Beth Cornelison - Rancher's High-Stakes Rescue

Stranded with the cowboy

A McCall Adventure Ranch story

While out on the range, cowboy Josh McCall finds himself the victim of vicious sabotage. Now he’s stuck in the wilderness with no one but city slicker Kate Carrington. The rough-and-tumble rancher must use all his skills to survive, his willpower to protect Kate and his determination to resist their mutual attraction. Until Josh makes one fateful decision that could jeopardize their bliss...and their lives.

BETH CORNELISONbegan working in public relations before pursuing her love of writing romance. She has won numerous honors for her work, including a nomination for the RWA RITA® Award for The Christmas Stranger . She enjoys featuring her cats (or friends’ pets) in her stories and always has another book in the pipeline! She currently lives in Louisiana with her husband, one son and three spoiled cats. Contact her via her website, bethcornelison.com.

Also by Beth Cornelison

Rancher’s Deadly Reunion

Cowboy Christmas Rescue

Rescuing the Witness

Rock-a-Bye Rescue

Guarding Eve

The Return of Connor Mansfield

Protecting Her Royal Baby

The Mansfield Rescue

Soldier’s Pregnancy Protocol

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

Rancher’s High-Stakes Rescue

Beth Cornelison

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-07951-8

RANCHER’S HIGH-STAKES RESCUE

© 2018 Beth Cornelison

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

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www.millsandboon.co.uk

Version: 2020-03-02

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To Paul

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

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

Chapter 18

Epilogue

Author’s Note

Extract

About the Publisher

Prologue

Eight-year-old Kate Carrington climbed the silo ladder, one rusty rung at a time, while her mother’s voice shouted in her head, Stay away from the old silo, Katie. It’s dangerous!

But Mama was a worrywart. That’s what Daddy called her, and Kate tended to agree.

If she were a boy, you’d call her athletic and adventurous. Don’t be overprotective just because she’s a girl , her daddy would say.

The rusty ladder creaked and wobbled as she climbed, and Kate paused. Looked down. She was pretty high. She cast her gaze around her family’s sun-drenched Missouri farm. The corn was waist high and bright green. The sky was clear blue, and the scent of tilled earth was heavy in the air after Daddy had plowed the west field, prepping it for a new planting. This kind of day filled her with the sort of excitement and curiosity to do and see and explore that Mama called recklessness.

She tried to be good for Mama’s sake. She didn’t want Mama to worry, but Kate figured she knew her limits. And today, Mama wasn’t home. She and Daddy had gone to chaperone a 4-H conference all weekend with Henry and his class. Grandma, who was her babysitter for the weekend, would never know she’d climbed up here.

And she wouldn’t be climbing the old silo if her brother’s new remote-controlled airplane, the one he’d just gotten for his birthday, hadn’t landed smack on top of the silo roof and gotten stuck upside down. Kate wasn’t supposed to be playing with it. If she lost it, she’d be in so much trouble! So she had to at least try to get it.

The ladder up the outside of the silo rattled again and swayed. She hesitated, wiping her sweaty hand on the seat of her shorts. Just a little farther...

When she finally pulled herself high enough to see the roof of the silo, she exhaled a sigh of relief. The plane was still in one piece. And it wasn’t that far in from the ladder. She could easily crawl out to get it.

She swung her legs over the top bar of the ladder and began scooting slowly up the rough slope of the sagging silo roof. She heard a snap , and her heart thumped harder. She stretched to reach the plane, but it was still just beyond her grasp. Swallowing hard, she edged farther along the rotted roof, inching her hand closer, closer...

In an instant, the roof beneath her gave way with a loud crack. Her stomach swooped as she plummeted down. The fall felt endless and lightning fast at the same time. Terrifying.

And then she hit the bottom. The abrupt stop rattled through her body with a tooth-jarring jolt. Pain worse than anything she’d ever known streaked up her leg. Her head smacked against something hard, and when she tried to scream, she couldn’t catch her breath.

Then everything went silent. Black.

Chapter 1

Twenty years later

The Colorado terrain was breathtaking, Kate thought, as she peered out the backseat window. The tiny car belonged to the Uber driver who had picked up her and her coworker, Dawn, at the Denver airport. The owners of McCall Adventure Ranch had been scheduled to give them a ride to the ranch, but she and Dawn had managed to get an earlier flight out of Dallas and hadn’t remembered to notify the ranch staff until they were about to land.