The Bride Wore Denim
Seven Brides for Seven Cowboys #1
By: Lizbeth Selvig
Releasing July 21, 2015
Avon Impulse
When Harper Lee
Crockett returns home to Paradise Ranch, Wyoming, the last thing she expects is
to fall head-over-heels in lust for Cole, childhood neighbor and her older
sister's long-time boyfriend. The spirited and artistic Crockett sister has
finally learned to resist her craziest impulses, but this latest trip home and
Cole's rough-and-tough appeal might be too much for her fading self-control.
Cole Wainwright
has long been fascinated by the sister who's always stood out from the crowd.
His relationship with Amelia, the eldest Crockett sister, isn't as perfect as
it seems, and with Harper back in town, he sees everything he's been missing.
Cole knows they have no future together—he's tied to the land and she's created
a successful life in the big city—but neither of them can escape their growing
attraction or inconvenient feelings.
As Harper
struggles to come to grips with new family responsibilities and her forbidden
feelings for Cole, she must decide whether to listen to her head or to give her
heart what it wants.
“I never asked why you
came out here in the first place.”
He gave a quick frown, an
attractive wrinkle forming between his brows. He’d changed over the past
decade. All signs of the cute-faced boy and young man he’d been had disappeared
beneath the angles and planes of a stunning adult-male face.
“Oh yeah, I guess I did
have an official mission,” he said. “Joely got back from the barn fifteen
minutes ago and we wondered where you ended up. Your grandmother has called an
all-hands meeting.”
“Grandma Sadie?” She
shouldn’t have been surprised. Sadie Crockett had to be the only
ninety-four-year-old who could still command her family like a naval admiral.
“What’s our matriarch got under her bonnet now? Another private prayer meeting?
A final eulogy? Can’t be about the will; that isn’t a secret.”
“I don’t know.” Cole said.
“The only thing she told me was that attendance isn’t optional.”
“Crazy old lady,” Harper
said fondly, feeling the mood start to slide.
Grandma Sadie wasn’t even
a little crazy. She was still sharp as a pinprick, and if she wanted a meeting
she had all the moral authority in the world. At ninety-four she had just
buried a son.
As Harper and her sisters
had buried a father.
As their mother had buried
a husband.
And not one of them
understood how Samuel Crockett could be dead. In the space of a finger snap,
the hurricane that had been his big, intense life had gone aground and
dissipated long before any expert had predicted or expected.
She tried to cling to the
silliness of the chicken chase, but it was fully gone. A tear escaped, and she
swiped it away before it could traverse her cheek. They’d all cried plenty in
the past days. Wasn’t that enough of a tribute to the man who’d inspired awe,
respect, sometimes even adulation, but never warm, schmaltzy emotion?
Cole’s arm came around her and he pulled her
close. She felt his kiss on the top of her head.
“Look.” He pointed across
the yard, past the working heart of Paradise Ranch with its barns, sheds, and
cattle pens, to the view of Grand Teton National Park sixty miles away. In the deep
purple sky over the mountains, one fat sunbeam had beaten back the rain clouds
to create a brilliant rainbow. “I think that came out for you,” he said.
“You’ve always known how to pull hope out of a rain cloud.”
How did he know to say
something that would soothe her so perfectly?
“If only my father had
shown me a fraction of that kind of insight. After all these years—that was
really nice of you to say.”
“You weren’t big on letting
us see your work when we were younger, but I still caught the gist of your
talent. We all did. I know you still have it.”
Lizbeth Selvig writes fun, heartwarming contemporary romantic fiction
for Avon books. Her debut novel, The Rancher and the Rock Star, was released in
2012. Her second, Rescued By A Stranger is a 2014 RWA RITA® Award nominee. Liz
lives in Minnesota with her best friend (aka her husband), a hyperactive border
collie named Magic and a gray Arabian gelding named Jedi. After working as a
newspaper journalist and magazine editor, and raising an equine veterinarian
daughter and a talented musician son, Lizbeth entered Romance Writers of
America’s Golden Heart® contest in 2010 with The Rancher and the Rock Star
(then titled Songbird) and won the Single Title Contemporary category.
In her spare time, she loves being a brand new grandma to
Evelyn Grace as well as to hike, quilt, read, horseback ride, and play with her
four-legged grandchildren, of which there are nearly twenty, including a
wallaby, an alpaca, a donkey, a pig, a sugar glider, and many dogs, cats and
horses (pics of all appear on her website www.lizbethselvig.com). She loves
connecting with readers—contact her any time!
Thank you for hosting THE BRIDE WORE DENIM
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