Part of Series
When there’s trouble, he has your back. For Tim Halloran, Army Ranger turned Colorado cowboy, a simple life on a cattle ranch with no strings is his idea of perfection. Maybe he’ll have a ranch of his own someday. Meanwhile, ranching lets him forget his haunting wartime experiences as an army sniper, and being the ranch clown is his coping mechanism. Bad jokes and a love ’em and leave ’em lifestyle make his world turn. But meeting Rebecca Morgan soon has his world spinning in another direction. To Tim, she’s a mystery. She must have been absent the day she was scheduled to receive her sense of humor, and when she ignores his overtures, Tim is determined to break through her serious exterior. Little does he know, the secrets she’s hiding will turn his life upside down. What will he give up to keep her safe—even if it turns out to be Rebecca? Rebecca Morgan abandoned her failed marriage and needs to land a high-paying job to help cover her five-year-old nephew’s skyrocketing medical expenses. Her farming background left her without marketable job skills, but she’s confident once she completes a culinary school course, she’ll find a job as a private chef for the rich and famous circles in the big city—as in New York City. She’s accepted into a cooking program, one she’s sure will solve her problems. Dismayed when the vocational cooking school is connected to a cattle ranch of all things, but needing her certificate, she’s willing to overlook the location. Then she meets Tim Halloran, one of the cowboys. A man is the last thing she’s looking for, and an impoverished cowboy is well below the last item on her list. But when her ex comes back into her life, threatening her family, Rebecca will stop at nothing to thwart his plans, even if it means a reluctant partnership with a cowboy—a wisecracking man who seems to be working his way into her heart. Things escalate, and she’s faced with a choice. Will she accept her ex’s demands for her nephew’s sake? Or will she find happiness with a jokester cowhand?
Author
Terry Odell was born in Los Angeles and after living several decades in Florida now makes her home in Colorado. An avid reader (her parents tell everyone they had to move from their first home because she finished the local library), she always wanted to "fix" stories so the characters did what she wanted, in books, television, and the movies. Once she began writing, she found this wasn't always possible, as evidenced when the mystery she intended to write rapidly became a romance. However, her entry into the world of writing can be attributed to a "mistake" when her son mentioned the Highlander television series on a visit home. Being the "good mother" she began watching the show and soon connected with the world of fanfiction, first as a reader, then as a critique giver, and then, one brave weekend, she wrote her first short story. Things snowballed (if one can use that analogy in central Florida!) and soon she was writing her first original novel. Much later, she mentioned something about a recent Highlander episode to her son, and he said, "Oh, I've never actually watched the show, I just thought the concept was cool." Little did he know what he'd started. "
