It’s the second chance for this cowboy
Bull riding means everything to Neal Bryant. In his quest for the championships, he’s let everything else go—including Robyn Morgan, the woman he loves. Then he has an accident that could turn his rodeo dreams to Kansas dust. It’s fitting—or maybe it’s fate—that Robyn is the nurse at his bedside.
While recuperating on his family’s ranch, Neal learns how much he’s missed. Robyn is widowed and has a son Neal can’t seem to resist…especially when he learns he’s the father. It’s a dream he never allowed himself to have. And now he needs to show Robyn he’s worth a second chance.
“Underneath that bad haircut, I was the same girl.”
Robyn paused and eyed him thoughtfully. “And underneath that eye patch, you are the same man.”
Neal was silent for a long time as he stared at the green canopy overhead. The branches swayed and dipped in the hot, dry breeze. A single leaf fluttered down, and his gaze followed it as it landed like a tiny boat on the surface of the pond. “I wonder if that’s true,” he said at last.
Robyn cupped his cheek with her hand and turned his face toward her. “I know it’s true,” she insisted gently.
She was so close. He could feel the warmth of her beside him. The wind lifted the ends of her drying hair and let it curl softly at the edge of her face. God, he had missed her. Only she could make him feel whole again.
He captured the hand on his cheek and pressed a kiss against her soft palm. She didn’t pull away. He saw her eyes widen and her lips part with surprise. He pulled her toward him until those lips touched his.
Dear Reader,
I hope you enjoy A Ranch for His Family. Neal Bryant, the hero of this book, is the only character that has popped full-blown and whole into my head while I was writing. Granted, he showed up when I was trying to write his brother’s story, but Neal has a way of making women do what he wants without really trying, so the story became Neal’s story. What can I say? I’m a pushover for a sexy cowboy.
Robyn, the only woman who can manage Neal, was much harder to create. She had to be tough, and she had to be able to put him in his place when he needed it, but she also had to understand what made him tick. I think I have succeeded in making a well-matched hero and heroine, but you get to be the judge of that.
The setting for this book was a no-brainer. I grew up on the western edge of the beautiful Flint Hills of Kansas and I have been in love with that grassy, windswept prairie since before I was old enough to know that cowboys are sexy. I hope my love of the people and the land comes through in these pages. It’s a special place. With a lot of sexy cowboys!
Enjoy the story and feel free to let me know what you thought of it. You can visit me on the web at www.hopenavarre.com.
All the best,
Hope Navarre
A Ranch for His Family
Hope Navarre
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Hope Navarre grew up surrounded by brothers, horses and cattle among the rolling hills of central Kansas. She fell in love with reading and with books at a young age. Cowboys have always been her favorite heroes. Westerns by Zane Grey and Louis L’Amour, as well as the adventures of girl detective Trixie Belden, filled the hours when Hope wasn’t riding her horses, playing softball or fishing down at the creek.
The urge to write a story of her own first appeared when she was in high school. The star-crossed lovers of her first unfinished novel remain trapped forever in the crumbling ruins of a church in war-torn Europe, but at least they are together. College, a career in nursing, marriage and motherhood put Hope’s dreams of one day writing a book on the back burner of her life until the late 1990s. With her family grown, she decided she had time to write a book. At that point, there was no holding her back. She became a member of a local writer’s group, joined the national writing organization Romance Writers of America and set out to learn as much as she could about the business of writing.
Today, Hope enjoys setting her books in her beloved Kansas and the scenic Flint Hills, where cowboys, horses and cattle remain a part of everyday life. You can visit her on the web at www.hopenavarre.com.
This book is dedicated to my wonderful agent, Pam Hopkins.
Thanks for holding my hand all these years and for helping me find a home for my stories.
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
“OH! THAT’S COMING off a bull the hard way, folks, and that’ll mean no score for this young cowboy.”
Neal Bryant paid scant attention to the rodeo announcer and none to the disappointed cowboy dusting himself off in front of the rodeo chutes. Instead, Neal scanned the packed bleachers rising behind the white pole fence hung with