Publication Date: December 28, 2021
Publisher: HQN Books
When a bull-riding champion is left holding his friendโs baby, could it be time to put down roots in Gold Valley?
Midwife Mallory Chance is ready for a fresh start in Gold Valley. And when she locks eyes with a handsome cowboy across the saloon, it feels like fate. After too many years wasted on her cheating ex, good girl Mallory is read to cut loose and prioritize herself. But when the dust settles on their hot night, it turns out that her mysterious one-night cowboy is none other than her new landlord โ and someone sheโll be seeing very regularly around Gold Valleyโฆ
Bull rider Colt Daniels has a wild reputation, but after losing his friend on the rodeo circuit, he's left it all behind. If only he could walk away from his guilt as easilyโฆor the temptation of Mallory! He canโt offer her the future she deserves โ what does a cowboy with a heart as damaged as his know about forever? Then his friend's tiny daughter ends up in Colt's care, and he's in over his head. Colt has never wanted to rely on anyone, but he needs Mallory's help taking care of the baby he's beginning to love as his own. But is it all still temporary, or is it their chance at a forever family?
Excerpt
CHAPTER ONE
It was him. The man. The fantasy man. The one who had haunted her dreams for the past six months.
And he was just like Mallory Chance remembered him.
Tall, broad shoulders, broad chest. Tight black T-shirt and black cowboy hat. His midsection looked hard and solid, and so did his thighs.
He was the sort of man who would have terrified her when she was a teenager. Far too much masculinity to cope withโand why bother?โwhen there were soft, gentle boy band members to fantasize about from the safe distance of a bedroom wall poster.
The sort of man sheโd never had the chance to lust after because sheโd made her choices about men at fifteenโagain, when sheโd been more into boy bands than bad boys and had proclaimed chest hair โgrossโโand had therefore been stuck with her teenage sensibilities even as sheโd transitioned into adulthood.
He looked like danger. The kind you ran from when you were a girl and wanted to run to when you were a woman.
The hardest-looking man in the room.
The one who would win the bar fight.
The one whose muscles looked like they could carry the weight of the whole world. Or possibly just handily beat up her trifling ex.
But it wasnโt enough that the man had the most incredible body sheโd ever seen.
He had dark blond hair, dark stubble covering a square jaw. His mouth was perfectly formed, and while sheโd never given much thought to what constituted a perfectly formed mouth, it turned out she knew it when she saw it.
But his eyesโฆ
That night in the Gold Valley Saloon, six months ago, while sheโd been seated next to her boyfriend, theyโd locked eyes.
And sheโd felt it all the way down to her core.
Like a bolt of lightning.
An electric current that had run beneath her skin and down to her bones and had left her feeling changed.
It had been a moment. A brief moment. But she hadnโt been sure how she would breathe through it, let alone carry on like it hadnโt happened.
Sheโd never experienced anything like it before.
Like she was staring down fate in cowboy boots.
But that had to be ridiculous because she didnโt believe in things like that, and if she did, sheโd have to claim Jared as her fate, not some random guy in a bar.
Jared, the man sheโd been with since she was fifteen years old.
What was that if not fate?
At least, that was what she told herself. For a long time. Too long.
Fate.
The word whispered over her skin, the concept like firecrackers going off in her stomach.
It was why she had come here tonight, and she would be lying if she said that wasnโt true.
All the whole way from San Francisco she had played the music as loud as she could, had rolled the windows down and shouted Taylor Swift lyrics into the wind. Because her world had been broken open, and because Jared had hated that music.
And it didnโt matter what he liked or didnโt like.
Not anymore.
So sheโd done it, because she could. And she had ignored the ten times her cell phone had rung with his number flashing across the screen.
She wasnโt taking him back. Not this time. Not ever again.
In the past heโd left her, and she was the one who felt lost. And every time, sheโd just get used to him being gone, heโd call and sheโd pick up. Sheโd tell him to come home. Because she needed him.
She hadnโt known how not to need him. And sheโd done her best to make sure he needed her. Because it was in that space where she felt right. Like she was doing the right thing, and like she mattered.
That sweet spot of contentedness and a little bit of penance.
Not this time. This time sheโd done the leaving.
With very little forethought, and nothing more than a couple of haphazard emails, she had decided to uproot her entire life and go to the town of Gold Valley.
Mallory had been enchanted by Gold Valley from the first time she had come to visit her brother, Griffin.
She and her parents had come six months ago, along with Jared. It had been wonderful. And he had been horrible. And all of the doubts that bubbled up on occasion had come roaring to the surface during that week.
Heโd been bored at dinner; heโd been completely uninterested in all of the quaint brick buildings in town. Heโd overslept and missed family breakfasts.
In general, every single one of his bad qualities, every single thing that Griffin hated about him had been on full display.
Your brother already hates me. Iโm not going to perform.
Heโd said that while lounging in the passenger seat of her car, his sunglasses on, holding his phone up, paying it more attention than he did her, as usual. In the years since theyโd started dating, his blond hair had transitioned from floppy boy band to man bun, which was the only way heโd transitioned from boy to man, really. He was still handsome in that smooth way, slim andโฆ Well sheโd always found himโฆ Cute.
But he was much less cute when bored and slumped in her car, texting on a phone sheโd paid for while he acted aggrieved by the vacation sheโd also paid for.
Heโd said that her brother hated him. And it was true. Griffin did hate him. But it was based on things like that, not on nothing.
Griffin had never been shy about his feelings for Jared, and it had always hurt Mallory.
Sheโd idolized Griffin all her life. Her older brother was her hero and always had been. A shining beacon of everything good and successful. Her parents had always been so proud of him. And so had she.
Eight years older than her, sheโd been ten when Griffin had moved out, and it had devastated her. Even though it was the natural order of things. It had changed her world, and she felt unspeakably lonely with him gone.
Heโd gone off and gotten his own life. Fallen in love, gotten married.
And then he lost his wife and little girl, and Mallory had lost her beloved sister-in-law and cherished niece.
Even though Griffin had survived, in many ways sheโd felt like sheโd lost him too.
It was only since heโd met Iris that Mallory felt like she really had them back.
Which, other than the natural pull she felt to the town, had been the reason that sheโd come to Gold Valley.
She wanted to be near her brother.
And she needed, desperately, to be very far away from Jared.
Her rental wouldnโt be ready for a couple of days, but she justโฆ She hadnโt been able to stay. Not anymore.
And there were a whole lot of conversations that she was due to have. Mostly because Griffin didnโt even know that she was moving to Gold Valley.
Her parents didnโt even know what she was doing.
Par for the course, isnโt it?
Maybe. But there were justโฆ There were some things she just wanted to keep to herself. So she didnโt have to feel the sting of their disappointment. Her own failures mixed together with disapproval from the two people who mattered so much to her.
Sheโd always tried to cover for Jared too. Every time heโd left and hurt her, sheโd tried to minimize it. Every time heโd spent three weeks or a month apart sleeping at another womanโs house, only to come home, sheโd tried to hide that.
And sheโd tried to forget it.
Her relationship with Jared was fifteen years long. Theyโd grown up together. Well, heโd grown up less, sheโd grown up more. But theyโd shaped their lives around each other and sheโd felt likeโฆ
Like he was the only person who knew everything about her. Things sheโd never shared with her parents, never with her brotherโฆ Heโd been there for.
And in the darkest time, he had been there. And sheโd clung to that through every bump in their road.
But this time, heโd cheated. They hadnโt been separated before heโd found his way into another womanโs bed. Sheโd thought everything was fine. Great. Better than it had been for a long while, in fact.
And that was what hurt the most.
She gritted her teeth. Feeling angry. And she looked back over at her mystery cowboy.
Yeah, the thing was, he had probably cheated on her before. He had probably been cheating for their entire relationship, and she had just believed him every time he ever said that the only times heโd touched another person had been when they were on a break.
That had hurt. It always had. Because she had neverโฆ
He was her one and only.
And of all the silly things that had enraged her, the one that had fueled her down I-5 the whole way here, wasโฆ That.
Was the fact that she had seen a man that had made her feel things just with one look that no one, not even Jared, had ever made her feel before.
Sheโd felt that deep connection back then. Sitting there with a man who was tipsy off his sixth beer, which sheโd paid for, while she looked at another man who incited some kind of fire in her stomachโit felt unfair. And in that period of time when sheโd been in that house she used to share with Jared in a town that she wanted to leave desperately, she just decided she needed toโฆ Go.
And she could stay in a motel until the rental date.
But she needed to be gone. And she had told herself that it wasnโt the vision of that manโs eyes that had propelled her. She had told herself that it wasnโt why, after she checked into the little Wine Country Motel on the edge of Gold Valley, sheโd taken a shower and freshened up, put on some makeup for the first time in three weeks and a light, summer dress.
No, she had told herself that none of those things had anything to do with her mystery man.
And then, when she was bored and hungry and had bypassed any number of actual restaurants on the main street of town, walking to the Gold Valley Saloon, she had decided that there was no way she had any hope of seeing that man. Because what were the chances?
But then, in the back of her mind it was there. How people did like their regular bars. How it was possible.
But so not likely that, six months from the first time she had seen him, he would be there. Just happened to be there.
When she was free and unattached, angry and needing desperately to reclaim somethingโฆ Or rather, claim it for the first time.
But there he was. There he was. And she was frozen to the spot in that Western bar, her feet grounded to the rustic wood floor. People were talking and laughing and dancing all around her. Country music was playing over the jukebox, and there was tension filling the air. Couples were everywhere. New and old, she imagined. Some who had forever. Some who were looking for a night.
But he was alone. Standing there at the back of the bar with the neon light from a beer sign shining over him like an unholy sign from the heavens. She knew it was him. Because she could never have confused him with anyone else. Sure, there were other handsome men in the room. But none of them made her feel like fire.
None of them made her feel like everything sheโd ever known before was a pale, cardboard construct, and he might be the only thing that was real.
The only thing that could make her real.
She swallowed hard, walking over to the bar. The bartender was a handsome man, broad chested with a quick smile, tattoos up his brown forearms, a bright gold wedding band and a twinkle in his eye. โCan I help you?โ
โYeah. Iโฆ Whiskey. Please.โ
โAll right. Any particular kind?โ
She didnโt know anything about whiskey. โDo you have a special kind that makes you brave?โ
He grinned. โEven cheap stuff will do that. Just comes with a headache.โ
โItโs my experience that just about everything in life comes with the headache,โ she said, trying to smile. And then she felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up. Goose bumps broke out over her arms.
And the fire inside her flared.
That happened a split second before she heard a low, husky voice just behind her.
โItโs you, isnโt it?โ
She turned, and there he was.
Excerpted from The True Cowboy of Sunset Ridge by Maisey Yates. Copyright ยฉ 2021 by Maisey Yates. Published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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