Praise for the novels of
LINDA LAEL MILLER
âAs hot as the noontime desert.â
âPublishers Weekly on The Rustler
âLoaded with hot lead, steamy sex and surprising plot twists.â
âPublishers Weekly on A Wanted Man
âMillerâs prose is smart, and her tough Eastwoodian cowboy cuts a sharp, unexpectedly funny figure in a classroom full of rambunctious frontier kids.â
âPublishers Weekly on The Man from Stone Creek
â[Miller] paints a brilliant portrait of the good, the bad and the ugly, the lost and the lonely, and the power of love to bring light into the darkest of souls. This is western romance at its finest.â
âRT Book Reviews on The Man from Stone Creek
âLinda Lael Miller creates vibrant characters and stories I defy you to forget.â
âNo.1 New York Times bestselling author Debbie Macomber
Dear Reader,
Welcome to the second of three books about the rowdy McKettrick cousins, the Creeds.
Dylan Creed, seasoned hell-raiser and erstwhile rodeo cowboy, suddenly finds himself the full-time father of a two-year-old daughter. Like his brother, heâs come back to Stillwater Springs, Montana, to face down his demons, but his high school sweetheart, librarian Kristy Madison, shakes him up more than any bull heâs ever ridden in the rodeo! Will he stick around long enough to help Logan make the Creed name mean something again?
I also wanted to write today to tell you about a special group of people with whom Iâve recently become involved. It is The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), specifically their Pets for Life programme.
The Pets for Life programme is one of the best ways to help your local shelter: that is to help keep animals out of shelters in the first place. Something as basic as keeping a collar and tag on your pet all the time, so if he gets out and gets lost, he can be returned home. Being a responsible pet owner. Spaying or neutering your pet. And not giving up when things donât go perfectly. If your dog digs in the yard, or your cat scratches the furniture, know that these are problems that can be addressed. You can find all the information about these problemsâand many other common onesâat www.petsforlife.org. This campaign is focused on keeping pets and their people together for a lifetime.
As many of you know, my own household includes two dogs, two cats and four horses, so this is a cause that is near and dear to my heart. I hope youâll get involved along with me.
With love,
Also available from
LINDA LAEL MILLER
The Stone Creek series THE MAN FROM STONE CREEK A WANTED MAN THE RUSTLER
The McKettricks series McKETTRICKâS CHOICE McKETTRICKâS LUCK McKETTRICKâS PRIDE McKETTRICKâS HEART A McKETTRICK CHRISTMAS
The Mojo Sheepshanks series DEADLY GAMBLE DEADLY DECEPTIONS
Donât miss all the adventures of the Montana Creeds LOGAN DYLAN TYLER
And return to Stone Creek in THE BRIDEGROOM
For Sam and Janet Smith, my dear, funny friends.
Thanks for some of the best advice Iâve ever received: Go to Harlequin!
Las Vegas, Nevada
HEâD KNOWN ALL DAY that something was about to go down, something life-changing and entirely new. The knowledge had prickled in his gut and shivered in the fine hairs on the nape of his neck throughout the marathon poker games played in his favorite seedy, backstreet gambling joint. Heâd ignored the subtle mind-buzz as a minor distractionâit didnât have the usual elements of actual danger. But now, with a wad of folded billsâhis winningsâshoved into the shaft of his left boot, Dylan Creed knew heâd better watch it, just the same.
Down in Glitter Gulch, there were crowds of people, security goons hired by the megacasinos to make sure their walking ATMs didnât get roughed up or rolled, or both, cops and cameras everywhere. Here, behind the Black Rose Cowboy Bar and Card Room, home of the hard-core poker players who scorned glitz, there was one failing streetlight, an overflowing Dumpster, a handful of rusty old cars and, at the periphery of his vision, a rat the size of a raccoon.
While he loved a good fight, being a Creed, born and bred, Dylan was nobodyâs fool. A tire iron to the back of the head and being relieved of the dayâs takeâfifty-odd thousand dollars in cashâwas not on his to-do list.
He walked toward his gleaming red extended-cab Ford pickup with his customary confidence, and probably looked like a hapless rube to anybody who might be lurking behind that Dumpster, or one of the other cars or just in the shadows.
Someone was definitely watching him; he could feel it now, a for-sure kind of thingâbut it was more annoying than alarming. Heâd learned early in his life, though, just by being Jake Creedâs middle son, that the presence of another person, or persons, charged the atmosphere with a crackle of energy.
Just in case, he reached inside his ancient denim jacket, closed his fingers loosely around the handle of the snub-nosed .45 he carried on his frequent gambling junkets. Garth Brooks might have friends in low places like the Black Rose, but