Canât get enough cowboys?
Popular Mills & Boon>® Blaze>® author Debbie Rawlins takes readers on a great ride with her new miniseries
MADE IN MONTANA
The little town of Blackfoot Falls hasnât seen
this much action since ⦠well, ever.
Stay up till dawn with
Barefoot Blue Jean Night
(October 2012)
Own the Night
(December 2012)
On a Snowy Christmas Night
(January 2013)
And remember, the sexiest cowboys
are Made in Montana!
Dear Reader,
Welcome to Blackfoot Falls, Montana, home of the Sundance ranch and the rough-and-tumble McAllister clan. This is the first book in my MADE IN MONTANA series, which brings me back to the romantic world of the cowboy and the beauty of the American West.
Iâve always loved movies and books set in the West. Once in a while, Hollywood makes a Western and Iâm first in line for a ticket. And I love making up my own stories, especially since I get to customize the heroes.
In Barefoot Blue Jean Night, youâll meet Cole McAllister, the eldest of three brothersâand definitely the strong silent type. To tell you the truth, I had trouble sharing him. I wanted to keep him for myself. But hopefully heroine Jamie Daniels and you all will appreciate him as much as I do.
Happy reading!
Debbi Rawlins
DEBBI RAWLINS lives in central Utah, out in the country, surrounded by woods and deer and wild turkeys. Itâs quite a change for a city girl who didnât even know where the state of Utah was until a few years ago. Of course, unfamiliarity has never stopped her. Between her junior and senior years of college, she spontaneously left her home in Hawaii and bummed around Europe for five weeks by herself. And much to her parentsâ delight, returned home with only a quarter in her wallet.
âEASE UP, BOY.â Pulling on the reins of his horse, Cole McAllister squinted across a thousand acres of McAllister land at the late June sun sinking toward the soaring Rockies. He never wore a watch, didnât need to. The sunâs position in the blue Montana sky told him he had just enough time to ride home and grab a shower before his sister arrived. The party would have already started, but he didnât care about missing any of the festivities. A quiet family dinner would have been his choice to celebrate Rachelâs return after finishing graduate school.
He was excited to have his only sister back, equally pleased not to have to come up with more tuition money. The family ranch was officially operating on fumes. No one knew how desperately they needed cash but him. Both his brothers had some idea of the trouble they faced, Jesse more than Trace. After Jesseâs two tours in Afghanistan, Cole got the feeling he didnât miss much.
Trace was still young, only twenty-six and most concerned with how soon he could trade in his pickup for a newer model. It wasnât that Cole had tried to hide anythingâthough the boys had agreed not to burden their mother or Rachelâbut each month the economy just kept sliding further downhill, sinking them deeper into the hole.
Beef consumption was down, fuel and grain prices up. Any number of reasons accounted for their predicament, and they werenât alone. Most of the other ranches around Blackfoot Falls were in debt and disrepair, yet Cole still felt responsible. For six generations the Sundance had been passed from eldest son to eldest son and despite droughts and land disputes, recessions and wars, the McAllisters had survived on wits and grit. Cole would be damned if heâd be the first to go begging.
Bad enough that when some of the smaller ranches had started to buckle, men Cole had known his whole life had lost their jobs and come to him. Oh, heâd had work for them, but no means to pay them. That he had to turn them away about broke him in two. But it was all he could do to keep from laying off his own handsâsome of them had hired on with his dad and were building fences and rounding up cattle before he was born.
Theyâd been there eleven years ago to console the family the day Coleâs father had lost his final battle with cancer. They were the same men whoâd loved and respected the formidable but fair Gavin McAllister as if he were their own kin, and they suffered his loss in the same way.
That hadnât stopped a single one of them from stepping in to give Cole a leg up in managing the three-thousand-acre cattle ranch. Heâd turned twenty-one the week before, too young to fill his fatherâs impressive boots. But it wasnât as if heâd had a choice. Even if he had, he wouldnât have changed anything. Heâd been proud to pick up the reins, scared spitless but willing and honored. Who knew heâd bring the family to this?
He exhaled slowly, took a final long look at the land, dotted by the last vestiges of wildflowersâfield daisies and pink columbine barely able to hang on this late in summer and only because of the altitude. The thought that theyâd have to sell even a square foot of McAllister land twisted his gut in raw disgust that even his horse seemed to feel. Tango reared up. Cole tugged on the reins and leaned over to soothingly stroke the geldingâs neck.