Lauri Robinson - Unwrapping The Rancher's Secret

A ghost of Christmas past...

Heiress Sara Johnson is shocked when the stepbrother she believed was dead returns to Colorado to claim his inheritance! It might be the season of goodwill, but Crofton Parks seems determined to destroy his late father’s empire.

Sparks fly as Crofton and Sara are forced to work together, and soon she begins to uncover the secrets behind his disappearance and need for revenge. But a far more unsettling discovery is the desire he awakens in Sara. This roguish rancher might just claim her heart by Christmas!

“I don’t deserve to inherit any of Winston’s holdings. You’re his son. His blood relative. And I’m—”

“Not up to the challenge?” Crofton asked.

“But Winston would have wanted you to have it,” she said, with an exuberant amount of passion. “I know he would have.”

Crofton ran both hands over his thighs. When she got all emotional he wanted to wrap his arms around her, but he couldn’t. If he did that he might kiss her. Not a peck on the cheek, but really kiss her. Where the hell had these yearnings come from? He’d never been known for his chivalry, and he had kissed more than his fair share of maidens, but this was out of the ordinary even for him. As was the misery it provided. She was a young innocent girl, with more on her plate than she could handle, and all he could think of was her. Kissing her. Holding her. Protecting her.

Author Note

Ideas for stories come to me in many ways. I’ve dedicated this book to one of my granddaughters because she was behind my inspiration for Unwrapping the Rancher’s Secret. While she was at our house one day we watched a cute cartoon about a little girl whose mother married a king, turning the little girl from a commoner into a princess overnight. I found that concept intriguing, and that gave birth to Sara Johnson Parks—a girl who was born in a dirt dugout in Kansas and didn’t own a pair of shoes until she was five, when her mother married a lumber baron. Upon the death of her stepfather Sara becomes the richest woman in Royalton, Colorado. But that is also when Crofton Parks appears. The stepbrother she believed had died as a child…

I hope you enjoy Sara and Crofton’s story!

Unwrapping the Rancher’s Secret

Lauri Robinson

www.millsandboon.co.uk

A lover of fairytales and cowboy boots, LAURI ROBINSON can’t imagine a better profession than penning happily-ever-after stories about men—and women—who pull on a pair of boots before riding off into the sunset…or kick them off for other reasons. Lauri and her husband raised three sons in their rural Minnesota home, and are now getting their just rewards by spoiling their grandchildren. Visit: laurirobinson.blogspot.com, facebook.com/lauri.robinson1, or twitter.com/LauriR.

Books by Lauri Robinson

Mills & Boon Historical Romance

Daughters of the Roaring Twenties

The Runaway Daughter (Undone!)

The Bootlegger’s Daughter

The Rebel Daughter

The Forgotten Daughter

Stand-Alone Novels

Christmas Cowboy Kisses

‘Christmas with Her Cowboy’

The Major’s Wife

The Wrong Cowboy

A Fortune for the Outlaw’s Daughter

Saving Marina

Her Cheyenne Warrior

Unwrapping the Rancher’s Secret

Mills & Boon Historical Undone! ebooks

Testing the Lawman’s Honour

The Sheriff’s Last Gamble

What a Cowboy Wants

His Wild West Wife

Dance with the Rancher

Rescued by the Ranger

Snowbound with the Sheriff

Never Tempt a Lawman

Visit the Author Profile page at millsandboon.co.ukfor more titles.

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To my granddaughter, Hayley.

Love you to the moon and back!

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Author Note

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

Epilogue

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

Royalton, Colorado, 1885

There were several ways to play the hand that had been dealt to him. All of them would benefit him. That, of course, was the main object—benefitting him—and he would play it right. Not could. Would. Just as he always did.

Crofton Parks lit the cigarette he’d been twirling between his thumb and forefinger and leaned against the side of the building to ponder his options. Smoking wasn’t a habit he partook of regularly, but a man with a smoldering stick between his lips could stand around doing nothing but dragging in smoke and no one would give him a second look. While a stranger staring at the mortuary across the street would catch attention. He wasn’t ready for that yet. Attention. It would come later. At the moment, anonymity would benefit him the most.

White with a black door and shutters framing the windows, the mortuary was new, as were most of the buildings in town. Not surprising. Becoming a railroad hub, the town had doubled in size the past couple of years, and would keep growing. The lumber mill would continue to prosper, supplying all the houses and businesses the newcomers would build.

Crofton flicked off the ashes and lifted the cigarette to his lips for another draw. Through the smoke that swirled in the crisp air, he witnessed a woman open the door of the building she’d entered a short time ago. Leave it to Winston Parks—his good old flesh-and-blood father—to throw yet another boulder in his pathway. Another loop around the ankle. As if all the others hadn’t been enough. At least this one wasn’t an eyesore, or not from a distance anyway.

Disgusted by his own thoughts, Crofton dropped the cigarette to the ground and smashed the smoldering end deep into the dirt with the toe of his boot.

A man twice the woman’s age, which Crofton knew to be twenty as of October, climbed down from a buggy to meet her as she walked down the steps of the mortuary. Once he arrived at her side, she leaned her head against the man’s shoulder for a brief moment, and then straightened. With a shake of her head, as if that gave her fortitude, she squared her shoulders and marched forward. The man lagged behind momentarily, but then quickly caught up with her.

With the sole of one boot braced against the wall behind him and head down, fiddling with the tobacco pouch as if preparing to roll another cigarette, Crofton peered from beneath the brim of his hat to watch the man help the woman into the buggy.

The man climbed in, but Crofton remained still, waiting until the buggy turned the corner and disappeared. Then he glanced both ways, tucked the tobacco pouch into his pocket and crossed the street. It was time he said goodbye to his father. This time it would be for good.