Marie Ferrarella - A Maverick And A Half

Teaching The Rancher His L-O-V-E’s!

Rust Creek Ramblings

Readers, it’s back-to-school time in Rust Creek Falls, and new single mama Marina Laramie has returned to her classroom for the first time since baby Sydney was born. Did you hear about her parent-teacher conference with handsome ranching dad Anderson Dalton? Seems they bonded over his young son, Jake, and now we here at the Gazette are hearing there is a marriage in the works!

A rancher, a schoolteacher, a grade-schooler and a baby: it does paint a lovely picture. But is it too good to be true? Those in the know whisper this is a marriage of convenience to help Anderson gain custody of his son. We, however, are rooting for something more. Raise your hands, hopeful romantics, if you think Marina and Anderson’s “arrangement” has the makings of a grade-A love match!

“Why was he kissing you?” Jake wanted to know, regarding them suspiciously, as if he wasn’t sure whether or not his father was telling him the truth.

“People kiss without getting married, Jake,” Marina told him, her voice deliberately breezy. “It happens all the time.” She spared Anderson a look. “It doesn’t mean a thing.”

Anderson couldn’t tell if she was letting him off the hook because of Jake, or if she was really being serious and putting him on notice that the kiss had meant less than nothing to her.

Either way, he knew he should be relieved—except that he wasn’t. He felt guilty because he was fairly certain that there were still hurt feelings involved. He was really sorry if there were, but there was nothing he could do about that—at least not without compromising himself in front of his son.

This was getting way too complicated. He had more than he could handle just trying to navigate these new turbulent fatherhood waters. He had no room for the kind of baggage having a girlfriend created. Never mind that she could be something more than that, that somewhere in his misbegotten soul he might even want her to be more than that.

Get a grip, man. If you’re not careful, you’ll be going down for the third time.

* * *

Montana Mavericks: The Baby BonanzaMeet Rust Creek Falls’ newest bundles of joy!

Dear Reader,

When I was a kid, one late-November afternoon, the entire east coast lost power. The blackout went on for hours. Nine months later, a whole slew of babies joined the population (with no TV and no power to light anything, what else was there to do?).

Rust Creek Falls experienced its own baby boom after the spiked punch at last year’s July Fourth wedding caused a lot of people’s inhibitions to take a backseat to their desires. This is the story of one such little dividend, a baby born to a fifth-grade teacher, one Marina Laramie, whose beloved bailed on her the moment he discovered she was pregnant. Marina’s experience has soured her on men, but definitely not on children. When rancher Anderson Dalton’s newly discovered son, eleven-year-old Jake, winds up in Marina’s class, she can see that the introverted video-game player is really very lost and lonely. She goes out of her way to reach him and bond with the boy. By doing so, she forms a bridge for both herself and his father, bringing them both back to the land of the living, where love makes everything worthwhile.

I hope you find your visit back to Montana Maverick country as enjoyable as I found writing this story of two lost souls finding each other. As always, I thank you for taking the time to read one of my stories, and from the bottom of my heart, I wish you someone to love who loves you back.

With love,

A Maverick and a Half

Marie Ferrarella

www.millsandboon.co.uk

USA TODAY bestselling and RITA® Award–winning author MARIE FERRARELLA has written more than two hundred and fifty books for Mills & Boon, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide. Visit her website, www.marieferrarella.com.

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To

Megan Broderick,

Welcome to the Fun House!

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

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

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

All he had come in for was a glass of water.

Ranching was hard, sweaty work, even in September. Granted, if he was so inclined, he could have easily spent his days just sitting on the porch, delegating work to a myriad of ranch hands and no one would have said anything, but that just wasn’t his way.

As far back as he could remember, Anderson Dalton had loved working on the family ranch, loved being one with the land as well as the animals that were kept here. Ranch work wasn’t a hardship for him, but he had to admit that there were times, when he got too caught up in what he was doing, that he did wind up working up a powerful thirst.

Walking into the kitchen and wiping the sweat off his brow with the back of his wrist, Anderson made his way to the sink.

But he’d made the mistake of absently glancing toward the wall. Specifically, the wall where the old, faded off-white landline was mounted.

That was when he saw it.

The red light blinking at him like the bloodshot eye of an aging dragon way past its prime but still a force to be reckoned with in its own right.

Anderson kept the landline with its answering machine in service because out on the range cell phone signals had a habit of playing hide-and-seek with him. Not to mention he had a tendency to lose his cell phone while riding and doing the thousand and one chores that a large ranch required. Because he was now a father, he had taken to keeping one close by despite all this.

When he saw the pulsing red light, Anderson’s first reaction was just to ignore it and walk out again. But a nagging voice in his head urged him to listen to the message.

You never know. It might be important.

Now that he had an eleven-year-old son to take care of—albeit temporarily—everything was different. He had to be more responsible, more cautious, more aware of things than he’d ever been before.

Fatherhood at best was a hard thing to get used to. Instant fatherhood to an eleven-year-old was a whole different ball game altogether. He’d been discovering that firsthand since this July when Lexie James, the woman he’d had a casual one-night stand with twelve years ago, showed up on his doorstep asking him to take temporary custody of their son while she “worked some things out.”