Roping In The Cowgirl. Judy Duarte

stay home with me. And he did his best to work our small spread.”

      “I really don’t remember my dad,” Blake said. “He died right before I started school.”

      Sam had told Shannon that Blake had lost his father in a skiing accident, but she hadn’t realized how young he’d been when it happened.

      “That’s too bad,” she said.

      Now it was Blake’s turn to give a slight shrug. “My mom and I moved in with her mother in California. But she kept in touch with Sam and Nellie, who practically raised my dad. And when I got a little older, she let me spend summers in Texas with them.”

      “Sam’s a great guy,” she said. “Just like my dad.”

      “It sounds like you and your dad are close.”

      They certainly had been. “Together, we made a good team. We both tackled the household chores, and each week, after cutting out coupons and planning the meals, we went grocery shopping. And on Saturdays we worked in the yard.”

      Since her dad was always working on or refurbishing a vehicle in the garage, he’d taught Shannon how to change the oil on the pickup, not to mention spark plugs, fuel pumps and flat tires.

      Some men, like Mike Cavanaugh, a city boy she’d dated in college, found her “unconventional hobbies” to be unsettling—maybe even demeaning. But she was a country girl at heart, one with varied interests and diverse abilities. And she wasn’t going to pretend to be someone else. At least, not again.