Meg Maxwell - Charm School For Cowboys

Short-Order Cook...And A Baby On Board

As if meeting his birth mother and discovering he has a twin brother aren’t enough to test a man, Jake Morrow’s short one ranch cook. So when pregnant Emma Hurley comes looking for a job and whips up the best steak dinner he’s ever had, Jake hires her on the spot. And when Emma’s father demands she marry or lose her family farm, Jake stuns Emma—and himself—by proposing.

After being left in the lurch, Emma can handle five hungry, romance-challenged cowboys. Well, except for one—the handsome rancher and Blue Gulch’s most eligible bachelor—who gallantly comes to her rescue. Only now Emma’s gone and fallen for her pretend fiancé. But Jake isn’t looking for a forever kind of love...is he?

Jake walked over and reached up a hand to Emma’s face. He could see this was tearing her in two, breaking her heart.

He took a deep breath. Expelled it. Turned and paced the length of the bedroom. Looked at Emma. Looked out the window. Closed his eyes. Opened them and found her looking at him as though he might need medical attention. Which he might.

He paced some more, then stopped. “Marry me, Emma. We’re both not looking for a real relationship or a real marriage. You’ll save the farm.”

What the hell? Had he just said that? Had he just proposed to Emma?

Good God, he had. Without thinking. Gun to head, what are you going to do, Morrow? Well, this was the answer.

A marriage proposal.

She stared at him. “Jake. You can’t be serious. What could you possibly get out of this?”

“The best cook in Texas?” he said, managing a weak smile.

Had he just said that? What the hell was wrong with him? If anyone needed Emma’s charm school for cowboys, he did. Good Lord.

* * *

Hurley’s Homestyle Kitchen:There’s nothing more delicious than falling in love...

Charm School for Cowboys

Meg Maxwell

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MEG MAXWELL lives on the coast of Maine with her teenage son, their beagle and their black-and-white cat. When she’s not writing, Meg is either reading, at the movies or thinking up new story ideas on her favorite little beach (even in winter) just minutes from her house. Interesting fact: Meg Maxwell is a pseudonym for author Melissa Senate, whose women’s fiction titles have been published in over twenty-five countries.

In dear memory of Greg Pope.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text Short-Order Cook...And A Baby On Board As if meeting his birth mother and discovering he has a twin brother aren’t enough to test a man, Jake Morrow’s short one ranch cook. So when pregnant Emma Hurley comes looking for a job and whips up the best steak dinner he’s ever had, Jake hires her on the spot. And when Emma’s father demands she marry or lose her family farm, Jake stuns Emma—and himself—by proposing. After being left in the lurch, Emma can handle five hungry, romance-challenged cowboys. Well, except for one—the handsome rancher and Blue Gulch’s most eligible bachelor—who gallantly comes to her rescue. Only now Emma’s gone and fallen for her pretend fiancé. But Jake isn’t looking for a forever kind of love...is he?

Introduction Jake walked over and reached up a hand to Emma’s face. He could see this was tearing her in two, breaking her heart. He took a deep breath. Expelled it. Turned and paced the length of the bedroom. Looked at Emma. Looked out the window. Closed his eyes. Opened them and found her looking at him as though he might need medical attention. Which he might. He paced some more, then stopped. “Marry me, Emma. We’re both not looking for a real relationship or a real marriage. You’ll save the farm.” What the hell? Had he just said that? Had he just proposed to Emma? Good God, he had. Without thinking. Gun to head, what are you going to do, Morrow? Well, this was the answer. A marriage proposal. She stared at him. “Jake. You can’t be serious. What could you possibly get out of this?” “The best cook in Texas?” he said, managing a weak smile. Had he just said that? What the hell was wrong with him? If anyone needed Emma’s charm school for cowboys, he did. Good Lord. * * * Hurley’s Homestyle Kitchen: There’s nothing more delicious than falling in love...

Title Page Charm School for Cowboys Meg Maxwell www.millsandboon.co.uk

About the Author MEG MAXWELL lives on the coast of Maine with her teenage son, their beagle and their black-and-white cat. When she’s not writing, Meg is either reading, at the movies or thinking up new story ideas on her favorite little beach (even in winter) just minutes from her house. Interesting fact: Meg Maxwell is a pseudonym for author Melissa Senate, whose women’s fiction titles have been published in over twenty-five countries.

Dedication In dear memory of Greg Pope.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Epilogue

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

“I wouldn’t date you if you were the last man in Texas, Hank Timber!”

Jake Morrow glanced up in time to see Fern, a neighboring rancher who’d dropped off the four billy goats he’d purchased for the Full Circle Ranch, scowling at his foreman. Fern stomped to her truck and sped off, dust and gravel flying in her wake.

Hank didn’t even bother waving away the dirt and grit that now covered him. He shoved his hands in his pockets, his expression forlorn as Jake approached.

“Didn’t go so well, huh?” Jake asked his foreman. Hank, twice divorced, had mentioned at breakfast this morning that he thought Fern was “darn pretty and had a way about her” and planned to ask her out to dinner at Hurley’s Homestyle Kitchen, everyone’s favorite restaurant in Blue Gulch.

Hank sighed. “I thought that rancher to rancher, I could ask her out by joking that we already had something in common—how we’d both stink of cow dung while chowing down on supper. Then I sniffed around her and nodded and laughed. Instead of saying yes to a date tonight, she got all mad.” He shrugged, watching Fern’s truck disappear down the Full Circle’s long dirt drive.

Jake refrained from slamming his palm against his forehead. At this rate, Hank would be single forever. Of the four cowboys working for Jake at the Full Circle Ranch, his foreman wasn’t even the most clueless when it came to women. No, Jake would say it was a four-way tie. Forty-two-year-old Hank had been in love with Fern since he laid eyes on her a month ago while listening to her presentation on calving season at the local rancher’s association meeting. Twenty-five-year-old Golden, who’d earned the nickname from the motto about silence, was so shy and quiet he turned away any time the young woman he had a mad crush on, a Hurley’s waitress, was around. Fifty-two-year-old Grizzle, who hadn’t shaved or had a haircut in years, maybe a decade, spoke wistfully of his late wife and how he wished he could find someone as special, but had scared a little girl at the feed store in town with just the sight of him. Then there was Jake’s own brother CJ, ten years his junior at twenty-two, who took full advantage of his good looks and ranch-honed muscles to play the field. CJ had left a trail of broken hearts and parents, older sisters, and bffs to storm up to Jake in town and let him know just what a “no-good lying player” his brother was. Charles John Morrow was a good guy, Jake knew that more than he knew just about anything, but when it came to love and romance, CJ was an absolute hot mess, a train wreck, as his neighbor’s teenage daughter would put it. CJ would just say, Well, what was I supposed to do? Propose? She just wasn’t the one. The Morrow brothers had been in Blue Gulch all of one month, and at least ten young women hadn’t been “the one.”