Hope Navarre - A Ranch for His Family

It’s the second chance for this cowboy

Bull riding means everything to Neal Bryant. In his quest for the championships, he’s let everything else go—including Robyn Morgan, the woman he loves. Then he has an accident that could turn his rodeo dreams to Kansas dust. It’s fitting—or maybe it’s fate—that Robyn is the nurse at his bedside.

While recuperating on his family’s ranch, Neal learns how much he’s missed. Robyn is widowed and has a son Neal can’t seem to resist…especially when he learns he’s the father. It’s a dream he never allowed himself to have. And now he needs to show Robyn he’s worth a second chance.

“Underneath that bad haircut, I was the same girl.”

Robyn paused and eyed him thoughtfully. “And underneath that eye patch, you are the same man.”

Neal was silent for a long time as he stared at the green canopy overhead. The branches swayed and dipped in the hot, dry breeze. A single leaf fluttered down, and his gaze followed it as it landed like a tiny boat on the surface of the pond. “I wonder if that’s true,” he said at last.

Robyn cupped his cheek with her hand and turned his face toward her. “I know it’s true,” she insisted gently.

She was so close. He could feel the warmth of her beside him. The wind lifted the ends of her drying hair and let it curl softly at the edge of her face. God, he had missed her. Only she could make him feel whole again.

He captured the hand on his cheek and pressed a kiss against her soft palm. She didn’t pull away. He saw her eyes widen and her lips part with surprise. He pulled her toward him until those lips touched his.

Dear Reader,

I hope you enjoy A Ranch for His Family. Neal Bryant, the hero of this book, is the only character that has popped full-blown and whole into my head while I was writing. Granted, he showed up when I was trying to write his brother’s story, but Neal has a way of making women do what he wants without really trying, so the story became Neal’s story. What can I say? I’m a pushover for a sexy cowboy.

Robyn, the only woman who can manage Neal, was much harder to create. She had to be tough, and she had to be able to put him in his place when he needed it, but she also had to understand what made him tick. I think I have succeeded in making a well-matched hero and heroine, but you get to be the judge of that.

The setting for this book was a no-brainer. I grew up on the western edge of the beautiful Flint Hills of Kansas and I have been in love with that grassy, windswept prairie since before I was old enough to know that cowboys are sexy. I hope my love of the people and the land comes through in these pages. It’s a special place. With a lot of sexy cowboys!

Enjoy the story and feel free to let me know what you thought of it. You can visit me on the web at www.hopenavarre.com.

All the best,

Hope Navarre

A Ranch for His Family

Hope Navarre

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Hope Navarre grew up surrounded by brothers, horses and cattle among the rolling hills of central Kansas. She fell in love with reading and with books at a young age. Cowboys have always been her favorite heroes. Westerns by Zane Grey and Louis L’Amour, as well as the adventures of girl detective Trixie Belden, filled the hours when Hope wasn’t riding her horses, playing softball or fishing down at the creek.

The urge to write a story of her own first appeared when she was in high school. The star-crossed lovers of her first unfinished novel remain trapped forever in the crumbling ruins of a church in war-torn Europe, but at least they are together. College, a career in nursing, marriage and motherhood put Hope’s dreams of one day writing a book on the back burner of her life until the late 1990s. With her family grown, she decided she had time to write a book. At that point, there was no holding her back. She became a member of a local writer’s group, joined the national writing organization Romance Writers of America and set out to learn as much as she could about the business of writing.

Today, Hope enjoys setting her books in her beloved Kansas and the scenic Flint Hills, where cowboys, horses and cattle remain a part of everyday life. You can visit her on the web at www.hopenavarre.com.

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This book is dedicated to my wonderful agent, Pam Hopkins.

Thanks for holding my hand all these years and for helping me find a home for my stories.

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

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Excerpt

CHAPTER ONE

“OH! THAT’S COMING off a bull the hard way, folks, and that’ll mean no score for this young cowboy.”

Neal Bryant paid scant attention to the rodeo announcer and none to the disappointed cowboy dusting himself off in front of the rodeo chutes. Instead, Neal scanned the packed bleachers rising behind the white pole fence hung with banners for Wranglers, Resistol Hats and Justin Boots, searching for one face in the milling, colorful crowd from his hometown. A face that haunted his dreams—the face of Robyn O’Connor.

It would be five years, and he still couldn’t get her out of his mind. The ache of missing her, of knowing he’d thrown away the best thing in his life, never left him.

Would Robyn’s dark hair still be short? Or would she have grown it long again? He liked it best when she had it long. He remembered the way it felt in his fingers. How he could wrap his hands in it and pull her close. He loved the way it would spill like silk across his chest when they made love.

He’d heard from his mother that Robyn had married not long after she’d left him, but that she was single again. He should be glad about that, but he wasn’t. He wanted Robyn to be happy.

His mother and Robyn’s mother were neighbors and best friends. He could’ve made a point of keeping track of her, but he’d chosen not to. On his infrequent visits home, her name was off-limits as far as he was concerned. Robyn’s life was her own now. She’d made it plain that there was no place for him in it.

He gave up looking for Robyn in the crowd. It was a stupid move coming back. He hadn’t been to a rodeo in Bluff Springs in years. He wasn’t sure why he was here now.

Maybe she didn’t come to the rodeos anymore. After rolling down the sleeves of his blue-and-white-striped shirt, he fastened the snaps and then drew on his rosin-darkened leather glove. One thing Neal knew for certain, she wouldn’t come to this rodeo if she knew he was riding.

He gave his attention back to the rodeo. The smell of dust, livestock and popcorn filled the evening air as the carnival music from the midway spilled over the arena. Another bull and rider burst from the chute beside him and began their awesome dance across the churned dirt of the arena floor. The crowd cheered wildly when the horn sounded. One of his competitors had lasted the full eight.