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Cassie's Cowboy
Diane Pershing
Cassie Nevins longed for someone to save the day, someone like Cowboy Charlie, the hero she'd created for her daughter's bedtime stories–and the hunk who'd starred in a few of her own not-so-innocent fantasies. Charlie followed the code of the Old West: Act honorably, work hard, tell the truth and take responsibility.So who was this stranger on her doorstep, looking exactly like her cowboy…right down to the dimple in one corner of his very kissable mouth? All Cassie knew was this Charlie could make all her dreams come true–including her deeply hidden desire for a happily-ever-after!
Cowboy Charlie was back for a repeat performance.
His appearance this morning was rumpled, and he needed a shave. But so what? Despite Cassie’s bad mood, she’d have had to be comatose not to observe how to-drool-over sexy the man was.
His sun-streaked hair flopped on his forehead. That crooked smile deepened the laugh lines around his Paul Newman eyes. He was tall, and slim, and sturdy, and possessed more animal charisma than ought to be allowed.
She’d half convinced herself that she’d dreamed him up the night before, some combination of stress and overactive imagination at work.
There went that theory….
Dear Reader,
Have you started your spring cleaning yet? If not, we have a great motivational plan: For each chore you complete, reward yourself with one Silhouette Romance title! And with the standout selection we have this month, you’ll be finished reorganizing closets, steaming carpets and cleaning behind the refrigerator in record time!
Take a much-deserved break with the exciting new ROYALLY WED: THE MISSING HEIR title, In Pursuit of a Princess, by Donna Clayton. The search for the missing St. Michel heir leads an undercover princess straight into the arms of a charming prince. Then escape with Diane Pershing’s SOULMATES addition, Cassie’s Cowboy. Could the dreamy hero from her daughter’s bedtime stories be for real?
Lugged out and wiped down the patio furniture? Then you deserve a double treat with Cara Colter’s What Child Is This? and Belinda Barnes’s Daddy’s Double Due Date. In Colter’s tender tearjerker, a tiny stranger reunites a couple torn apart by tragedy. And in Barnes’s warm romance, a bachelor who isn’t the “cootchie-coo” type discovers he’s about to have twins!
You’re almost there! Once you’ve rounded up every last dust bunny, you’re really going to need some fun. In Terry Essig’s Before You Get to Baby…and Sharon De Vita’s A Family To Be, childhood friends discover that love was always right next door. De Vita’s series, SADDLE FALLS, moves back to Special Edition next month.
Even if you skip the spring cleaning this year, we hope you don’t miss our books. We promise, this is one project you’ll love doing.
Happy reading!
Mary-Theresa Hussey
Senior Editor
Cassie’s Cowboy
Diane Pershing
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To Karen Amarillas, for her friendship and expertise
in rodeo lore. And to Ken, who—although he refuses to
wear boots and Stetson—still fits my definition of a hero.
Books by Diane Pershing
Silhouette Romance
Cassie’s Cowboy #1584
Silhouette Intimate Moments
While You Were Sleeping #863
The Tough Guy and the Toddler #928
Silhouette Yours Truly
First Date: Honeymoon
Third Date’s the Charm
Mills & Boon Duets
Hot Copy
DIANE PERSHING
cannot remember a time when she didn’t have her nose buried in a book. As a child, she would cheat the bedtime curfew by snuggling under the covers with her teddy bear, a flashlight and a forbidden (read “grown-up”) novel. Her mother warned her that she would ruin her eyes, but so far, they still work. Diane has had many careers—singer, actress, film critic, disc jockey, TV writer, to name a few. Currently she divides her time between writing romances and doing voice-overs. (You can hear her as “Poison Ivy” on the Batman cartoon.) She lives in Los Angeles, and promises she is only slightly affected. Her two children, Morgan Rose and Ben, have just completed college, and Diane looks forward to writing and acting until she expires, or people stop hiring her, whichever comes first. She loves to hear from readers, so please write to her at P.O. Box 67424, Los Angeles, CA 90067.
Dear Reader,
When I was young, any girl worth her salt had a crush on cowboys…and their horses, of course. On my block you were either for Roy Rogers or Gene Autry. The occasional Hopalong Cassidy booster showed up, but we paid them no mind (if you are too young to know who I’m talking about, trust me, you missed a great time). I was firmly in the Roy camp. Last year, during a difficult family period, I’d been trying unsuccessfully to flesh out a story idea about a pair of truly ugly magical eyeglasses. One night I had a dream in which Roy showed up and told me not to fret my pretty little head, that he and Trigger would take care of my problems for a while. Sigh. It was a lovely dream. Upon awakening, the two ideas meshed, and Cassie’s Cowboy was born. Giddyup!
Diane Pershing
Contents
Chapter One (#udc432e71-0fd0-5baf-919b-9c69788f8a97)
Chapter Two (#uc5ea3ce7-3fb4-5ffe-a35a-421341caf6c6)
Chapter Three (#u704b4a1f-05c4-5091-913c-600f646ae5b5)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
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)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One
“…and then the bad man with the long, smelly mustache tightened the ropes that bound the hands of Sally and her small child, Missy. Both of his prisoners were very, very frightened, and they would have liked to scream for help but the bad man had put handkerchiefs over their mouths, so all they could do was make noises like murfle hurfle pelp! Suddenly, from over the horizon there appeared a stranger in a Stetson—”
“Cowboy Charlie!” Trish said happily, clapping her hands.
“Yes, my love,” Cassie said, and went on. “Here came Cowboy Charlie, galloping on Felicity, his six-guns blazing. With an oomph! and a pow! he kicked the bad man so he fell and rolled over and over and over, down the mountain. Then Charlie swooped up the woman and her child onto his horse, and the three of them rode off into the sunset, to safety.”
“Oh, Mommy,” Trish sighed, snuggling back against her pillow and pulling her covers up under her chin. “That was so good. It’s my favorite story.”
Cassie Nevins smiled warmly at her seven-year-old daughter. “You always say that, no matter which story I tell you,” she teased, then kissed her child’s soft cheek. “Good night, baby,” she said, gathering her notebook and pens as she left the room. Their nightly ritual was done, the story was told, accompanied, as usual, by one or two pen-and-ink sketches. The drawings she’d come up with this particular evening weren’t bad, even if she did say so herself. She’d really gotten the look of Cowboy Charlie tonight.
He was the Old West heroic type, from the days before Star Wars, when kids used to worship cowboys and the horses they rode. Tall, slim but muscular, his legs slightly bowed from years riding the range, his strong face lined by days spent squinting into the sun. He wore chaps and boots with jangling spurs and a leather vest—all the classic paraphernalia—and rode a magnificent chestnut named Felicity. Cassie was particularly pleased with the arch of the horse’s neck in tonight’s drawing. And she’d finally captured the look in Charlie’s nearly turquoise-blue eyes—reliable, amused. Manly. She was getting better and better at this.
After she closed the door to her daughter’s room, Cassie paused, removed her brand-new reading glasses and rubbed her tired eyes. She contemplated getting a snack, as she’d hardly eaten her dinner. But she couldn’t summon up the energy. She supposed she could go into her small office and stare at the bills there. But that would be all she’d be able to do, she thought wryly—stare at them. She sure couldn’t pay them.
Maybe she could indulge in a hot bath. Had the water bill been paid? Yes. Good, then. A soothing soak, just the thing to loosen tense muscles and strained eyes.
With a huge sigh, she found herself staring at the glasses she held in her hand. Boy, were they ugly, she thought, then chuckled. Past ugly, to be sure. Hideous. Bright turquoise frames with fan-shaped edges, dotted with inlaid rhinestones. So tasteless, so tacky. But they hadn’t cost her a cent; therefore, they were beautiful.
She’d been getting headaches lately when she read, and kindly old Doc Slater, her optometrist, had told her the week before that she needed reading glasses. As he’d had an inkling of her financial situation, he’d offered the frames to her, free. They were an extra pair in a shipment, he’d told her, and waved off her effusive thanks. She’d picked them up this morning.
As she headed for the bath, Cassie rubbed her thumb along the glasses’ earpiece. She was not only tired, she was rapidly on the way to being downright grumpy. And, despite her usual sunny outlook, she was beginning to sense the edges of panic. She needed money, she needed hope, she needed help, none of which were in sight.
Actually, what she needed now was a rescuer, of the knight-in-shining-armor variety.
No, forget the knight. What she needed was a cowboy, one of the good guys, as opposed to the bad guys. How very nice it would be if Cowboy Charlie would come along and make all her troubles disappear.
Right, she thought with a rueful smile. And he could bring the Tooth Fairy with him.
She turned on the hot water tap, then began to unbutton her blouse. Her hands paused as she thought she heard a noise. What was it? Some kind of knocking? Frowning, she turned the water off and listened. Yes, there it went again. Someone was knocking at her front door.
Putting on her glasses, she glanced at her watch. Who could it be at nine at night? Swallowing down the automatic fear reaction of a woman who lived alone with her child, she hurried downstairs before whoever it was knocked again. She went to the door and peered through the peephole.
In the yellow glow cast by the porch light, she could make out the figure of a man. Not just any man, but—
Cassie gasped as her hand automatically flew to cover her pounding heart. Unless she was completely mistaken, standing there, big as life, was none other than…Cowboy Charlie!
Charlie wasn’t real clear on just what had happened. Last thing he remembered, he was riding Felicity along the stretch they called Sagebrush Plain. He’d been admiring the way the setting sun was coating the far-off mountains with the darnedest colors—all purples and reds and golds—and thinking about the juicy steak he intended to have when he got back to camp, when all at once he swore he heard the sound of a woman sighing.
And not just an itty-bitty sigh, but a gigantic sigh, one that echoed and echoed and got louder and louder until he had to cover his ears. And then, Whoosh! there was a new sound, a roar twice as big as the sound of a hurricane. Suddenly, he felt his body being lifted and hurled through some kind of sideways tornado. Round and round he twisted till he could barely catch a breath. And then, just as suddenly, he was on land again, feet first and standing upright.
On a strange porch, facing a strange door.
And knocking on that door, because that seemed to be the obvious thing to do.
Now a woman was opening that door, but keeping the screen door between them closed.
“Ma’am?” he said, removing his hat and smoothing back his hair, then settling it back on his head. He was still breathing pretty heavily from his trip, but that didn’t affect his eyesight. No, sir.
She was just about the cutest thing he’d seen in a long while. Little, not a bit over five feet, he bet. Her head was all over short brown curls, and her eyes were brown too, chocolate-colored and large. Right now they peered suspiciously at him over the top of the strangest looking pair of spectacles he’d ever seen and which were perched on the tip of her small nose.
“Good evening,” he said politely, when she seemed disobliged to say anything welcoming.
The woman checked to make sure the lock was on the screen door, then crossed her arms over her chest. “And just who are you supposed to be?” She had a low, raspy-sounding voice, which didn’t really go with the small, compact body, but it sure did sound womanly, and it sure did set up a little male appreciation-type humming in his blood.
“I figured you would know, ma’am.”
“Why don’t you tell me, anyway?” One of her eyebrows was raised, mistrustful-like, as though he was trying to sell her a steer for stud work.
“Cowboy Charlie, of course,” he said with a smile that usually melted any chill a lady might be sending out. “You can call me just plain Charlie, if you’d like.”
“Mm-hmm,” she said, that pretty little mouth of hers set in a real disbelieving line. “And just how did you get here, ‘just plain Charlie’?” She spoke his name like it was something he’d made up.
Which was strange, because she’d been the one to come up with it.
“Well, I was doing what I always do, you know, riding the range on my horse, looking for adventures and folks who need rescuing, and the next thing I knew I was here. Felicity didn’t make it, though.”
“Felicity.”
“My horse. You know. You named him.”
“Him?”
“Yes, ma’am. Felicity’s a he, a gelding actually. But I figured you didn’t know that when you thought up his moniker.”
“Oh.” Her eyes widened in surprise. “No I didn—” She cut herself off in mid-sentence then shook her head. She fixed her gaze on him for a long moment, like she was trying to figure out a puzzle. “I’ll say this much. You’re good.”
“Excuse me?”
“Whoever sent you, they chose well. You’re a dead ringer for him.”
Charlie was feeling just a bit confused. “You sent me, ma’am.”
“Did I?” That one suspicious eyebrow shot up again. “And just where did I get you from? I mean, exactly where is that range you were riding on?”
He wondered why she was testing him this way, but figured he’d find out soon enough. “Well, it’s kind of hard to explain. May I come in?”
He reached for the door handle.
“You may not,” she fairly snapped at him. “I don’t let strangers into my house.”
“Oh.”
He thought a bit, pushed his hat back and scratched his head. Then, figuring he might be standing here for a while, he leaned an elbow against the door frame and crossed one booted foot over the other.
A cricket nearby set to chirping, which made Charlie feel a little less strange. There were crickets where he came from, too. And porches, and screen doors—although they had wooden frames back home, not iron ones like this one.
“Okay, now, where is that range?” he repeated, then lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Well, that’s a little complicated. See, there’s a kind of a…well, a place, a section…” He’d never had to put it into words before. “Not here, I mean not here, in your world…”
