Ann Major - A Cowboy Christmas

“Enough!” Logan hollered, collapsing on the embankment, sides heaving with laughter.

Fletcher fell down next to him, chuckling. “Man, I haven’t heard you laugh like that in a long time.”

His friend’s words sobered Logan. He struggled to catch his breath.

A long silence stretched between the men, then Fletcher spoke. “You think I should have given Sandi a second chance—for Danny’s sake?”

The two men were thirty years old, their birthdays two weeks apart in July. They’d been friends since kindergarten and had stuck by each other through thick and thin. Through divorce and death.

“Did Sandi want a second chance?” Logan asked.

“No.”

“Did you want a second chance with her?”

“No.” Fletcher released a loud gust of air from his lungs. “If Bethany had cheated on you, would you have divorced her?”

“I don’t know.” Logan wished Bethany had cheated, instead of dying. “We’re a real pair, aren’t we?”

Dear Reader,

I love writing about cowboys and what a treat it’s been writing not one but two cowboy Christmas stories. In A Cowboy Christmas best friends Logan Taylor and Fletcher McFadden have each recently struggled through hard times and they’re hesitant to give love a try again. Logan must find the courage to move on after his wife’s death and Fletcher struggles with dating and single fatherhood after his recent divorce.

Christmas isn’t just a holiday for presents and parties. It’s also a time for forgiveness and new beginnings. I hope you enjoy reading how Logan and Fletcher find their happy-ever-afters with the women they least expected to.

May the spirit of Christmas fill your heart and bring many blessings to you and your loved ones.

For more information on my books visit www.marinthomas.com. For up-to-date news on Harlequin American Romance authors and their books visit www.harauthors.blogspot.com.

Happy reading!

Marin

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Marin Thomas grew up in Janesville, Wisconsin. She attended the University of Arizona in Tucson on a Division I basketball scholarship. In 1986 she graduated with a B.A. in radio-television and married her college sweetheart in a five-minute ceremony in Las Vegas. Marin was inducted in May 2005 into the Janesville Sports Hall of Fame for her basketball accomplishments. Even though she now calls Chicago home, she’s a living testament to the old adage “You can take the girl out of the small town, but you can’t take the small town out of the girl.” Marin’s heart still lies in small-town life, which she loves to write about in her books.

A CHRISTMAS BABY

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

MARRY ME, COWBOY

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Epilogue

To my son, Thomas—

congratulations on your high school graduation!

I’m proud of the wonderful young man you’ve become. Whatever path you choose in life I hope it brings you

happiness, joy and most of all love.

Go get ’em, Dude!

“How the hell did your bull end up in my mud bog?” Logan Taylor asked his best friend and neighbor, Fletcher McFadden. Fletcher had called Logan a half hour ago requesting help. Luckily Logan had his cell phone with him in the barn where he’d been mucking out stalls.

“Danny left the gate open again.” Danny was Fletcher’s seven-year-old son. The kid was a handful.

Logan didn’t comment on the boy’s carelessness. Danny was going through a rough patch after Fletcher and the boy’s mother divorced. Come to think about it, all three of them—Danny, Fletcher and himself—had seen better days. “I brought a sling,” Logan said. He’d also loaded a few hay bales into the truck bed. He’d spread the hay around the edge of the bog to help the bull gain its footing after the animal was freed. He motioned to Fletcher who stood knee-deep in muck. “What do you plan to do—push the bull end over end until he rolls out of there?”

“Ha, ha. Hurry up, hoss. My feet are numb.”

Logan tossed two ends of the sling through the air. A warm spell had ushered in the first week of December, but a chill hung in the early-morning air and white clouds puffed from Fletcher’s mouth as he struggled to work the harness beneath the ten inches of space between the bull’s belly and the mud.

“You ever think about fixing this bog?” Fletcher grunted.

Granted, Logan should have filled the mud hole long ago. The problem was he didn’t give a crap about much anymore. After Bethany died everything had lost its urgency. He was marking time. Waiting for something to change his life. Waiting for…just waiting.

Although Fletcher had his share of troubles recovering from a divorce and raising a son, he’d tried to drag Logan back into the world of the living after Bethany’s death. Logan appreciated his friend’s concern but preferred a solitary existence.

“All set.” Fletcher flung the ends of the harness over the bull’s body and Logan secured them to the trailer hitch on his truck.

“I can’t lose this bull to a broken leg,” Fletcher warned.

The McFaddens raised some of the best breeding bulls in Texas. “How much is he worth?” Logan asked.

“So much he ain’t for sale.”

Logan removed a pair of wire cutters from his pocket and opened the bales in the truck bed. After tossing the hay along the edge of the bog he hopped in his truck.

“Nice and easy!” Fletcher hollered.

Nice and easy was the only way to pull a two-thousand-pound hunk of beef from a muddy hole. Logan pressed the accelerator and the truck’s tires dug into the earth. He checked his side mirror. Fletcher had his shoulder jammed against the bull’s side, trying to coax it to move its legs.

The animal slowly toppled onto its side. With steady pressure on the gas pedal, Logan moved the truck a few feet forward. For a second the bull sank beneath the mud, only the whites of its eyes visible. Logan gave the truck a little more gas and the animal’s head emerged.

“Keep going,” Fletcher said. “He’s almost to the edge.”

The diesel truck engine groaned in protest, but finally the bull reached solid ground. Logan dragged its body a few more feet until the bull lay on the hay, then he cut the engine and rushed to untie the harness from the hitch before the animal became tangled.

The bull’s sides heaved with exertion but after Logan slapped its hind quarters, the animal scrambled to its feet, slipping once but remaining upright. He trotted off, bellowing in disgust.

“You coming out of there?”