The Cowboy and the Lady

Praise for Marie Ferrarella

“A joy to read”

—RT Book Reviews on Christmas Cowboy Duet

“Ferrarella’s romance will charm with all the benefits and pitfalls of a sweet small-town setting.”

—RT Book Reviews on Lassoed by Fortune

“Heartwarming. That’s the way I have described every book by Marie Ferrarella that I have read. In the Family Way engenders in me the same warm, fuzzy feeling that I have come to expect from her books.” —The Romance Reader

“Ms Ferrarella warms our hearts with her charming characters and delicious interplay.”

—RT Book Reviews on A Husband Waiting to Happen

“Ms Ferrarella creates fiery, strong-willed characters, an intense conflict and an absorbing premise no reader could possibly resist.”

—RT Book Reviews on A Match for Morgan

The Cowboy and the Lady

Marie Ferrarella

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MARIE FERRARELLA, a USA TODAY bestselling and RITA^>® Award-winning author, has written more than two hundred and fifty books for Mills & Boon, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide. Visit her website, www.marieferrarella.com.

To

Stella Bagwell, who I always channel when I go to Texas in my mind. Thank you for your eternal patience, and most of all, for your friendship.

Contents

Cover

Praise

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Prologue

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

Epilogue

Extract

Copyright

Prologue

“You’re going where?” John Kincannon demanded angrily.

A high school basketball coach, Deborah Winters Kincannon’s husband had just come home to find her shaken and pale as she was terminating a phone call. Her next words to him had obviously taken him by surprise.

From the look on his face, it was rather an unpleasant surprise.

He glared at her. It was supposed to make her back down. But she couldn’t. Not this time. If she did, she had a strong feeling the results would turn out to be fatal, if not now, then soon.

Debi felt almost numb as she replaced the receiver on the kitchen wall phone. Part of her refused to believe that the conversation she had just had was real, that it wasn’t the product of some recurring nightmare she just couldn’t seem to wake up from.

Another part of her knew that this was all too real—and something, frankly, she had been expecting even as she’d been dreading it.

When her husband didn’t seem to absorb what she’d said to him, Debi repeated it. “I’m going down to the police station to bail Ryan out.”

The simple statement—voiced for a second time—infused her husband with pure rage. His complexion actually reddened as he shifted, blocking her path to the front door.

“Oh, no, you’re not,” he declared heatedly. “This is it! I have had it with that kid, Deborah.”

For a second, Debi closed her eyes, digging deep for patience. She wasn’t up to another argument. She’d gotten home just ten minutes ago herself, after putting in a very long day in the OR with three back-to-back surgeries. It wasn’t supposed to have been three, but one of the other surgical nurses had called in sick and she had wound up pulling an extra shift.

She was bone weary and this was just the absolute very last thing she needed to cap off a day that had dragged on much too long.

“Look, I know you’re angry,” Debi began wearily, “but—”

“No, uh-uh, no ‘buts,’” John informed her firmly as well as loudly. “We’ve given that kid every chance and it’s gotten us nowhere. He can stay in that jail and rot for all I care. You’re not going down there to bail him out. I refuse to allow it, do you hear me?”

Debi looked at her husband, stunned. Had John always been this hard-hearted and she’d just missed it?

Upset and overwrought, Debi upbraided herself, knowing she had turned a blind eye to one too many signs when it came to John. He’d changed. This was not the man she had fallen in love with all those years ago on the campus.

“I can’t just leave him there, John,” she pointed out, struggling to curb her own anger.

John obviously didn’t share her opinion. “You can and you will,” he informed her. “I think I’ve been pretty understanding about all this. It’s not everybody who’ll take his wife’s brother into his home, but this is it, the proverbial straw. I don’t want that kid in my house anymore!”

He was doing it again. John was making her feel like an outsider in her own home. A home she had helped pay for as much as he had. Why was he behaving like a Neanderthal?

“It’s my house, too, John,” she reminded him, her voice tight.

“Nobody said it wasn’t,” he snapped at her. “But you’re going to have to choose, Deborah.”

“Choose?” she repeated incredulously, her voice deadly still. John couldn’t possibly be saying what she thought he was saying to her.

When had he gotten so cold, so unfeeling?

There were tears gathering in her soul, but her eyes remained dry.