Author Spotlight

C'est Moi!

Yup, it’s me here on Substack on a Thursday, of all days. It’s because I’m in the Spotlight this week with my brand-new release. Help Wanted, Cowboy--book 3 in the Juniper Falls Ranch series.

I gotta tell you, I love this story because Millie is a spunky gutsy heroine and Rory is such a sweetie pie of a hero. And the story of the family “treasure” made research fun and exciting. I really like learning new things while I’m researching and writing a story.

Here’s the blurb:

A Montana bull rider temporarily working as a ranch hand. An OB nurse who wants “a favor.” Two opposites thrown together. A treasure hunt adds to autumn magic.

When a family emergency brings cowboy Rory Pearson home to Marietta, he hires on to Juniper Falls Ranch for seasonal work. He’s hoping to explore an intriguing family legend. Armed with research and his grandfather’s stories, Rory thinks he’s ready, but nothing goes as planned. Then a sweetly sexy nurse propositions him.

Nurse Millie Sparks is tired of playing it safe. She’s been too focused on her education and career and romance and adventure have passed her by. Staying on the ranch to care for a patient with a tricky pregnancy, Millie’s interest in Rory is immediate. He offers to teach her to ride, and she wonders if the lessons could extend to something else she’s been hiding.

It’s a game of flirtation and fun. Feelings can’t be serious. But as the clock ticks down, hearts interfere, and saying goodbye just got way more complicated.

And here’s a little excerpt--a first kiss because that’s always fun, right?

His guileless grin made her decision right then and there. Why wait? But she had to know one more thing. She pushed her chair back and stood. “Yeah, I’d like to, but first …” She framed his face with her hands. “I’m going to kiss you, okay?”

~*~*~*~

Okay? Was she serious? The thought of kissing Millie Sparks had kept him awake for the last two nights. He’d been working up the courage to ask her to go into town with him one night for dancing at Grey’s Saloon. The first woman he’d been truly interested in since he’d been back in Marietta. And here she was, asking to kiss him? Rory’s heart sped up, and he ached to wrap her in his arms and kiss her stupid, but instead, he merely nodded. “Sure.” Who knew where this was headed, but he was all in.

She rose up on tiptoe and slowly, so slowly, brought her face up to his, then pressed her lips tentatively to his in the kind of kiss he’d expect from a teenager who’d never kissed anyone before. It was anticlimactic, disappointing, and not at all what Rory was hoping for.

When she dropped back down and let her hands fall away from his cheeks, he drew back a little. Her sigh and her expression said she’d found the caress equally unsatisfactory, so he put one finger under her chin. “Wanna try that again?”

Her eyes widened and her teeth worried her lower lip—a gesture that Rory found incredibly sexy. “Um, that wasn’t a very good kiss, was it?”

“I think we can do better.” He cupped the back of her head with one hand and slid the other one around her waist, pulling her closer.

She started to speak, but he shook his head. “Shh. Don’t overanalyze.” With all the attraction he’d felt for Millie Sparks since the day he’d met her thrumming through him, he kissed her, softly at first, then building in urgency until he was lost in her lips, in the sweet delicious taste of her mouth, in the little moan he drew from her. He had no idea how long they might have remained lip-locked before the sound of Bo and Del laughing on the screened porch yanked them apart.

You can go here to order Help Wanted, Cowboy and I sure hope you do because you will have a ball with Rory and Millie and all the folks you already know at Juniper Falls Ranch.

Stay cool, mes amis!