Diane Pershing - Cassie's Cowboy

His appearance this morning was rumpled, and he needed a shave. But so what? Despite Cassie’s bad mood, she’d have had to be comatose not to observe how to-drool-over sexy the man was.

His sun-streaked hair flopped on his forehead. That crooked smile deepened the laugh lines around his Paul Newman eyes. He was tall, and slim, and sturdy, and possessed more animal charisma than ought to be allowed.

She’d half convinced herself that she’d dreamed him up the night before, some combination of stress and overactive imagination at work.

There went that theory….

Dear Reader,

Have you started your spring cleaning yet? If not, we have a great motivational plan: For each chore you complete, reward yourself with one Silhouette Romance title! And with the standout selection we have this month, you’ll be finished reorganizing closets, steaming carpets and cleaning behind the refrigerator in record time!

Take a much-deserved break with the exciting new ROYALLY WED: THE MISSING HEIR title, In Pursuit of a Princess, by Donna Clayton. The search for the missing St. Michel heir leads an undercover princess straight into the arms of a charming prince. Then escape with Diane Pershing’s SOULMATES addition, Cassie’s Cowboy. Could the dreamy hero from her daughter’s bedtime stories be for real?

Lugged out and wiped down the patio furniture? Then you deserve a double treat with Cara Colter’s What Child Is This? and Belinda Barnes’s Daddy’s Double Due Date. In Colter’s tender tearjerker, a tiny stranger reunites a couple torn apart by tragedy. And in Barnes’s warm romance, a bachelor who isn’t the “cootchie-coo” type discovers he’s about to have twins!

You’re almost there! Once you’ve rounded up every last dust bunny, you’re really going to need some fun. In Terry Essig’s Before You Get to Baby…and Sharon De Vita’s A Family To Be, childhood friends discover that love was always right next door. De Vita’s series, SADDLE FALLS, moves back to Special Edition next month.

Even if you skip the spring cleaning this year, we hope you don’t miss our books. We promise, this is one project you’ll love doing.

Happy reading!

Mary-Theresa Hussey

Senior Editor

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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To Karen Amarillas, for her friendship and expertise

in rodeo lore. And to Ken, who—although he refuses to

wear boots and Stetson—still fits my definition of a hero.

Silhouette Romance

Cassie’s Cowboy #1584

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While You Were Sleeping #863

The Tough Guy and the Toddler #928

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Hot Copy

cannot remember a time when she didn’t have her nose buried in a book. As a child, she would cheat the bedtime curfew by snuggling under the covers with her teddy bear, a flashlight and a forbidden (read “grown-up”) novel. Her mother warned her that she would ruin her eyes, but so far, they still work. Diane has had many careers—singer, actress, film critic, disc jockey, TV writer, to name a few. Currently she divides her time between writing romances and doing voice-overs. (You can hear her as “Poison Ivy” on the Batman cartoon.) She lives in Los Angeles, and promises she is only slightly affected. Her two children, Morgan Rose and Ben, have just completed college, and Diane looks forward to writing and acting until she expires, or people stop hiring her, whichever comes first. She loves to hear from readers, so please write to her at P.O. Box 67424, Los Angeles, CA 90067.

Dear Reader,

When I was young, any girl worth her salt had a crush on cowboys…and their horses, of course. On my block you were either for Roy Rogers or Gene Autry. The occasional Hopalong Cassidy booster showed up, but we paid them no mind (if you are too young to know who I’m talking about, trust me, you missed a great time). I was firmly in the Roy camp. Last year, during a difficult family period, I’d been trying unsuccessfully to flesh out a story idea about a pair of truly ugly magical eyeglasses. One night I had a dream in which Roy showed up and told me not to fret my pretty little head, that he and Trigger would take care of my problems for a while. Sigh. It was a lovely dream. Upon awakening, the two ideas meshed, and Cassie’s Cowboy was born. Giddyup!

Diane Pershing

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Epilogue

“…and then the bad man with the long, smelly mustache tightened the ropes that bound the hands of Sally and her small child, Missy. Both of his prisoners were very, very frightened, and they would have liked to scream for help but the bad man had put handkerchiefs over their mouths, so all they could do was make noises like murfle hurfle pelp! Suddenly, from over the horizon there appeared a stranger in a Stetson—”

“Cowboy Charlie!” Trish said happily, clapping her hands.

“Yes, my love,” Cassie said, and went on. “Here came Cowboy Charlie, galloping on Felicity, his six-guns blazing. With an oomph! and a pow! he kicked the bad man so he fell and rolled over and over and over, down the mountain. Then Charlie swooped up the woman and her child onto his horse, and the three of them rode off into the sunset, to safety.”

“Oh, Mommy,” Trish sighed, snuggling back against her pillow and pulling her covers up under her chin. “That was so good. It’s my favorite story.”

Cassie Nevins smiled warmly at her seven-year-old daughter. “You always say that, no matter which story I tell you,” she teased, then kissed her child’s soft cheek. “Good night, baby,” she said, gathering her notebook and pens as she left the room. Their nightly ritual was done, the story was told, accompanied, as usual, by one or two pen-and-ink sketches. The drawings she’d come up with this particular evening weren’t bad, even if she did say so herself. She’d really gotten the look of Cowboy Charlie tonight.

He was the Old West heroic type, from the days before Star Wars, when kids used to worship cowboys and the horses they rode. Tall, slim but muscular, his legs slightly bowed from years riding the range, his strong face lined by days spent squinting into the sun. He wore chaps and boots with jangling spurs and a leather vest—all the classic paraphernalia—and rode a magnificent chestnut named Felicity. Cassie was particularly pleased with the arch of the horse’s neck in tonight’s drawing. And she’d finally captured the look in Charlie’s nearly turquoise-blue eyes—reliable, amused. Manly. She was getting better and better at this.