Cowboy 12 Pack
Page 64
A slice of lemon sits on the bread plate to remind us of the bitterness of their fate.
The plate is covered in salt – symbolic of their family’s tears.
The glass is inverted, for they cannot toast with us tonight.
The chair is empty, for they can sit with us no longer.
In remembrance of all the fallen soldiers.
♥
**♥**
Shayla fled to Harland County, Texas with her baby girl and college student sister, hoping to stay a step ahead of their deadbeat dad. Tired of running, she wanted to settle down into a normal life. A safe life.
A solid, forever life.
Too bad her body insisted on responding to the local heartthrob,
the drop-dead gorgeous Casanova cowboy.
♥
Please turn the page
for a preview of
Her Forever Cowboy
Available Spring 2014
Chapter One – Her Forever Cowboy
COME TO THE pub, they said.
It’ll be fun, they said.
“Fun my ass,” Kevin Dalton grumbled, none too happy his friends failed to mention the sexy, redheaded she-devil would be at the Texas Republic with her killer lips and elbow to match.
Swallowing a few choice words, and they were juicy, he slumped further into the booth at the restaurant/bar owned by the Masters sisters. Or would that be McCall sisters? After all, Jordan and Kerri had married the McCall brothers this past year.
“What’s with the face,” his best friend Cole McCall asked from across the table, brown gaze twinkling with undisguised joy. “Forget to wear your cup?”
Bastard. Make that ex-best friend.
“Very funny.” He didn’t laugh, but he did groan as his friend’s brother decided to settle into the booth with him.
“Nah, he probably forgot to put on his big-boy underwear. Ain’t that right, Dalton?” A lop-sided grin accompanied Connor McCall’s jab to the ribs. “Quit being such a girl.”
“Up yours, Moose.” He didn’t bother with the finger. A guy that big required a verbal reprimand if there was any hope of it sinking into the giant’s thick skull.
“Come on, guys. Give my cousin a break,” Kade Dalton said, sitting next to Cole, gray eyes full of compassion and…ah shit, mirth. “You know Kevin doesn’t have his Man Card yet.”
“Bite me,” he replied, tone sounding more aggravated than he actually felt. No, he was thrilled to see his cousin so upbeat and positive.
God, for a while there, Kade had been just the opposite. His older cousin had needed an intervention to seek professional help regarding issues from a recent deployment with the Texas National Guard. It was truly great to see the guy happy. Of course, Kevin knew the transformation wasn’t all attributed to therapy. Hell no, most of the credit went to his cousin’s angel of a fiancé, Brandi Wyne. Too damn bad the beautiful designer from the north didn’t have a sister.
Or two.
“Yeah, you’re right.” Connor nodded. “He needs to earn it. Maybe once he takes off the girlie pants.”
Kevin forced his lips to curve into a smile, and even managed a chuckle. “You’re just jealous cause I’m better looking.”
The cowboy’s head jerked back with his smirk. “Yeah, right.”
“Actually, guys,” his buddy spoke up, lifting his beer. “We have to give ’ole blue eyes credit for those triplets I told you about from our Japan trip last year.”
Oh, yeah. The Nakamura sisters. Satisfaction spread warmth throughout his body and a matching smile across his lips. Triplets. Japanese triplets. Two items he’d crossed off his bucket list.
Kade nodded. “True.”
“Yeah, I have to admit, that was very ambitious. Don’t know how you managed that one, Kevin.” Connor shook his head, small smile tugging a dimple to life.
“Nearly killed me,” he admitted. Truth be told, he’d pulled a muscle in his groin. But hot damn, it had been so worth it. “Cowboys everywhere were relying on me to deliver. So I did.”
“Three times?” Connor raised a brow.
“Yes.” He nodded. “I made damn sure each girl was satisfied before I crawled back to my room and passed out.” With an icepack on his abused…muscle.
Laughter filled their booth and lightened the mood.
Kade lifted his beer and smiled. “To Kevin. Looks like he did earn that Man Card, after all.”
The three laughing bastards clinked mugs, but he didn’t care. Hell no. Because he had the memory and the satisfaction of knowing he’d actually pleased the amorous sisters. A genuine smile crossed his lips and he sat a little taller. Yeah, he’d represented real well.
“So, what seems to be the trouble with this one?” Cole nodded toward the line dancers tearing up the floor.
Trouble? He frowned. “With what one?”
“You know exactly which one.”
Yeah, he knew. They were referring to spitfire with long auburn waves, bouncing down her back as she kicked up her booted heels alongside Brandi. He’d come to blows with the beauty a few times. Sure, he’d felt a connection, a damn strong connection, but he’d also felt her wrath. No thank you. Plenty of willing females out there. He did not need nor want to coax.
He took a pull on his beer, then nodded to the dancers. “Let’s just say I know better than to bark at a dead tree.”
Dark brows rose as his buddy turned to face the crowd. “She doesn’t look all that dead to me. In fact, I’d say she looks quite…energetic.”
She’d tasted even better.
Damn her.
“You’ve been avoiding her like the plague,” his friend stated.
His head jerked back. “I have not. Jeez, you’re such an exaggerator, McCall.”
“Bull.” Cole laughed. “You’ve avoided her here. Around town. My mom’s Christmas party. Seriously, Kevin. What gives?”
A grinning Connor leaned close. “He’s got an aversion to her elbow.”
Kevin readily agreed with a nod. “Can you blame me? An elbow to the groin is not exactly a wonderful first meet.”
He still couldn’t believe she’d poled him. Poled him. And for no reason.
He’d been innocently walking toward Cole’s wife Jordan, her sister Kerri and Brandi. The women were sitting at a picnic table eating ice cream at The Creamery, along with a redhead who was holding the cutest little baby girl he’d ever seen, when wham! The spitfire had elbowed his favorite body part and dropped him like a sack of cement.
“Sure left an impression, though.” Cole snickered.
“Hell, yeah,” he said. “The fellas about-face when that woman’s around. They cower and run for safety.”
“You didn’t seem all that put out when you two were strawberry sharing a few weeks back.”
“Damn, man.” Connor nodded, dimple still glaring. “I thought the pub was going to catch fire.”
Kade scratched the bridge of his nose, a small smile tugging his lips. “Yeah, cuz. You were kind of burning the place up.”
The place?
Hell, he’d been ready to self combust. Burst into flames. Explode. One touch, one taste, and bam…his hunger for the prickly beauty intensified full throttle. What the hell? He’d pulled her close, and with their bodies lined up in perfect symmetry, which only intensified the damn heat, he’d proceeded to share the dessert and one hell of a memorable kiss. Delicious. Succulent. And it had nothing to do with the fruit. Absolutely nothing.
No. Sweet, juicy…hot, it was all her.
All Shayla Ryan.
**♥**
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**♥**
Harland County Series
Visit my Harland County Series Page at my website www.donnamichaelsauthor.com for release information and updates!
Book .05: Harland County Christmas-Novella
Book On
e: Her Fated Cowboy
Book Two: Her Unbridled Cowboy
Book Three: Her Uniform Cowboy
Book Four: Her Forever Cowboy
Coming soon:
Book Five: Her Healing Cowboy
Become a Cowboy Tamer!
Drop me a line at donna_michaels@msn.com and request some Cowboy-Tamer swag!
**♥**
Harland County Series
**NOR Reviewer Top Pick – Night Owl Reviews**
Book One: Her Fated Cowboy
L.A. cop Jordan Masters Ryan has a problem. Her normal method of meeting a crisis head-on and taking it down won’t work. Not this time. Not when fate is her adversary. Having kept her from the man she thought she’d always marry, the same fickle fate took away the man she eventually did. Thrown back into the path of her first love, she finds hers is not the only heart fate has damaged.
Widower and software CEO, Cole McCall fills his days with computer codes and his free time working the family’s cattle ranch. Blaming himself for his wife’s death, he’s become hard and bitter. When his visiting former neighbor sets out to delete the firewall around his heart, he discovers there’s no protection against the Jordan virus. Though she understands his pain and reawakens his soul, will it be enough for Cole to overcome his past and embrace their fated hearts?
**♥**
Harland County Series
**NOR Reviewer Top Pick – Night Owl Reviews**
**Predator & Editor Top 20 Romance 2013**
Book Two: Her Unbridled Cowboy
Homeless and unemployed thanks to an earthquake, divorced California chef Kerri Masters agrees to head back to her hometown to help plan her sister’s Texas wedding. It must be her weakened state that has her eyeing the neighbor she used to follow around as a child. Her tastes tend towards gentlemen in suits, cultured, and neatly groomed—not a dimple-glaring, giant of a cowboy. He’s big and virile, and makes her want things the inadequacies brought out during her divorce keep her from carrying out.
Connor McCall’s brotherly feelings for the pesky former neighbor disappear when the grown up version steps on his ranch in her fancy clothes and shiny heels. Too bad she’s a city girl, because he has no use for them. Three times he tried to marry one, and three times the engagements failed. He’s not looking for number four no matter how much his body is all for jumping back in the saddle and showing the sexy chef just how it feels to be loved by a cowboy.
Turns out the earthquake was nothing compared to the passionate, force of nature of an unbridled cowboy, and Kerri learns far more about herself, and Connor, than she ever expected. But when events put his trust in her on the line, will he choose his heart or his pride?
**♥**
Harland County Series
Book Three: Her Uniform Cowboy
*BTS eMagazine Red Carpet Book Awards-Reader’s Choice-Romance Category Finalist*
*BTS eMagazine Red Carpet Book Awards-Best Book Finalist*
*Crowned Heart of Excellence – InD’tale Magazine*
**BEST COWBOY in a Book/Readers’ Choice-LRC**
**NOR Reviewer Top Pick – Night Owl Reviews**
Desperate for change after a verbally abusive relationship, Brandi Wyne leaves a symphony career, her family, and the Poconos to fall back on a designing degree and a chance to renovate a restaurant/pub in Texas. Even though part of a National Guard family, she’d sworn off military men when the last one proved less than supportive of her thyroid condition and subsequent weight gain. Too bad her body seems to forget that fact whenever she’s near the very hot, very military local sheriff.
Texas Army National Guard First Sergeant Kade Dalton never planned on becoming Harland County Sheriff or the attraction to a curvy, military-hating designer from Pennsylvania. Heavy with guilt from the death of a soldier under his command during a recent deployment, and dealing with his co-owned horse ranch and a bungling young deputy, it’s hard most days just to keep his sanity. But it’s the Yankee bombshell who threatens not only his sanity, but tempts his body…and his heart.
Does he really have the right to saddle Brandi with his stress issues? And if so, can he take a chance on the town’s newest resident not abandoning him like others in his past?
**♥**
Harland County Series
Book Four: Her Forever Cowboy
*BTS eMagazine Red Carpet Book Awards-Reader’s Choice Nominee*
*NOR Reviewer Top Pick – Night Owl Reviews*
**Voted July’s Read of the Month/Readers’ Choice-SSLY**
Shayla Ryan, longs to put down roots to create a stable environment for her baby girl and her younger sister, but the threat of her abusive, ex-con father finding them has made that almost impossible. Harland County, however, holds a lot of appeal, especially in the form of a Casanova cowboy with eye-catching good looks and easy charm. Those two qualities took her down the wrong road before, and though the sexy cowboy interferes with her pulse, she can’t let her heart get in the way of the safety of her family, or give it to someone who doesn’t believe in forever.
If there’s one thing software vice president, Kevin Dalton, loves more than puzzles, it’s women. Size, shape, race doesn’t matter as long as they don’t want a relationship—he’s not looking to repeat the past. Until two beautiful redheads drop him to his knees—one with her cutie-pie smile, the other with her elbow. Too bad the elbow-toting beauty is both hot and puzzling. A killer combination too strong to resist. And without realizing it, the redheads slowly rewrite the code around his heart.
But when the danger from Shayla’s past shows up, can Kevin rise to the challenge to keep them safe and really be what they need? A forever cowboy?
**♥**
Harland County Series
Prequel-Novella: Harland County Christmas
Accounting major Jen Dalton has one more year to earn her Masters before she graduates and moves out of Harland County to find a corporate job and maybe a good-looking businessman to boot. Cowboys were handsome and fun, but they didn’t stick. Neither did ranch hands. Experience has taught her they come and go, and some took a piece of her heart with them. Well, no more handsome, sexy, cowboys. She wanted a stay around, stable, lifetime type of guy.
Then she returns to the family ranch after a ‘hurrah to summer’ weekend with friends to discover Brock, the hot, one-night stand she’d given herself permission to enjoy, is the new ranch hand. And dang it, she’s just as drawn to his sexy grin, gorgeous green eyes and quiet strength. As the summer ends, classes resume, and the holidays near, the handsome, alpha cowboy has her rethinking her future. So does the unborn baby she’s carrying. Maybe sticking around Harland County isn’t so bad—if she could get Brock to stay, and break out of the ‘leave Jen and move on to another ranch’ mold.
**♥**
Holly’s stay in Harland County, Texas is limited. She’s only there to help run her uncle’s ice cream business while he recuperates from an operation. Her home is in Colorado. Her life is in Denver. Her dream job is in Denver but won’t be if she doesn’t get back before her leave of absence runs out. Everybody knows this, but apparently her heart and body didn’t get the memo because they spark to life whenever her uncle’s smoking, hot doctor is around.
The cowboy isn’t looking for a relationship. She isn’t staying. Perfect set up for a fling. What harm could there be?
♥
Please visit the cowboys of Harland County
Her Healing Cowboy
Harland County Series: Book Five/Jace
Coming May 2015
**♥**
Citizen Soldier Novels
Harland County Spinoff Series
Visit my Citizen Soldier Series Page at my website. www.donnamichaelsauthor.com for release information and updates!
Book 1: Wyne and Dine
Coming Feb 2015:
Book 2: Wyne and Chocolate
**♥**
Citizen Soldier Series
Book One: Wyne and Dine
&nbs
p; *NOR Reviewer Top Pick – Night Owl Reviews*
Lea Gablonski has two dreams: To work at a museum in NYC, and to gain other-than-sisterly attention from her best friend’s brother. So far, she’s 0 for 0. Though her MA in History is just a wall decoration at her family’s diner where she’s working while her dad recovers from surgery, she enjoys her visual encounters with the sexiest man alive—even though he would sooner pat her on the head than take her to bed.
Military born and bred, Battalion Supply Sergeant Benjamin Wyne thrives on order and control in his fulltime career in the PA National Guard, and in his personal life. But when he’s forced to ask his childhood sweetheart’s younger sister to pose as his girlfriend to thwart unwanted advances from his boss’ wife, his world turns chaotic. Lea is sweet and hot and tastes so damn good he’s addicted. When the attraction takes on a new level at his sister’s wedding, his carefully guarded heart begins to thaw.
But he’s seen many relationships go south. If he takes a chance and gives up control, will Lea be like her sister and leave him for a career in the big city? Yet, if he doesn’t, will the best damn thing to ever enter his life become history?
♥
Please look for the upcoming release of
Wyne and Chocolate
Citizen Soldier Series: Book Two/Mason
Take one kindhearted chocolate confectioner, add one sexy, brooding National Guardsman, and you have a recipe that equals missteps, hot embraces, and a match made in chocolate heaven.
Coming February 19th, 2015
NOW Available for Pre-Order
**♥**
Cowboy-Sexy
Honky Tonk Hearts Series with
The Wild Rose Press
by Donna Michaels
**4 Star RT Magazine Review*
**NOR Reviewer Top Pick**
**Going Global! Currently being translated into other languages through UMade, starting with Japanese**
Finn Brennan was used to his brother playing practical jokes, but this time he’d gone too far—sending him a woman as a ranch hand, and not just a woman, but a Marine.