Terry Mclaughlin - Millionaire Cowboy Seeks Wife

“Just how much do you know about horses?”

“Enough to know what I want to work with in front of the camera.”

She could already see the headlines: Kelleran Killed By Kick To Head. Actor Dragged To Death. “And just what would that be?”

“An animal that’s going to be still when I want it to be still. To respond the way I want it to, to move the way I want it to move.”

He leaned forward a bit, not enough to make her feel as if he was crowding her, but enough to make her want to take a step back. She held her ground.

“Something with a little life in it,” he said. “A little fire. A little backbone. I don’t like things to come too easy.”

Suddenly she wasn’t sure they were still talking about horses.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Terry McLaughlin spent a dozen years teaching a variety of subjects, including anthropology, music appreciation, English, drama and history, to a variety of students before she discovered romance novels and fell in love with love stories. When she’s not reading and writing, she enjoys travelling and dreaming up house and garden improvement projects (although most of those dreams don’t come true).

Terry lives with her husband in Northern California on a tiny ranch in the redwoods. Visit her at www.terrymclaughlin.com.

Dear Reader,

The first time I saw a movie at the cinema, I was six years old. I remember I wore my Sunday dress, and I got to stay up past my bedtime. As I sat in that dark, cavernous cinema absorbed in Disney’s Sleeping Beauty , I fell in love with more than the sparkling fantasy, the breath-robbing danger and the fairy-tale romance on the screen. I fell in love with the movies.

I simply adore watching larger-than-life characters live their larger-than-life stories, all played out on a larger-than-life canvas.

And I’m sure a nice, fat dollop of my film-fed dreams has dropped into this story. I hope you’ll find movie star Fitz Kelleran every bit as fun to know as he was to write.

I’d love to hear from my readers! Please come for a visit to my website at www. terrymclaughlin. com, or find me at www.wetnoodleposse.com or www.superauthors.com, or write to me at PO Box 5838, Eureka, CA 95502, USA.

Wishing you happily-ever-after reading,

Terry McLaughlin

TERRY McLAUGHLIN

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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For the Wendys

CHAPTER ONE

FITZ KELLERAN WANTED TO VAULT over the side of his Ferrari 360 Spider convertible, the way a thirty-four-year-old movie star should, but all he could manage was a creaky-kneed wobble out the door. Had he ever been this tired? Oh, yeah…last night. Same time, same place, same worn-out reasons.

He braced himself against the leather upholstery for a moment and let waves of disgust break over him. Disgust with the rock music throbbing from the balcony of his Malibu mansion and the strangers framed in the tall windows, sipping his booze. Disgust with himself for the music, the moochers and his careless tolerance of it all.

God, what a mess. He sure had a talent for it. But someone had to keep the fast food on all those tabloid press tables. Might as well be John Fitzgerald Kelleran.

He straightened and winced at the catch in his lower back. Bucking hay wasn’t the kind of exercise regimen Hollywood trainers recommended. A soak in the hot tub would loosen him up a bit, but he’d still be feeling some twinges come tomorrow morning.

Good. He welcomed the pain. The little creaks and cramps, the dried sweat and streaks of dirt, the specks of alfalfa and manure that clung to his work shirt and jeans made him feel somehow cleaner and more alive, more real than he’d felt in a long while. Gramps had always said there was nothing better for the inside of a man than the outside of a horse.

Samantha, his current lover, would hate it. She’d take one look, one whiff, and toss her $10,000 rhinoplasty in the air.

“No romp in the hay tonight for this cowboy,” he muttered, shoving the car door shut.

And did he really care? Not anymore. She’d siphoned off enough celebrity from their relationship, and he’d satisfied his craving for her particular flavor. Time to rustle up the backbone to end the affair. Later tonight, when they didn’t have an audience, he’d—

No, not tonight. She’d headed into the valley at noon to tape her guest spot on The Tonight Show and dine with her new agent, basking in the glow of her televised glory. No, he wouldn’t dim her spotlight. Not tonight.

“Damn.” Fitz angled his wrist beneath the beam of a security lamp and squinted at his Rolex. Too late to catch Leno’s opening monologue, but he’d sure better catch Sam. If he didn’t, there’d be hell to pay. Up-and-coming starlets demanded close-up focus on every detail of their self-absorbed lives. Tonight, for one last time, he’d play the supporting role.

He took a deep breath, chuffed it out and shouldered his way through the exotic tiled entry.

“Dude.”

“Hey, Max.” Fitz nodded a greeting at Sam’s yoga instructor and edged past him, swinging by the wet bar to snag a Corona.

“Fitz. Finally.” Burke Elliot, his personal assistant, perched on a bar stool, looking more stressed than usual. If Burke would ditch the type-A routine and the college prof glasses, his version of tall, dark and British would cut a wider swath through the single-and-available female population.

But Burke lived to nag, and he was just getting revved up. “I was wondering when you’d get around to checking in,” he said. “Greenberg’s been calling, nonstop.”

Myron Greenberg, Fitz’s pit bull of an agent. Probably itching to crack a few bones and suck the marrow out of the Eastwood project. “I was out at the ranch.”

Burke’s nostrils twitched. “Something told me that might be the case.”

Fitz had once passed an empty afternoon trying to imitate the precise level of disdain conveyed in Burke’s nasal twitch, but had failed to perfect it. “Didn’t want the cell phone to spook the mare I was working with. Guess I forgot to turn it back on.”

“I’m quite sure I don’t need to know the details.”

No one knew the details, and that’s the way Fitz wanted to keep it. His ranch, his legacy. His escape from reality and his link to the past, all tangled up in a few tumbledown acres near Thousand Oaks. He wasn’t sure why Gramps had hung that millstone around his neck when he’d died last year. But because it had been Gramps’s place, and Gramps’s doing, Fitz would likely drag it around until the day he died.

He took the edge off his exhaustion with a swig of cold beer before facing the news. Burke had slipped off his stool to hover, so it was probably bad.

“What’s up?” Fitz asked.

“You can see for yourself after the next commercial break.”

Fitz followed him through the house, past the clink of ice in cocktail glasses and the clack of billiard balls on felt, past wafting perfume and drifting cigarette smoke. He didn’t recognize too many faces. This was Sam’s set, Sam’s friends and hangers-on, come to watch her go shoulder to chin with Leno.