes looking for Mia Cooper, the Dawson sheriff’s only mission is to keep her safe. But the wounded DEA agent isn’t ready to trust the man whose past is so entwined with hers. Slade lives by his own code of honor—one that prevents the widowed father from pursuing the woman he’s known most of his life. But for the first time in ages, Mia feels safe. And she’s finally starting to seal up the scars on both her body and her heart. Can Slade and his sweet but aching son provide the healing touch of love?

Cooper Creek: Home is where the heart is for this Oklahoma family

“Mia.” Slade’s voice was soft.

“Slade, please stop. I’m good.”

“You’re always good, aren’t you? You can conquer the world on your own, right? You don’t need us mere mortals to lean on.”

“I do. But I don’t want to cry over it.”

“You’re more than this job.”

She knew that. She had the list. Daughter. Sister. Granddaughter. “So I’ve been told. But could someone please tell me who I am?”

He smiled at her, an easy cowboy smile replacing the soft look of sympathy. He’d always had that easy charm.

“Mia, you have to figure out who you are without the job. I can tell you who I think you are. You are the strongest woman I know. You’re so strong, you’ve never seemed to need any of us. You plow through life taking on the world’s problems.”

“I’m not that strong.” She wasn’t—she just pretended, and somehow managed to convince herself.

BRENDA MINTON

started creating stories to entertain herself during hour-long rides on the school bus. In high school she wrote romance novels to entertain her friends. The dream grew and so did her aspirations to become an author. She started with notebooks, handwritten manuscripts and characters that refused to go away until their stories were told. Eventually she put away the pen and paper and got down to business with the computer. The journey took a few years, with some encouragement and rejection along the way—as well as a lot of stubbornness on her part. In 2006 her dream to write for Love Inspired Books came true. Brenda lives in the rural Ozarks with her husband, three kids and an abundance of cats and dogs. She enjoys a chaotic life that she wouldn’t trade for anything—

except, on occasion, a beach house in Texas. You can stop by and visit at her website, www.brendaminton.net.

The Cowboy Lawman

Brenda Minton

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

—Romans 8:28

To my kids, because they remind me daily

that without them, I’d…have a clean house.

And be very lonely living in it.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Epilogue

Dear Reader

Questions for Discussion

Chapter One

Mia Cooper stood on her porch surveying the quiet landscape of Dawson, Oklahoma. Leaves were turning, the grass had long since dried from lack of rain, and the neighborhood kids had gone back to school weeks ago. She felt alone in the world.

It shouldn’t bother her. She knew how to handle loneliness. Even as a Cooper, surrounded by family, she had sometimes felt alone. She also knew how to adjust. She’d been told recently that her strongest skills were her ability to readjust or reinvent herself.

And her biggest detriment.

She just had to decide who she would be now that she was back in Dawson, at her mom’s insistence. Okay, she admitted she had been easy to convince. She’d been ready to come home. Her apartment in Tulsa had been too quiet, too private, even for her.

She adjusted the sling that kept her right arm close to her chest, swallowed another gulp of water and jogged down the steps. She could run. She could take to the streets of Dawson, smile and wave to neighbors who might be out. She could pretend that everything would be okay.

But Butch Walker was dead.

That would never change. Butch’s wife, Tina, would raise two children alone. Mia would forever remember his face as he went down. She would always live with shooting too late, with not being able to save him.

Her arm might ache. The possibility of not being able to go back to work hurt. But Butch gone—that hurt worse. She could take the pain of running.

She hit the pavement, taking it slow, breathing deep and easy as she lengthened her strides. She swallowed past the tightness in her throat and ignored the pain in her arm and shoulder.

Don’t ignore the pain, her doctor had warned her after surgery a month ago. How could she ignore it? It was a constant reminder.

A car came up behind her, and she stepped to the side of the road. Her heart jumped a few paces ahead as she glanced back to make sure it was someone she knew. In Dawson it was rare to see a stranger. Even people you didn’t know well weren’t considered strangers—they were just people you should get to know better.

Her brother, Jackson, pulled alongside her, the truck window sliding down. She kept running. The truck idled along next to her.

“Jogging, really?” He leaned a little, glanced at the empty country road ahead of them and then looked her way again.

“Yeah, I needed to get out. Alone.” She smiled, but it took effort.

“Right. You’ve never liked too many people in your business. But you have family. Mom has been trying to call you.”

She slowed to a fast walk. “I’ll call her.”

“Today. You can’t outrun this.”

The big brother in his voice shook her. She remembered a time when she’d been the older sister taking care of her biological siblings, making sure they ate, got dressed each day, survived. Her name then had been Mia Jimenez. And then her mother had died and she’d become the little sister, with people taking care of her. Mia Cooper. Reinvented at age seven.

She and her siblings had been separated.

“Mia, stop running.”

“I’ll call her.” She stopped and closed her eyes, his words sinking in. She’d always been running. Always running from life, from the past, from pain.

The truck stopped next to her. “Mia, you’re strong. You’re going to survive this.”

“I know.” She blinked quickly, surprised by the sting of tears. She should have stayed in Tulsa. But as much as her family suffocated her at times, she needed them. Her mom had brought her home on Monday.

“Want a ride home?”

She shook her head and somehow looked at him, smiling as if everything was fine. “No, I can make it.”

“Okay, but be safe.”

“I’m safe.”

He smiled, nodded and shifted to drive away. Mia stood on the side of the road in a world with nothing but fields, trees and the occasional cluster of grazing cattle. A light wind blew, the way wind blew in Oklahoma, and the air smelled of drying grass and blacktop.