Lisa Jackson - The Millionaire and the Cowgirl

My crash was no accident. And in order to find out who sabotaged my plane, I’m pretending to be dead.

In the meantime, I’m looking out for my family. I’m so pleased they’re enjoying the gifts I left them in my will. Take my grandson Kyle. As a boy, he used to come visit me at my Wyoming ranch. One summer he fell in love with that darling Samantha Rawlings. I’ll never understand why he impulsively up and left to marry a society girl.

Kyle needs to get away from the city and settle down. He’s a restless playboy because he’s forgotten what’s important. That’s why I left him the ranch. And to guarantee he doesn’t sell it, he needs to live there six months to offically inherit it.

That should be just enough time for him to reunite with Samantha and discover the secret she’s been keeping for ten years….

Dear Reader,

Some things are just meant to happen. That’s what I thought when I was asked to contribute to FORTUNE’S CHILDREN. I was thrilled and honored to be a part of the group of authors creating stories about this very special family, and I was thankful that I was asked to do a story surrounding a ranch, a rich playboy and a secret baby.

I’m a fifth-generation Oregonian and grew up surrounded by cousins and grandparents, as well as great-aunts and uncles. My grandparents and great-grandparents lived on farms complete with cattle, chickens, sheep and hogs. My cousins and sister, Natalie Bishop (another Silhouette author), and I played on the banks of a small creek that wound through a thick stand of old growth timber, chased each other on deer and sheep trails, or swam in the Molalla River. It was a magical, special childhood. We weren’t nearly as wealthy as the Fortunes, of course, but we had that same sense of togetherness and love that wound through our generations, the common and tightly woven bond of family.

I felt it was fitting that this, The Millionaire and the Cowgirl, should be my fortieth book for Silhouette—a novel celebrating love and trust and the meaning of family. I’m thrilled to be able to contribute and hope you enjoy reading about Samantha, Kyle and Caitlyn.

I feel this is a special book, a milestone in the fifteen years I’ve written for Silhouette. Many of you have written me, asking for more stories with a Western setting, where the characters live on ranches, and this is for you. I hope you love this series as much as I do.

Enjoy!

Lisa Jackson

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To my dad, from whom I learned dignity and laughter

lives with her family in the Pacific Northwest. She has been writing for over twenty years. Her books have appeared on the New York Times, Publishers Weekly and USA TODAY bestseller lists. Her free time is spent with friends and family.

Meet the Fortunes—three generations of a family with a legacy of wealth, influence and power. As they unite to face an unknown enemy, shocking family secrets are revealed…and passionate new romances are ignited.

KATE FORTUNE: When the powerful matriarch of the Fortune clan is believed to be dead, she and a mysterious stranger play matchmakers in the lives of her children and grandchildren.

KYLE FORTUNE: Playboy millionaire. Can this city slicker turned cowboy rectify mistakes of the past…and make a future with the one woman he’s never been able to forget and the daughter he never knew he had?

SAMANTHA RAWLINGS: Feisty cowgirl. Could she ever forgive Kyle for breaking her heart and marrying another woman? Would he be able to forgive her for keeping a ten-year-old secret?

ALLIE FORTUNE: Gorgeous Fortune Cosmetics spokesmodel. Men want her only for her money and her body. Is her beauty a blessing…or a curse?

LIZ JONES— CELEBRITY GOSSIP

The rumors are true! Megamillionaire Kate Fortune, CEO of Fortune Cosmetics, has died in a tragic plane crash. Sources tell me Kate’s daughter Rebecca suspects foul play and is looking into hiring a private investigator.

Close friends say the family was devastated at the reading of her will. In addition to her major assets, Kate apparently left special mementos. To her grandson Kyle, the most eligible bachelor in town, she left her Wyoming ranch. So saddle up, all you bachelorettes! To hook this guy you’re going to have to play cowgirl, because Kyle has to stay on the ranch for six—yes, six!—months to inherit it. I wonder about this wild condition. But as everyone knows, Kate always had a trick—and a master plan—up her sleeve….

What impact will Kate’s death have on the massive Fortune empire? And if someone is out to get the Fortunes, who’s next on their target list?

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Epilogue

Clear Springs, Wyoming

June

Bbbbrrring!

The school bell rang sharply, announcing the end of the day for the students of Whitecomb Elementary in Clear Springs, Wyoming. Within minutes laughing, chattering children swinging lunch pails and book bags began streaming from the long, redbrick building. Two flags, one for the United States, the other for the State of Wyoming, snapped from a pole near the front entrance of the school. Yellow buses waited near the side entrance by the parking lot and spewed blue smoke from their tailpipes.

From a van parked in front of a small cottage on the opposite side of the street, a stranger, a man who didn’t belong anywhere near this elementary school, peered anxiously through the window. He stared past the caravans of trucks, cars and minivans that idled in the asphalt lot as parents waited to pick up their precious cargos.

“Come on, come on,” he muttered.

Surely he would catch a glimpse of the girl in question, the one on whose slim, nine-year-old shoulders his partner’s hopes rested.

What if she no longer went to school here? What if she and her mother had moved? His fingers curled over the steering wheel in a death grip. Damn, it was hot, even though he was parked in the shade of a solitary oak tree, whose branches stretched over the fence guarding the small house.

He cracked open the window just a bit and a breath of hot, dusty wind whispered through the van. A dog somewhere up the street barked, grating on his nerves, but still he waited. He’d promised that he would see this child for himself so that he could report back to his partner that she was alive and well.

Suddenly a blond girl with wild hair and big smile dashed from the building. Long legged, her teeth a little too big for her face, she was one of those children who would blossom with age, a cute girl who promised rare beauty in adulthood. Caitlyn Bethany Rawlings, only child of never-married Samantha Rawlings.

He felt a moment’s relief as he watched Caitlyn and the rest of the students in Mrs. Evelyn Johnson’s fourth-grade class join the other kids already climbing onto the buses or threading through the line of parked cars.

Caitlyn, chattering to a dark-haired, shorter girl, was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. Tangled curls, so like her mother’s, framed a small, tanned face. Freckles dusted her nose, and her eyes, round and blue, squinted until she spied her mother’s sorry-looking pickup. With a frantic wave to a couple of friends, she dashed between two parked station wagons and climbed into the passenger side of the vehicle.