Debbi Rawlins - Need You Now

The pastor’s daughter…and the bad boy!

Melanie Knowles is the Good Girl of Blackfoot Falls—pastor’s daughter, teacher, animal shelter volunteer and upstanding member of the community. And Good Girls are never naughty. Ever. But Melanie is in serious trouble…because Lucas Sloan’s wicked blue eyes and deliciously hard body could turn this saint into a very satisfied sinner!

Lucas just wanted the Safe Haven animal shelter to help out with the Wild Horse Training Program. Getting hot for teacher was not part of the plan. The magnetism between them is intense, fierce and irresistible. But Lucas has secrets—and if Blackfoot Falls ever finds out, his sexy little trysts with the town sweetheart will ruin Melanie’s golden reputation forever….

You’ll never get enough of these cowboys!

Talented Mills & Boon Blaze author Debbie Rawlins keeps the cowboys coming with her popular miniseries

Made in Montana

The little town of Blackfoot Falls

isn’t so sleepy anymore….

In fact, it seems everyone’s staying up late!

Get your hands on a hot cowboy with

Alone with You

(March 2014)

Need You Now

(June 2014)

Behind Closed Doors

(September 2014)

And remember,

the sexiest cowboys are Made in Montana!

Dear Reader,

Here we are, eight books into the Made in Montana series. I must confess, I’m surprised to still be here in Blackfoot Falls. When I started the series I assumed I’d write six books and that would be it. Then I would come up with another theme or setting, and maybe even concentrate on urban books for a while. Turns out I love Westerns, cowboys and Montana way too much. I can’t seem to leave. And thanks to so many of you readers who share my enthusiasm, I get to stay in Big Sky Country a bit longer.

Some of you have met the heroine, Melanie Knowles, in book five, No One Needs To Know. She’s the high school teacher, who also volunteers at Safe Haven Large Animal Sanctuary along with her students. She wasn’t on the page much and it hadn’t occurred to me to make her a future heroine. But a few months later I happened to read an article about the Wild Horse Training Program and I instantly thought of Melanie. She’d fight for such a cause, no matter how unpopular it might be among the townspeople who hold her up to higher standards than most. Sexy, enigmatic Lucas Sloan is also a hundred percent behind the program, but when he comes to town he throws Melanie so far off course she may never find her way back.

These two characters quickly became favorites of mine. I hope you enjoy them, too.

All my best,

Debbi Rawlins

Need You Now

Debbi Rawlins

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Debbi Rawlins grew up in the country with no fast-food drive-throughs or nearby neighbors, so one might think as a kid she’d be dazzled by the bright lights of the city, the allure of the unfamiliar. Not so. She loved Westerns in movies and books, and her first crush was on a cowboy—okay, he was an actor in the role of a cowboy, but she was only eleven, so it counts. It was in Houston, Texas, where she first started writing for Mills & Boon, and now, more than fifty books later, she has her own ranch…of sorts. Instead of horses, she has four dogs, five cats, a trio of goats and free-range cattle keeping her on her toes on a few acres in gorgeous rural Utah. And of course, the deer and elk are always welcome.

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Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Extract

1

MELANIE KNOWLES ENTERED Safe Haven’s cheery new office and sighed at the stack of papers sitting on the old desk. Well, no one said running a large-animal sanctuary would be easy. Though the next time someone asked for a volunteer, she’d at least stop and think for two seconds before jumping in with both feet. It would take half the evening to order more feed and cross-reference invoices, another three hours to grade her junior English class essays, and she still had to proofread her father’s sermon before Sunday.

Oh, she doubted she’d find a single typo, much less a grammatical error, but her father insisted she have a look. Just as she’d done every week since her freshman year in college. That was ten years ago and so far she’d found only two misspelled words. No one could ever accuse him of not striving for perfection. He’d argue the point if she mentioned it. Not that she would. She’d always been a good girl, the perfect pastor’s daughter. That was why she was living in the same small Montana town she’d grown up in and teaching at the same school she’d attended.

She made sure her jeans weren’t too filthy, then sank into the new leather chair. So many changes had been made lately, all thanks to the generosity of the sanctuary’s former director and her new husband. Annie and Tucker lived outside of Dallas but Annie still kept close tabs on Safe Haven. She probably felt guilty about leaving before her position had been filled. But Melanie honestly didn’t mind temporarily sharing the responsibility with Shea, another volunteer, who also headed the board.

With all the new construction over the past few months, the job had been overwhelming at times. Thanks to funds from Tucker’s charitable foundation, Safe Haven now had a new quarantine stable, a bigger barn, completely stocked medicine cabinets, a new irrigation system, equipment that actually worked and an almost-finished three-bedroom cabin for the next director. The list of improvements went on, but the bottom line was, so many more animals were being saved.

Someone knocked just before the door opened. One of her students hovered in the doorway. “Come on in, Susie.” Melanie smiled at her. Susie stepped inside, her gaze sweeping the clean white walls and small galley kitchenette. “Wow, it’s nice in here. You even have a window.”

“What a difference, huh?” She’d opened the blinds earlier, giving her a view of the west corral, which held a pair of abandoned roan geldings that had arrived yesterday. In the distance she could see the Rockies. “They finished last week.”

“Shoot. I wanted to help you paint.”

“You can still help me put up the volunteer board and feeding schedule. Some posters would be nice, too, don’t you think?”

Susie nodded, already distracted by the two roans outside. She reminded Melanie of herself at that age, smaller than anyone else in her junior class, quiet, a bit on the shy side, always eager to please. Another similarity was Susie’s strong affection for animals. When Melanie had come up with the idea of having her students volunteer at Safe Haven, she hadn’t been surprised that Susie’s hand had shot up first.

The other kids had shown enthusiasm—whether to get out of the classroom or because they genuinely wanted to help was anyone’s guess. But the project had progressed nicely to three afternoons a week and covered everything from lessons on money management to animal husbandry. Now the kids even received academic credits. Melanie had David Mills to thank for that. She just wished the new principal would stop asking her to coffee or lunch.