Maureen Child - The Lone Star Cinderella

A fake engagement at the Texas Cattleman’s Club? It must be a fairy tale from USA TODAY bestselling author Maureen Child!

Dave Firestone has no intention of getting married, but he’ll pretend anything if it means sealing a tough business deal for his ranch. Needing a spur-of-the-moment fake fiancée, he turns to housekeeper Mia Hughes. With her boss—and Dave’s business rival—missing and her paycheck on hold, she accepts Dave’s fantasy proposal. But when their pretend romance takes an unexpected turn into passionate nights, Dave isn’t ready to let Mia go. Can the smooth-talking businessman negotiate a more permanent arrangement?

“How long would we have to pretend?”

“Shouldn’t take more than a month.”

“A month as your fiancée.”

“Yeah.”

“No touching of any kind. No kissing—”

“Hold on.” David stopped her in midstream. “We have to convince this guy we’re a real couple. So there will be touching. And kissing. And there will be you looking at me with adoration.”

She laughed.

He frowned.

“Fine, fine,” she said, waving a hand at him. “I’ll be a good fiancée and the occasional touch or kiss—in public—is okay.”

“Then we have a deal.” He held out one hand to her and waited for her to take it.

Nodding, Mia slid her hand into his and couldn’t help feeling that just maybe she was swimming in waters way too deep for her.

* * *

The Lone Star Cinderellais part of the Texas Cattleman’s Club: The Missing Mogul series:

Love and scandal meet in Royal, Texas!

Dear Reader,

A continuity series is always an adventure! And doing not one, but two books in the same series is double the fun! I really enjoyed being able to explore two very different couples within the same continuity.

This book is all about Dave and Mia. Suspicion, need and a secret deal bring them together—but it’s the unexpected passion they find that turns everything upside down.

Life in Royal, Texas, is never boring. You’ll see old friends dropping in and meet new characters whose stories are just about to be told.

And through it all is the romance that sparks between Mia and Dave—two people who have no reason to trust each other, and every reason to surrender to the inevitable.

I really hope you enjoy this book as much as I did when I wrote it. Please stop by my website to check out the latest news and come and visit with me on Facebook! Until next time…

Happy Reading!

Maureen

maureenchild.com

The Lone Star Cinderella

Maureen Child

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MAUREEN CHILDwrites for Mills & Boon ®Desire ™and can’t imagine a better job. Being able to indulge your love for romance as well as being able to spin stories just the way you want them told is, in a word, perfect.

A seven-time finalist for the prestigious Romance Writers of America RITA ®Award, Maureen is the author of more than one hundred romance novels. Her books regularly appear on the bestseller lists and have won several awards, including the Prism, the National Readers’ Choice Award, the Colorado Romance Writers Award of Excellence and the Golden Quill.

Maureen believes that laughter goes hand in hand with love, so her stories are always filled with humor. The many letters she receives assures her that her readers love to laugh as much as she does.

Maureen is a native Californian, but has recently moved to the mountains of Utah. She loves a new adventure, though the thought of having to deal with snow for the first time is a little intimidating.

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To Kate Carlisle and Jennifer Apodaca—great friends

and wonderful writers who helped keep me sane

during the writing of this book!

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Excerpt

One

Dave Firestone was a man on a mission.

The future of his ranch was at stake and damned if he was going to let scandal or whispered rumors ruin what he’d spent years building. It had been months now since Alex Santiago had disappeared and Dave still felt a cloud of suspicion hanging around his head. Time to find out one way or the other what the law in town thought of the situation.

He climbed out of his 4x4, tugged the collar of his brown leather jacket up around his neck and squinted into the East Texas wind. October was rolling in cold, signaling what would be an even colder winter. Nothing he could do about that, but Dave had driven to the border of his ranch to get at least one part of his life straightened out.

A tall man wearing a worn, black leather coat and a tan, wide-brimmed hat was patching the barbed-wire fence that separated Dave’s ranch, the Royal Round Up, from the neighboring ranch, the Battlelands. Behind the man in black, another man, Bill Hardesty, a Battle ranch hand, unloaded wire from a battered truck. Dave nodded a greeting to Bill, then focused his attention on Nathan Battle.

Nathan looked up as Dave approached. “Hey, Dave, how’s it going?”

“Going fine,” he said, because Dave Firestone never admitted to having a problem he couldn’t solve. “I went by the main ranch house and Jake told me where I could find you. Didn’t think I’d find the town sheriff out fixing fence line.”

Nathan shrugged and glanced out over the surrounding land before shifting his gaze back to Dave. “I like getting out on the ranch. Gives me a chance to think. Clear my head. My brother does most of the heavy lifting on the Battlelands, but I’m a full partner and it feels good to get back to basics, you know?” Then he grinned. “Besides, Amanda’s on a remodeling binge, getting ready for the baby. So we’ve got one of Sam Gordon’s construction crews at the house all the time. Being out here...” he said, then sighed in pleasure. “Quiet.”

From his spot on the truck, Bill snorted. “Enjoy it while it lasts, boss. Once that baby comes you can kiss ‘quiet’ goodbye forever.”

Nathan chuckled, then said, “Just unload the wire, will ya?”

Dave ignored the byplay. He wished he’d found Nathan alone out here, but he was going to have his say whether Bill was listening in or not.

Things had changed a lot around Royal in the past few months, Dave thought. Nathan and Amanda were married and expecting a baby. Sam and Lila were expecting twins. And then there was the reason Dave had come to see Nathan on his day off.

The disappearance of Alex Santiago.

He wouldn’t claim to have been friends with Alex, but he’d never wished the man harm, either. This vanishing act of his was weird enough to keep the people in town talking—and most of them were talking about how Dave and Alex had been business rivals and wondering if maybe Alex hadn’t had some help in disappearing.

Dave had never been one to give a flying damn what people had to say about him. He ran his life and his business the way he saw fit, and if people didn’t like it, screw them. But like he’d just been thinking, things had changed. Irritating to admit that gossip and the threat of scandal had chased him out here to talk to the town sheriff, but there it was.