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Forever A Hero
Linda Lael Miller
For the youngest Carson brother, finding – and fixing – trouble seems to be all in a day's work.Mace Carson doesn't consider himself a hero. Back in college, he came upon a woman in trouble and intervened—but he was just one irate Wyoming cowboy with his boots planted firmly on the side of right. Now a successful vintner, Mace is shocked to be reunited with the woman he saved. But it turns out she's in Wyoming on business…a corporate executive representing the company that wants to buy his winery. Only, he's not selling.Kelly Wright has never forgotten that horrible night ten years ago when Mace came to her rescue, has never forgotten him. The surprising success of a winery in the middle of ranch country has brought her to Mustang Creek, and she's secretly thrilled to discover Mace at the helm. Reluctant to mix business with pleasure, Kelly vows to keep things professional, until her attacker is released from prison and comes for vengeance…against both of them.
For the youngest Carson brother, finding—and fixing—trouble seems to be all in a day’s work
Mace Carson doesn’t consider himself a hero. Back in college, he came upon a woman in trouble and intervened—but he was just one irate Wyoming cowboy with his boots planted firmly on the side of right. Now a successful vintner, Mace is shocked to be reunited with the woman he saved. But it turns out she’s in Wyoming on business...a corporate executive representing the company that wants to buy his winery. Only, he’s not selling.
Kelly Wright has never forgotten that horrible night ten years ago when Mace came to her rescue, has never forgotten him. The surprising success of a winery in the middle of ranch country has brought her to Mustang Creek, and she’s secretly thrilled to discover Mace at the helm. Reluctant to mix business with pleasure, Kelly vows to keep things professional, until her attacker is released from prison and comes for vengeance...against both of them.
Praise for #1 New York Times bestselling author Linda Lael Miller
“Miller delights readers... The coming together of the two families was very well written and the characters are fraught with humor and sexual tension, which leads to a lovely HEA [happily ever after].”
—RT Book Reviews on The Marriage Season
“The Marriage Season is a wonderfully candid example of a contemporary western with the requisite ranch, horses, kids and dogs—wouldn’t be a Linda Lael Miller story without pets... The Brides of Bliss County novels do not have to be read in order but it would be a shame to miss some of the most endearing love stories that feature rugged, handsome cowboys.”
—Fresh Fiction
“Fans of Linda Lael Miller will fall in love with The Marriage Pact and without a doubt be waiting for the next installments... Her ranch-based westerns have always entertained and stayed with me long after reading them.”
—Idaho Statesman
“Miller has found a perfect niche with charming western romances and cowboys who will set readers’ hearts aflutter. Funny and heartwarming, The Marriage Pact will intrigue readers by the first few pages. Unforgettable characters with endless spunk and desire make this a must-read.”
—RT Book Reviews
“All three titles should appeal to readers who like their contemporary romances Western, slightly dangerous and graced with enlightened (more or less) bad-boy heroes.”
—Library Journal on the Montana Creeds series
“An engrossing, contemporary western romance... Miller’s masterful ability to create living, breathing characters never flags, even in the case of Echo’s dog, Avalon; combined with a taut story line and vivid prose, Miller’s romance won’t disappoint.”
—Publishers Weekly on McKettrick’s Pride (starred review)
Forever a Hero
Linda Lael Miller
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Dear Reader (#u55a14d5e-4b5f-50a2-8e95-30ba2ed3acd7),
Welcome back to Mustang Creek, Wyoming, home of hot cowboys and the smart, beautiful women who love them.
Forever a Hero is the story of Mace, the youngest of the three Carson brothers. A cowboy-turned-vintner, he’s focused on taking his successful winery to new heights—and though he has no interest in selling it to corporate executive Kelly Wright, the woman he rescued from trouble once upon a time, he’s got more than a little interest in her.
Mace might be the hero Kelly never forgot, but she’s determined not to mix business with pleasure. She’s returned to Mustang Creek to make him an offer he can’t refuse, and she intends to get her way. But when her attacker returns for vengeance, Kelly might find that Mace’s arms are the safest place of all.
If you read the previous two books in this trilogy, Once a Rancher and Always a Cowboy, you’ll recognize a lot of the characters, and I hope you’ll enjoy reuniting with them.
Ranch life runs deep with me. I live on my own modest little spread called the Triple L, and we’ve got critters aplenty: five horses, two dogs and two cats. And those are just the official ones—we share the land with wild turkeys, deer and the occasional moose, and I wouldn’t live any other way.
My love of animals shows in my stories, and I never miss a chance to speak for the silent furry ones who have no voices and no choices. So please support your local animal shelters, have your pets spayed and neutered, and if you’re feeling a mite lonely, why not rescue a four-legged somebody waiting to love you with the purest of devotion.
Thank you for bending an ear my way, and enjoy the story.
With all best,
Contents
Cover (#ue4055a9b-181d-52fe-a981-53d9ded644df)
Back Cover Text (#u19d5403c-c7a2-5987-8551-c745309fd2ab)
Praise (#uaf1524e7-02c3-5296-9dd7-4cf7d2d0e325)
Title Page (#uf2623b6d-fb0b-5c16-b168-2dbab80f0100)
Dear Reader (#u8a7a3151-1b73-5f20-9015-d1d32e911451)
CHAPTER ONE (#u6ff73868-df8d-5b04-bc8d-7a46455b5474)
CHAPTER TWO (#u215debe9-2d80-5310-945c-35fef42b082e)
CHAPTER THREE (#u534ed701-c7ec-5523-926a-434431509342)
CHAPTER FOUR (#ueccb9f57-d6cf-5b62-989a-531399eb32c0)
CHAPTER FIVE (#u216780e9-fe40-51c3-b1e1-89fde1f13a54)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINETEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
FOREVER (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#u55a14d5e-4b5f-50a2-8e95-30ba2ed3acd7)
IT ALL HAPPENED in a matter of seconds.
And every one of those seconds felt like a year.
Mace Carson had been cruising along behind the unfamiliar car up ahead ever since he’d cleared the city limits of Mustang Creek a few minutes before, when the other rig suddenly fishtailed on the rain-slick pavement and spun a full 360. The slow-motion spin, weirdly graceful, and at the same time potentially deadly, was sickening to watch.
He eased his truck to the side of the road, jammed down the emergency brake pedal, then groped for his cell phone and muttered an expletive, watching the situation unfold, helpless to intervene as the vehicle shot toward the steep slope on the opposite shoulder, where there were no guardrails. The drop was nearly fifty feet, by his calculations, with no trees or boulders to break the fall.
Not that either would have been ideal, any way you looked at it.
With a second curse, he was out of the truck and running to do what he could, heedless of the pounding rain, phone in hand, thumb on the button that would speed-dial 911.
Meanwhile, the car came to a precarious stop at the edge, teetered and then slipped again, winding up at a precarious angle, half on the road, half off, passenger-side down. The mud, a few inches deep and slick as snot, offered the briefest purchase.
Mace didn’t rattle easily, but in those moments, his heart zoomed into his throat. He was close enough now to glimpse the driver, a woman, pale and wide-eyed with shock, leaning hard into the car door, as if she hoped to waft right through the metal to the safety of solid ground.
“Don’t move!” he said, never knowing if he’d shouted the words or simply mouthed them, dropping the phone to the ground because he was going to need both hands to get her out before the mud gave way and sent her and the car tumbling downhill, ass over teakettle.
He saw her nod. Stiffen.
He gripped the door handle, never taking his eyes off her face, realized instantly that the locks were still engaged.
“Shift into Park,” he told the woman, giving silent thanks that the air bags hadn’t deployed. The mechanisms were sensitive; in some cars, especially newer models, no collision was required. An abrupt change of direction could trigger them. “And then unfasten your seat belt. Slow and easy, now—no sudden moves.”
Another nod from her. He was either yelling or she could read lips, because she did what he’d told her to do. With a flash of relief, he heard the locks release.
The car slid a few inches farther down the hill.
* * *
BRACING HIS FEET, Mace pulled at the door. Gravity worked against him, but he’d bucked a lot of bales in his time, dug a lot of postholes and like any man who did hard physical work, he was strong.
A wedge of space opened between them.
“You’re gonna have to get out on your own,” he told the woman, who was trembling so badly her teeth chattered. His voice sounded strangely calm, at least to him, considering the circumstances. “For obvious reasons, I can’t let go of this door long enough to give you a hand.”
She slithered through the gap as if boneless, landing on her hands and knees at Mace’s feet.
When he let go of the handle a heartbeat later, the door slammed shut with an impact that set the rig in motion. As he helped the woman up from the ground, the car lurched violently, tipped onto its side and rolled over, then over again and again, gaining momentum with every flip, finally landing with an echoing crash on its top, square in the middle of the creek below.
Still gripping the shuddering stranger by both arms, Mace closed his eyes briefly, comparing what might have happened with what actually had. This was one lucky lady, whoever she was.
In the aftermath of the adrenaline rush, Mace felt a little shaky himself, but he quickly recovered. He needed to focus on what, if anything, still needed to be done; while the woman appeared to be in one piece, she could be in shock, or she might have hit her head at some point and gotten a concussion. Or suffered internal injuries of some kind.
Growing up rough-and-tumble, like any ranch kid, and competing in his share of rodeos, he knew some injuries didn’t show on the outside, the way cuts and bruises did. Not immediately, anyhow.
That made his fight-or-flight response spike again, and he took a moment to breathe his way through, line up his thoughts.
Satisfied that the lady was still upright and her eyes hadn’t rolled back or anything, he looked down the hillside.
He’d half expected the car to explode into flames when it hit bottom, rain or no rain, but it just lay there, so coated in mud that its color, rental-beige as he recalled, was indiscernible now. With all four wheels turning slowly, the rig reminded Mace of a turtle on its back, kicking in an effort to right itself.
“Holy shit,” he said, exhaling the words.
The woman looked up at him, rain-soaked, still pale, but with a quiver of amusement playing at the corners of her mouth. “You can say that again,” she replied. “But please don’t.”
He gave a short, hoarse burst of laughter at that. She was shaking, and he wasn’t entirely sure she wouldn’t buckle to the ground if he loosened his grip, but she had grit, no doubt about it. Considering what she’d just been through, he wouldn’t have considered hysterical sobs, a good old-fashioned fainting spell or a spate of violent retching out of line.
“Are you hurt?” He wished he’d asked the obvious question sooner, instead of just thinking about it.
She shook her head. Her hair, hanging in dripping tendrils, not quite long enough to touch her shoulders, was some shade of blond. Her eyes, still huge, were a remarkable shade of green, flecked with gold. “I’ll be fine,” she assured him, raising her voice to be heard over the continuing downpour. “Thanks to you.”
“Any pain? Numbness?” Mace asked, unconvinced.
