New Release Spotlight: Stone Cold Cowboy by Jennifer Ryan

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STONE COLD COWBOY

Montana Men #4

Jennifer Ryan

Releasing February 23rd, 2016

Avon Books

The last thing rancher Rory Kendrick expects to find when he’s searching for his missing cattle is a genuine damsel in distress. After rushing to help, he can’t help wanting to do anything he can for this lovely but damaged woman. But even his kind deed won’t get Sadie to tell him who’s responsible for hurting her.

Sadie is trying to hold onto her family, and her life. With an ill father who’s refusing treatment and a younger brother who has fallen in with a dangerous crowd, she’s beginning to feel like she can’t save anyone, least of all herself. When her brother owes money to the wrong people, Sadie tries to pay off his debts, but she doesn’t have the cash. The one person who might be able to help her out is the last person she wants to involve in her family drama, but Rory won’t take no for an answer.

Rory is all about family, but sometimes you’ve got to let go. If you can’t save them, save yourself. Sadie’s been dealt a bad hand she refuses to fold. Because he loves her, he’ll do anything to keep her safe and give her the happy life she deserves, even betray her trust to take down her brother.

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Sadie crested the rolling hill and spotted her target: her missing horses and a herd of cattle that didn’t belong to her reckless brother. She didn’t waste a hope he was saving them from some predator. Not with two of his miscreant cohorts right beside him pushing the mooing and bawling animals farther along the valley. Leave it to her brother to make trouble with no regard for the consequences. If he got caught rustling cattle, he’d expect her to get him out of it. She’d been saving his butt since he hit a rebellious stage at thirteen that turned into his way of life, escalating from pranks to petty theft and drug dealing. What happened to the sweet boy who loved to swing the highest at the play- ground? The one who cried at their mother’s funeral and brushed his hand over Sadie’s hair that same night while they cried themselves to sleep on their mother’s side of the bed? At twenty-one Connor had changed from a sensitive boy into nothing short of a hoodlum numbed by drugs, with no regard for anyone else. One day she feared he’d end up in jail for the rest of his life . . . or dead.

If whoever owned those cattle didn’t kill him, she might.

A soft pat on the neck and a nudge with her heels sent her horse Sugar down the hill in a trot. Sadie loved to ride, but chasing after her brother took the pleasure right out it. The cold wind, scented with pine, grass, and rain from the storm last night that had left the ground muddy, whipped her hair out behind her and burned her cheeks. Her lips dried and cracked in the bitter cold.

Her horse’s fast approach startled several cattle. They broke off from the herd and scattered. She rode straight up the middle and split the herd in two, hoping to discourage the animals from following the rider up front and the two flanking them. Her brother spot- ted her and reined his horse around to meet hers. She pulled up short and stopped beside him, glaring at his ruddy face, red from the cold. His intense gaze collided with hers. His pupils were the size of saucers. High. Irritated he’d been caught, he narrowed his eyes on her.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Her lips drew into a grim line. “Saving your ass from making another mistake.”

“Get out of here before you get hurt.” Connor scanned the area, avoiding looking at the two guys with him, who closed in on them. “You have to go now.”

Sadie sighed out her frustration. The cows had stopped walking down the valley and milled around them, chomping at the new grass just beginning to grow after the last of the snow melted. The cold temps remained even as spring pushed in to take winter’s place. She stared at the poor, tired animals. Her brother and his buddies had pushed them hard and brought them a long way. One steer turned, and she caught a glimpse of the brand on his hide.

She sucked in a surprised breath. “These are Ken- drick cattle. Are you crazy? Those guys will hunt you down and beat the living shit out of you. If Rory comes after you, you’ll wish you were never born.”

She’d gone to school with Colt Kendrick, but didn’t really know him. The last time she saw him, he’d been sitting around a table with his two older brothers at the bar. She’d gone to drag her brother home after the bar- tender called to let her know Connor was playing pool and looking for a fight. He’d nearly gotten one when he stumbled into Colt and dumped beer down his front. Sadie stepped in just in time, blocking her brother from the punch Colt threw and almost landed straight in her face, until Rory grasped his brother’s wrist and stopped his swing inches from her nose. When her brother tried to go after Colt, she’d tried to hold him off, but he got around her. Rory grabbed Connor by the shirt and held him off the ground in front of him like he didn’t weigh more than a puppy. He’d looked her brother in the eyes and shook him hard to get his attention. He didn’t speak. Didn’t have to. The ominous look in his eyes made her brother quake in his boots. Rory set her brother down with a thud, and Connor ran for the door. Sadie chased after him, but not before she turned back and caught the feral look in Rory’s eyes. The same kind of look she’d seen weeks earlier when she plowed into Rory’s big, solid body in the feed store. The man was hard and unyielding, physically and mentally. You did not go up against a Kendrick, and especially him. Her stupid brother got off free and clear that time.

Connor scratched at a scab on his chin. “If you keep your fucking mouth shut and get lost, they’ll never know.”

“You don’t think they’re going to know an entire herd of cattle is missing? You’ve lost your mind, little brother.”

He puffed out his thin chest, his bony shoulders going back. “I’m not little. I can take care of myself,” he whined like the child he acted like most of the time. “You have yet to prove that in any capacity. If it weren’t for me, you’d have been locked up in juvy at fourteen. All these years later, you’re not proving to be any smarter than that punk kid who cried and begged me to save him. You promised me on our mother’s grave you’d do better, you’d quit drinking and doing drugs. But you didn’t keep that promise to me, or her.” “I warned you.” The words belied the sad, resigned look that came into his eyes.

A split second later, she had the blink of an eye to understand what he meant. A fist slammed into her face, sending her off her horse and into the mud, grass, and darkness.

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Jennifer Ryan is the New York Times & USA Today bestselling author of The Hunted Series and The McBrides Series. She writes romantic suspense and contemporary small-town romances featuring strong men and equally resilient women. Her stories are filled with love, family, friendship, and the happily-ever-after we all hope to find.

Jennifer lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and three children. When she isn’t writing a book, she’s reading one. Her obsession with both is often revealed in the state of her home and in how late dinner is to the table. When she finally leaves those fictional worlds, you’ll find her in the garden, playing in the dirt and daydreaming about people who live only in her head, until she puts them on paper.

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Don't Miss Any of the Montana Men Romances

Excerpt Reveal: Over The Line by Lisa Desrochers

The USA Today bestselling author of Outside the Lines once again explores love on the edge in an explosive new romance about obsession, betrayal, and a killer attraction.

Lee Delgado never planned on falling in love with the irresistible Oliver Savoca, son of a Chicago crime lord. Considering that their families are rivals, she knew it could never work. And now that both their fathers have been nabbed on racketeering charges, any real chance at a future with the man she loves has been shot to hell. But a greater blow is yet to come.

Not only does Lee learn that a contract is out on her life, she has reason to believe that Oliver is behind the devastating betrayal. Now she’s working closely—very closely—with Federal Agent Sean Callahan to help bring her man down. But however she’s come to feel about Callahan, Lee is still deeply, hopelessly, unabashedly in love with Oliver.

Where that fearless love takes Lee next is beyond her control—but the risk is worth every beat of her heart.

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I want Lee to know, no matter where she goes, I will find her.

At the thought of her betrayal, rage rises up and wraps like an iron cloak around my heart, threatening to crush any bit of humanity left there. I close my eyes and hold my breath until it passes.

And I see her as she was before everything that came after—that first day of business law class at Kellogg, nearly two years ago.

She was starting her first year. I was in my second. I was already seated near Angela Bagglio, who I had a passing interest in due to her loose family ties to the Delgado organization. Her brother was a wiseguy wannabe, little more than a glorified gofer within the Delgado machine. But I’d discovered, sometimes it was the smallest details that led to the largest victories.

When Lee Delgado sashayed into the classroom, I’d like to say I was unaffected. I’d like to believe I was in complete control of everything that happened then and after.

But I’d be kidding myself.

Her bright hazel eyes surveyed the room, and when they caught for a second as they passed over me, I felt a shift in gravity itself. There were times reading nuances in expressions and actions was all that came between me and a slug in my head. That hitch in her perusal of the room left no doubt she was aware who I was.

From that second on, I was helpless to take my eyes off her.

Her sandy brown waves cascaded over the shoulders of her cream-colored silk blouse to an open collar that hung loose, revealing a hint of cleavage. Her burgundy pencil skirt hugged the round curves of her hips and ass and ended above the knee, giving me a glimpse of a pair of toned thighs and calves. She had a killer body and knew it. I had to respect a woman who knew her strengths and wasn’t afraid to use them to her advantage.

She took a seat in my row, but on the opposite side of the classroom. I was barely coherent when the professor started lecturing. I couldn’t tell you the first thing he said.

As she listened, she lifted a hand and combed through her waves with her fingers, separating out a strand and twirling it around her finger. A rush shuddered from my tailbone up my spine to my brain, and even though I had no clue why, that was the moment I knew I wasn’t going to be able to stay away.

The rest, as they say, is history.

If she thinks she can hide from me, she’s got another thing coming.

Mob controlled gambling has always been a huge racket, with better payouts because we don’t pay taxes like the legal betting sites. Back in the day, bookies were involved and actual cash changed hands. Now nearly everything is electronic. Bets are collected directly from our clients’ online accounts and payouts are distributed back into them. Payout is calculated after each event based on outcome versus the spread. It’s one of the parts of my job that I truly enjoy. I’m always in the program, tweaking and modifying. But, suddenly, the week before Christmas, two days after Lee and I returned from our weekend in Aspen, I noticed the spread didn’t factor anymore and our payouts went through the roof. I thought maybe I’d screwed something up and tried to get into the program to check it. Ended up throwing my laptop against the wall when my pass code wouldn’t get me in.

It took me the next two days, and the fact that Lee wasn’t answering my texts or calls, to put together what had happened. Though I’m not sure exactly how she managed it, I know it had to have been her who hacked into my program and changed the payout ratios. I’ve looked at it from every angle and there are no other feasible possibilities. And it makes sense. I had an ulterior motive when we started hooking up, and I had no doubt she had one of her own. But as we got deeper into each other, things shifted and I lost focus. I let down my guard and gave her too much, and she took advantage of the opening.

I knew I wouldn’t be seeing her over the holidays because her siblings were all coming back to the family home in Wilmette, just outside of Chicago, for Christmas. It took me another day to decide I had no choice but to go there.

But when I got to the house, the place was swarming with cops and Feds, and yellow police tape was strung across the pillars at the front door. The reports the next day said it was believed the Delgados had fled to Europe after a “gangland style attack” on their home.

The online gambling leg of our business has been bleeding cash at the rate of nearly a hundred grand a month since Lee fucked with the program. Every month it gets worse as word spreads of our big payouts. The guy who designed and encrypted the program is dead; a casualty of my father’s wrath when he made the mistake of telling Victor he’d corrected a system glitch that had cost us a couple hundred grand over the first year of implementation. I’ve done everything I can to break Lee’s pass code, but considering the illegal nature of the account, and the fact that I couldn’t enlist anyone who might report back to Victor what happened, my resources to resolve the issue have been severely limited.

So I put my time and energy into another avenue. Finding Lee.

Like everyone else in Chicago, I assumed that my father was responsible for the contract on Lee and her family. I talked to his guys. Tried to see if any of them had a bead on the Delgados’ location. I couldn’t find anyone who was even looking.

So, as much as I dreaded it, I went straight to the source.

I was dead to my father. He’d made that clear. But that day, for the first time since I’d crossed him, Victor looked at me with pride in his eyes when he asked, “You purchase that special delivery for our friends up in Wilmette?”

And that’s when I knew it wasn’t us. It’s also when I knew I was a dead man unless I could find a way out of this mess on my own.

So I looked harder for Lee, dug a little deeper into the Delgado family tree. I didn’t find her, but I managed to stumble on some other useful information during my search. And then, finally, the stroke of luck that led me here: Rob showing up in Chicago.

I’ve been able to keep everything under the rug since she left, but underground betting has always been the Savoca business’s bread and butter. If Victor or anyone else in the organization discovers the hemorrhage of cash that our gambling ring has become, it’s my head my loving pop will want on a spike.

I told the guys I had some personal business in Vegas; gave Al a direct order to park his ass at my apartment and not to move until I got back. I took a flight to Vegas, and from there, traveled to Florida on an ID I pinched off of a guy we rolled in Little Italy for not making book. He’s dead now, courtesy of Al, so he won’t be divulging my alter ego to anyone.

My family doesn’t know this particular alias. They’d have a hard time tracking me. Once I find Lee, things should move pretty fast. But I have to find her first.

So here I am.

Lisa Desrochers is the author of the USA Today bestselling A Little Too Far series and the YA Personal Demons trilogy. She lives in northern California with her husband, two very busy daughters, and Shini the tarantula. There is never a time that she can be found without a book in her hand, and she adores stories that take her to new places and then take her by surprise. Connect with her online at www.lisadwrites.com, on her blog at lisadesrochers.blogspot.com, on Twitter at @LisaDez, and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/LisaDesrochersAuthor.