A New Beginning
Everyone in Dew Drop, Texas, is thrilled that Jolie Sheridan has returned to Sunrise Ranch. Everyone except Morgan McDermott. Eight years ago, Jolie left the ranch—and Morgan—for a career as a competitive kayaker. Now after an accident has sidelined her, she’s back as a teacher for the ranch’s foster boys. Morgan knows he can’t risk getting his heart broken again. But watching Jolie’s gentle ways with the boys opens his eyes to the truth: he’s never stopped loving her. Can a “family” of foster kids help give this couple a second chance at love?
“I didn’t come here to fight. I’ve been watching ever since the calf wrestling, and I think you’re helping Sammy,” Morgan admitted.
Jolie blinked. Had she heard him right?
“I came to tell you that I’ll do whatever I need to do to help you help him,” Morgan continued. His amazing blue eyes softened—he was actually conceding.
“G-good,” Jolie stammered. As she looked at him, she thought about trying to apologize again, telling him that she hadn’t meant to hurt him. But she knew he would only deny that she’d hurt him in the first place. “That’s the way it should be. Our past, what happened between us—”
“Is the past,” he said, firmly.
“Yes. We should still be able to help these boys even though we once had feelings for each other and it didn’t work out.”
What else could she say? She’d just come up against one wall after the other with him; he’d made it clear there was no sense in rehashing old history that he had no desire to revisit. So she stopped trying.
For now.
DEBRA CLOPTON
First published in 2005, Debra Clopton is an award-winning multipublished novelist who has won a Booksellers Best Award, an Inspirational Readers’ Choice Award, a Golden Quill, a Cataromance Reviewers’ Choice Award, RT Book Reviews Book of the Year and Harlequin.com’s Readers’ Choice Award. She was also a 2004 finalist in the prestigious RWA Golden Heart, a triple finalist in the American Christian Fiction Writers Carol Award and most recently a finalist in the 2011 Gayle Wilson Award for Excellence.
Married for twenty-two blessed years to her high school sweetheart, Debra was widowed in 2003. Happily, in 2008, a couple of friends played matchmaker and set her up on a blind date. Instantly hitting it off, they were married in 2010. They live in the country with her husband’s two high-school-age sons. Debra has two adult sons, a lovely daughter-in-law and a beautiful granddaughter—life is good! Her greatest awards are her family and spending time with them. You can reach Debra at P.O. Box 1125, Madisonville, TX 77864 or at debraclopton.com.
Her Unforgettable Cowboy
Debra Clopton
I will not leave you as orphans—I will come for you.
—John 14:18
In memory of Ms. Jo,
Grandma Edith and Grandma Sylvia.
Thinking of each of you makes me smile.
Special thanks goes to Carolyn and Joyce for the research trip to The Purple Cow—what a fun day we had. I think you’ll see the research paid off well.
Also a big thank-you to my editor, Melissa Endlich—
your insights and encouragement
in this new venture were spot on.
Contents
Chapter One
Sunrise Ranch, Dew Drop, Texas
“Calm down, son.”
Morgan McDermott’s father, Randolph, cut Morgan off at the pass with a rasp of exasperation—which in no way, shape or form even began to match the anger-fueled exasperation Morgan was struggling to contain.
An imposing figure at fifty-two, Randolph had hair as black as the Texas oil pumping from the herd of wells across the ten-thousand-acre McDermott family ranch. The only differences between the two men—who shared chiseled high cheekbones and square-jawed features—was the whisper of white at Randolph’s temples and twenty years. Randolph was as physically fit and hard-headed as any of his three sons.
“Calm down?” Morgan gave a harsh laugh. “Are you kidding me? You go behind my back and hire my ex-fiancée, and you expect me to calm down? For starters, Dad, we’re partners. I’m supposed to make decisions like this with you. Second...”
Morgan was so shaken up by what he’d just been told that he lost his train of thought.
Jolie Sheridan, here.
Randolph pushed back from his desk and rose, meeting Morgan eye to eye. “You know as well as I do that we needed a teacher and we needed