Reclaiming the Cowboy

This cowboy isn’t so easy to catch!

When Mitch Garwood ran away with Bonnie O’Mara, he thought he’d found forever. But all his dreams crashed the morning he woke alone. Months later, he’s immune to her reappearance. Even if she’s now using her real name—Annabelle Irving—and ready to tell him her secrets, he’s done.

Too bad the situation is not that simple. Annabelle’s willingness to leave her money and position behind so she can work at Bell River Ranch and be near him surprises Mitch. Despite his resolve, the spark of attraction flares again. The most compelling part? Her determination to win him back!

Belle’s heart was beating so fast she wasn’t sure she could speak.

“I tried not to come,” Mitch said. His voice was dull, like a man in a trance.

“Mitch.” She moved in front of him, reached up and touched his cheek. “It’s all right. I wanted you to come.”

“It’s not all right,” he said. He shook his head slowly. His stubble was raspy, yet soft, against her fingertips. “It’s all wrong.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m here for one thing only.” He looked at her with those glimmering eyes. “Do you get that? I’m here because I want to make love to you. I’m dying, Belle. I’m burning up with it.”

Her breath suddenly went shallow, as if her lungs were too small.

“I want that, too.”

Dear Reader,

Shakespeare once wrote that “what’s past is prologue.” William Wordsworth said, “The child is father of the man.” They, and probably a thousand other great thinkers, obviously believed your childhood sets the stage for your adult life.

But what if your childhood wasn’t all that great? What if you were horrified to be told old patterns must be repeated forever? That’s how Belle Irving—the mystery woman you met in earlier Bell River Ranch books as Bonnie O’Mara—feels. She’s haunted by memories, terrified she’ll never be able to shake off their shadows.

She’s been running from her past a long time. Now it’s time to stop. Time to fight. And where better to make her stand than at beautiful Bell River Ranch, where the indomitable Wright sisters have carved out a victory over their own troubled history?

And where Mitch Garwood, the man she’s loved and lied to for so long, has been waiting…she hopes.

From your emails and letters, I know that you (just like poor Mitch) have been impatient to learn the truth about Bonnie. It hasn’t been easy for me, either! I’ve been dying to reward this brave, lonely woman with her happily ever after.

Probably, like me, you believe we all have the power to rewrite our own stories and make them end more happily than they began. So I hope you’ll enjoy watching her find her courage and fight her way to the future she deserves.

Warmly,

Kathleen O’Brien

PS—I love to hear from readers! Come say hi at kathleenobrien.com, facebook.com/kathleenobrienauthor or twitter.com/kobrienromance.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

KATHLEEN O’BRIEN was a feature writer and TV critic before marrying a fellow journalist. Motherhood, which followed soon after, was so marvelous she turned to writing novels, which could be done at home. After decades of fun with her emotional counterpart—she’s the mushmellow, he’s the stoic—she’s convinced that opposites really do attract, even heiresses and cowboys. The scuffles that inevitably follow? They’re just part of the thrill!

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

Dear Reader

Title Page

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

EXTRACT

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

IT WAS A MEAN March midnight, the road a sludgy river of asphalt oozing in slow loops under an icy moon. Mitch Garwood’s mood was sour and his face frost-burned as he rumbled up to the back door of his cottage, one of the six they’d recently finished on the eastern edge of Bell River Ranch.

Tilting off his helmet with one hand, he twisted the key with the other, silencing the growling motorcycle before any of the adjoining guests woke up and complained. Although why they should sleep soundly when he knew darn well he wouldn’t...

Still astride the bike, he stared at the dark windows of the cottage, envisioning the cold, half-empty spaces within. A bed. A sofa. A bookcase. A refrigerator full of bottled water and blackening guacamole dip. Six hours of tossing and turning...alone...till dawn, when he could finally get up and distract himself with work.

This was a life?

It was his choice, of course. He’d never been forced to be alone, not since he hit puberty and discovered that rusty-brown hair and a few freckles over a goofy grin actually appealed to some females.

He definitely hadn’t needed to be alone tonight. At least fifty bored women from a cosmetics convention in Crawford had jammed into the Happy Horseshoe Saloon. Two-thirds of them were nice, half of them were hot and at least two of them were both.