A fake engagement at the Texas Cattlemanâs Club? It must be a fairy tale from USA TODAY bestselling author Maureen Child!
Dave Firestone has no intention of getting married, but heâll pretend anything if it means sealing a tough business deal for his ranch. Needing a spur-of-the-moment fake fiancée, he turns to housekeeper Mia Hughes. With her bossâand Daveâs business rivalâmissing and her paycheck on hold, she accepts Daveâs fantasy proposal. But when their pretend romance takes an unexpected turn into passionate nights, Dave isnât ready to let Mia go. Can the smooth-talking businessman negotiate a more permanent arrangement?
âHow long would we have to pretend?â
âShouldnât take more than a month.â
âA month as your fiancée.â
âYeah.â
âNo touching of any kind. No kissingââ
âHold on.â David stopped her in midstream. âWe have to convince this guy weâre a real couple. So there will be touching. And kissing. And there will be you looking at me with adoration.â
She laughed.
He frowned.
âFine, fine,â she said, waving a hand at him. âIâll be a good fiancée and the occasional touch or kissâin publicâis okay.â
âThen we have a deal.â He held out one hand to her and waited for her to take it.
Nodding, Mia slid her hand into his and couldnât help feeling that just maybe she was swimming in waters way too deep for her.
* * *
The Lone Star Cinderella is part of the Texas Cattlemanâs Club: The Missing Mogul series:
Love and scandal meet in Royal, Texas!
Dear Reader,
A continuity series is always an adventure! And doing not one, but two books in the same series is double the fun! I really enjoyed being able to explore two very different couples within the same continuity.
This book is all about Dave and Mia. Suspicion, need and a secret deal bring them togetherâbut itâs the unexpected passion they find that turns everything upside down.
Life in Royal, Texas, is never boring. Youâll see old friends dropping in and meet new characters whose stories are just about to be told.
And through it all is the romance that sparks between Mia and Daveâtwo people who have no reason to trust each other, and every reason to surrender to the inevitable.
I really hope you enjoy this book as much as I did when I wrote it. Please stop by my website to check out the latest news and come and visit with me on Facebook! Until next timeâ¦
Happy Reading!
Maureen
maureenchild.com
MAUREEN CHILD writes for Mills & Boon>® Desire>⢠and canât imagine a better job. Being able to indulge your love for romance as well as being able to spin stories just the way you want them told is, in a word, perfect.
A seven-time finalist for the prestigious Romance Writers of America RITA>® Award, Maureen is the author of more than one hundred romance novels. Her books regularly appear on the bestseller lists and have won several awards, including the Prism, the National Readersâ Choice Award, the Colorado Romance Writers Award of Excellence and the Golden Quill.
Maureen believes that laughter goes hand in hand with love, so her stories are always filled with humor. The many letters she receives assures her that her readers love to laugh as much as she does.
Maureen is a native Californian, but has recently moved to the mountains of Utah. She loves a new adventure, though the thought of having to deal with snow for the first time is a little intimidating.
To Kate Carlisle and Jennifer Apodacaâgreat friends
and wonderful writers who helped keep me sane during the writing of this book!
One
Dave Firestone was a man on a mission.
The future of his ranch was at stake and damned if he was going to let scandal or whispered rumors ruin what heâd spent years building. It had been months now since Alex Santiago had disappeared and Dave still felt a cloud of suspicion hanging around his head. Time to find out one way or the other what the law in town thought of the situation.
He climbed out of his 4x4, tugged the collar of his brown leather jacket up around his neck and squinted into the East Texas wind. October was rolling in cold, signaling what would be an even colder winter. Nothing he could do about that, but Dave had driven to the border of his ranch to get at least one part of his life straightened out.
A tall man wearing a worn, black leather coat and a tan, wide-brimmed hat was patching the barbed-wire fence that separated Daveâs ranch, the Royal Round Up, from the neighboring ranch, the Battlelands. Behind the man in black, another man, Bill Hardesty, a Battle ranch hand, unloaded wire from a battered truck. Dave nodded a greeting to Bill, then focused his attention on Nathan Battle.
Nathan looked up as Dave approached. âHey, Dave, howâs it going?â
âGoing fine,â he said, because Dave Firestone never admitted to having a problem he couldnât solve. âI went by the main ranch house and Jake told me where I could find you. Didnât think Iâd find the town sheriff out fixing fence line.â