Patricia Johns - Falling For The Cowboy Dad

He’s always been the one...

She’s always been just a friend!

Grace Beverly spent years hopelessly in love with her best friend, Billy Austin. Now he’s back in Eagle’s Rest, Colorado, determined to provide the best life possible for his four-year-old daughter. He’s just not sure how. Helping Billy navigate the world of parenting is a one-way ticket back to heartache. Yet how can Grace say no to her oldest friend?

PATRICIA JOHNSwrites from Alberta, Canada. She has her Hon. BA in English literature and currently writes for Mills & Boon’s Love Inspired and Heartwarming lines. You can find her at patriciajohnsromance.com.

Also By Patricia Johns

A Baxter’s Redemption

The Runaway Bride

A Boy’s Christmas Wish

Her Lawman Protector

Montana Twins

Her Cowboy’s Twin Blessings

Comfort Creek Lawmen

Deputy Daddy

The Lawman’s Runaway Bride

The Deputy’s Unexpected Family

His Unexpected Family

The Rancher’s City Girl

A Firefighter’s Promise

The Lawman’s Surprise Family

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

Falling for the Cowboy Dad

Patricia Johns

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-09111-4

FALLING FOR THE COWBOY DAD

© 2019 Patricia Johns

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Version: 2020-03-02

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“I was a good friend!” Billy said.

“Exactly,” Grace replied quietly. “You were a great friend.”

Billy was silent, his expression softening.

“A fantastic buddy,” she went on. “And I was just as silly as those other women who were groveling after you, or maybe more so. I had a good thing with you, but I wanted more...”

“You...” The word came out in a breath, and he stared at her, dark eyes moving over her face inch by inch as if looking for a chink in her armor. A smile flickered as if he thought she were joking, then it dropped away.

“Was there a guy I didn’t know about...?” he started.

Tracy had said what she wanted plainly, and Grace had always held back... Maybe it was time to stop that.

“I wanted more with you.” The words were so quiet, as if she almost wished he wouldn’t hear them. But he froze, and she couldn’t read his expression anymore.

Dear Reader,

I went to high school in a picturesque mountain town in the Canadian Rockies, so it’s a special treat for me to revisit the mountains in my Home to Eagle’s Rest miniseries. Life is slower in the mountains, and you gauge the seasons by the tourists and the snow line on the mountainside. When I created this little town, it felt like coming home in a lot of ways, and I settled right in. I hope you do, too!

If you’d like to see more of my books, you can find me online at patriciajohnsromance.com. I’m also on Facebookand Twitterand love to hear from my readers.

Patricia Johns

To my husband, who lies in bed with me at night, listening to me talk about

fictional characters. I love you.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Introduction

Dear Reader

Dedication

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

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

EPILOGUE

Extract

About the Publisher

CHAPTER ONE

GRACE BEVERLY TACKED the last finger painting to the corkboard, then stepped down off the footstool. She smoothed her hands over her hips and surveyed her work. This classroom wasn’t hers—not officially. She was only covering for the full-time preschool teacher’s maternity leave, and she had a little over two weeks left here. But she’d gotten attached to this classroom with the sand table, the reading carpet in the middle, the puppet theater in the corner...and the twenty-three little live wires she was teaching every day.

Grace had grown up in Eagle’s Rest, Colorado, and she’d come back for this temporary job. Teaching positions were hard to come by lately, and she hoped some experience on her résumé would help with that. In three weeks, she’d be covering another maternity leave in Denver, and she’d applied for multiple full-time positions for September, but there would be hundreds of applicants. She needed a full-time teaching position if she was going to have any kind of financial stability, but her chances were slim. Fingers crossed.

Grace picked up an errant hand puppet and returned it to the proper box. Then she pulled her fingers through her long chestnut waves. By the end of a day with twenty-three preschoolers, her feet ached in her high heels, but her heart was full.

A tap on the door drew her attention, and she turned as the school principal came into the room. Mrs. Mackel was middle-aged and had a kind smile. The principal had a little blonde girl at her side—a wisp of a thing with big blue eyes and small hands clutched in front of her.