Karen Rock - A Cowboy To Keep

Can’t stop running from the past

Dani Crawford has a secret...and if bounty hunter Jackson Cade finds out, he could ruin everything. The scarred yet handsome cowboy has tracked a dangerous criminal to the dude ranch Dani manages, and to get rid of Jack she’ll have to help him catch his man. But the closer they get to cornering their quarry the more Dani wants Jack to stay. Spending time with him is making her long for things she can never have thanks to a past mistake. And if the truth comes out she may be spending her future behind bars rather than safe in her cowboy’s arms...

“Thought you were waiting for my signal.”

Dani’s voice was breathy.

“If I waited any longer, I’d be drawing social security.”

“Ha-ha,” she said slowly, so Jack understood exactly how funny she thought him, and, contrarily, wouldn’t suspect that she really did find him amusing.

No more flirting.

He tipped his hat. “Never thought I’d hear you laugh.”

“You didn’t. Tanya!” she called again, turning away from the man who kept snagging too much of her attention. “Stopped by for that visit!” She waved Jack back, hoping he’d return to the porch, but he waltzed right by...technically trespassing.

Then again, bad boys didn’t ask for permission. Follow rules. Both of which should be huge caution signs...

Dear Reader,

Remember when Mary Poppins stepped into a sidewalk drawing and vanished into another world? Opening a new book has always had the same effect on me. In a flash, I’m transported to different times and places, each stop another stamp on my virtual passport.

In this novel, you’ll travel with me to the fictitious Mountain Sky Ranch, a dude ranch in Denver’s Front Range in the southern Rocky Mountains. Back in the late 1800s, this area teemed with copper-mining companies supplied by the Central, the first railroad corporation in Colorado. Cowboys, speculators, lawmen and outlaws flocked to this rugged outpost to roll the dice and make their fortunes. Likewise, wranglers, bounty hunters and bandits inhabit the pages of my novel, standing for those timeless principles that define the West to this day: justice and order...courage and conviction.

If you like A Cowboy to Keep, keep an eye out for my next book, where we meet the rest of Jackson’s family at Cade Ranch. These Rocky Mountain cowboys are proud, loyal and independent men who work hard, play harder and love forever. Visit me at karenrock.com to learn more about my releases or to let me know what you think of my books. I’d love to hear from you!

Happy reading!

Karen Rock

PS: Don’t forget to check out Heartwarming’s author blog at heartwarmingauthors.blogspot.com.

A Cowboy to Keep

Karen Rock

www.millsandboon.co.uk

KAREN ROCK is an award-winning young adult and adult contemporary author. She holds a master’s degree in English and worked as an ELA instructor before becoming a full-time author. Most recently, her Harlequin Heartwarming novels have won the 2015 National Excellence in Romance Fiction Award and the 2015 Booksellers’ Best Award. When she’s not writing, Karen loves scouring estate sales, cooking and hiking. She lives in the Adirondack Mountain region with her husband, daughter and Cavalier King Charles spaniels. Visit her at karenrock.com.

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To wise and wonderful Tara Randel for reading this book while she managed her family’s business and penned her own mysteries and Heartwarming romances. You don’t have to say “I’m here for you” because you prove it every day. Thank you, my friend!

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

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Extract

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

“LET GO OF ME, FREAK.”

Jackson Cade’s answer was to shove his knee harder into the wanted man’s back, clap on handcuffs, then stand. “On your feet, Butch.” The ponderosa pines surrounding the small white trailer at the foot of Denver’s Front Range rustled overhead.

“Go to hell.”

“Someday,” he responded drily, prodding a shackled Butch toward his truck, his three-week chase over. He squinted when the midafternoon sun reflected off his side mirror and shot him straight in his good eye.

“Don’t you have to read me my rights?” jeered the fugitive as he struggled and yanked against Jack’s grip.

“Bounty hunters don’t have to do anything they don’t want to.”

Jack opened the rear cab door. His scar tightened at his grim smile. Some people belonged in cages; he’d learned that firsthand. He made sure they got there. “And right now, the only thing I’m wanting to do is bring you in.”

The door closed on his slumped captive and Jack ambled to the driver’s side. A pulse of satisfaction beat through him, chasing the shadows that’d consumed him these last two years, though the respite wouldn’t last long. No matter how many criminals he caught, it’d never make up for what he’d done, or failed to do.

You promised, he heard his mother’s cry again as he slid behind the wheel. You promised to keep your brother safe.

His fingers tightened on the gearshift and he revved the engine, as though he could outrun his past, as if his slashed left cheek wasn’t a constant reminder of his crime, as though bringing in another lowlife somehow settled his unpayable debt.

He peered in his rearview mirror, studied the scowling crook behind him and nodded. It helped some. He couldn’t bring back his brother, and hadn’t crossed paths with Jesse’s killer yet, but he’d never stop looking.

He cranked up a Waylon Jennings song and tuned out his cussing passenger as his pickup ate up the miles back to fugitive recovery in Denver. He pulled his hat brim low against the late-May sun, dropping in the west over the range.

Purple haze thickened in the timbered notches he passed. Gray foothills, round and billowy, rolled down from the higher country. They were smooth, sweeping, with long velvety slopes and isolated patches of aspens that glowed with newly minted leaves. Mount Evans, scarred by avalanche, towered above the valley, sheltering it from the north.

Nice looking country, he mused as he turned onto Interstate 25, though it wasn’t home. He stomped down the marrow-deep ache that sprang up when he pictured Carbondale. His family’s cattle ranch in western Colorado, in the center of the Rockies. No sense wishing for something he’d never get back. Or wouldn’t go back to. Not when he was reminded of his younger brother everywhere he looked and his guilt hung from his neck, a heavy yoke that made it hard to hold his head up. To stand tall.