Hot Holiday Rancher
“I don’t want a girlfriend. I want a wife. ” When Houston heiress Esme Perry is stranded at Jesse Stevens’ ranch days before Christmas, he’s torn. This sexy city girl is totally wrong for him. So why does he find her utterly, impractically irresistible?
Читать Hot Holiday Rancher онлайн беплатно
Being stranded for Christmas
never had so much sizzle!
Texas Cattleman’s Club member Jesse Stevens just hired a matchmaker to lure an appropriate wife to his remote ranch. But when a flash flood dumps Houston heiress Esme Perry on his doorstep instead, days before Christmas, is it a sign? Esme is smart, sexy…and a big-city girl to the core. Totally wrong for him. So why can’t they keep their hands off each other?
USA TODAY bestselling author CATHERINE MANN has won numerous awards for her novels, including both a prestigious RITA® Award and an RT Book Reviews Reviewers’ Choice Award. After years of moving around the country bringing up four children, Catherine has settled in her home state of South Carolina, where she’s active in animal rescue. For more information, visit her website, catherinemann.com.
Alaskan Oil Barons miniseries
The Baby Claim
The Double Deal
The Love Child
The Twin Birthright
The Second Chance
The Rancher’s Seduction
The Billionaire Renegade
The Secret Twin
Texas Cattleman’s Club: Houston miniseries
Hot Holiday Rancher
Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.
ISBN: 978-1-474-09278-4
HOT HOLIDAY RANCHER
© 2019 Harlequin Books S.A.
Published in Great Britain 2019
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.
® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.
This ebook contains the following accessibility features which, if supported by your device, can be accessed via your ereader/accessibility settings:
Change of font size and line height
Change of background and font colours
Change of font
Change justification
Text to speech
To my children, the best gift all year round!
Contents
Note to Readers
Esme Perry had basked in the sun on a private beach in the South of France. She’d surfed with the best of them in California, Hawaii and Australia. But not even the threat of heatstroke or sharks had concerned her as much as the rush of water rolling down the country Texas back road toward her low-slung Porsche.
Rain sheeting against her windshield, Esme shifted into Reverse, willing her pulse to slow. Be calm. Take deep breaths. A quick three-point turn should have her ready to race out of harm’s way. It would be a tight maneuver since the road was narrow, bracketed by a ditch on one side and sycamore trees on the other. It was tough enough to make such a maneuver during the daytime, but after dark? In the middle of a storm?
Not that she had a choice but to move. Flash floods were dangerous, especially in the country.
But her V-8 engine could outrace just about anything. Perhaps the Porsche wasn’t the best choice for dirt roads, but she’d been excited about her early Christmas gift to herself.
Two points into Esme’s three-point turn, the wave of rainwater slammed into the side of her vehicle. Her stomach clenched. She struggled to control the steering wheel as her car slid along the mud-slicked road. The Porsche’s back end fishtailed. Her foot slipped off the clutch, her spiky heel wedging under the brake. The heel snapped. But she didn’t have time to mourn the demise of her favorite leopard-print pumps. The Porsche lurched, then spun out, whipping the wheel from her clenched grip.
