скачать книгу бесплатно
Falling For A Cowboy
Karen Rock
Doesn't he get that she's blind?Barrel racer Amberley James wants to join the premier rodeo circuit more than anything, but she faces the ultimate hurdle when she loses her eyesight to a rare genetic condition. All she’d ever wanted seems out of reach. Giving up is the only option…until her best friend and local hero, Jared Cade steps in. The last thing she wants is Jared’s help. But his persistence at encouraging her to get back in the saddle is ridiculously annoying. And undeniably inspiring…
Doesn’t he get that she’s blind?
Barrel racer Amberley James wants to join the premier rodeo circuit more than anything, but she faces the ultimate hurdle when she loses her eyesight to a rare genetic condition. All she’d ever wanted seems out of reach. Giving up is the only option...until her best friend and local hero Jared Cade steps in. The last thing she wants is Jared’s help. But his persistence at encouraging her to get back in the saddle is ridiculously annoying. And undeniably inspiring...
KAREN ROCK is an award-winning young adult and adult contemporary author. She holds a master’s degree in English and worked as an ELA instructor before becoming a full-time author. Most recently, her Harlequin Heartwarming novels have won the 2015 National Excellence in Romance Fiction Award and the 2015 Booksellers’ Best Award. When she’s not writing, Karen loves scouring estate sales, cooking and hiking. She lives in the Adirondack Mountain region with her husband, daughter and Cavalier King Charles spaniels. Visit her at karenrock.com (http://www.karenrock.com).
Also by Karen Rock
The Lottery Winner
Second Chance Mom
Starting with June
The Secrets of Her Past
A Better Man
The Ties that Bind
The Price of Honor
Her Tycoon to Tame
Wedding His Takeover Target
Executive’s Pregnancy Ultimatum
His High-Stakes Holiday Seduction
Bedding the Secret Heiress
More Than a Millionaire
Bargained Into Her Boss’s Bed
Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk).
Falling for a Cowboy
Karen Rock
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ISBN: 978-1-474-08084-2
FALLING FOR A COWBOY
© 2018 Karen Rock
Published in Great Britain 2018
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.
® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Jared shoved his hands into his pockets.
Standing with her back against the porch railing, her tense shoulders near her ears, she looked fit to be tied. Her beautiful blue eyes searched for him. He stepped closer and cleared his throat.
“He’s my horse,” she said.
“You can’t sell Harley without my say-so.”
An exasperated noise escaped her pale lips. “I trusted you.”
“Trusting me is the smartest thing you can do, darlin’.”
“Don’t call me that!”
Her vehement tone caught him off guard. He called lots of woman darlin’. Why did she act like it meant something?
Because you mean it when you say it to her.
Dear Reader (#u2657647f-54b3-5eb5-a2c4-5fdb59e4a466),
Welcome back to the world of Rocky Mountain Cowboys! I adore writing about these strong, rugged men who shepherd the land and its animals, who fall hard and love forever. In Falling for a Cowboy, you’ll meet another bold, passionate, fiercely independent Cade: Jared. Everything comes easily to Jared—success, friends and even women—until new feelings for his best friend, Amberley, make him face the biggest challenge of all: winning her heart.
I love a good comeback story. Rooting for the underdog and hoping to succeed against all odds makes a story unforgettable. Falling for a Cowboy is a timeless comeback story that was a joy to write. Not only did legally blind Amberley deserve a comeback, but all the characters did, including the children with special needs in her equine therapy program, my hero, and Amberley’s horse, Harley. And don’t we all love a good horse story full of heart? Black Beauty, National Velvet and Misty of Chincoteague are some of my favorites, and they deeply inspired me.
I hope you enjoy book two in my Rocky Mountain Cowboys series. If this is your first time reading this heartwarming series, I hope you’ll check out the prequel, A Cowboy to Keep, and book one in the series, Christmas at Cade Ranch. Look for book three in the series this April! Visit me at www.karenrock.com (http://www.karenrock.com) to learn more about future books or to let me know what you think about the book and series. I’d love to hear from you!
Happy reading!
Karen Rock
To Dusty, the first horse I ever rode. You bucked me off and broke my wrist, but you also made me fall in love... And a girl never forgets her first love. If you look closely, you’ll see yourself on these pages...especially the hugs, the laughs and, most of all, the love.
Contents
Cover (#u10be18eb-6183-5a8d-b827-0a072288114f)
Back Cover Text (#uedbb7a0b-9589-515e-8fa6-efed167ea3cc)
About the Author (#u11689285-e50b-50c7-916d-80217fbb8648)
Booklist (#u10dd7ce1-91ba-5417-9ee4-85db4e6521da)
Title Page (#u6ee193ae-b969-5939-b8d7-a220fad59256)
Copyright (#ud20cf2fc-edb5-5d47-977d-7ab327c575ea)
Introduction (#u70ee3d5c-92cd-52d9-9a1f-b25915eacc22)
Dear Reader (#u3766cb65-de89-55df-a63e-6f312fe4ec89)
Dedication (#u639c9df3-92e8-5b53-a197-4b1a8188f803)
Chapter One (#u6fb3d39f-b1b1-5e93-8cf8-de5bf1a4e601)
Chapter Two (#u7c2526d5-c900-5fb3-b97d-c9cf490e5b0b)
Chapter Three (#uabbd99ad-8751-521e-bb82-f532e3c2be80)
Chapter Four (#u8b2fa9c7-cad0-57d7-aaeb-2132e3fa7cea)
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)
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)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One (#u2657647f-54b3-5eb5-a2c4-5fdb59e4a466)
“HERE COMES THE CHAMP!” bellowed a rodeo announcer over the Las Vegas Thomas and Mack Center’s PA system. “She won her second straight WPRA World Championship title right here last year. Can she do it again? Ladies and gents, this is the amazing Amberley James from Carbondale, Colorado.”
Amberley tapped the top of her dad’s black Stetson for good luck, lightly kicked her nine-year-old quarter horse, Harley, and galloped out into the arena to raucous applause. Ignoring the buzz of adrenaline inside her, she slowed her breathing and focused on the hunt. She could not—would not—lose. Winning was a state of mind. A way of being. Life. All that she knew and all that she’d ever strive to do.
As her father always told her, if you’re not first you’re last, and if you’re last, you’re not much.
Daddy, if you’re watching, which I know you are, this one’s for you.
She charged forward, leaning low over Harley’s neck. The world around her dimmed, muted, then fell away save for her, Harley and the first barrel. Her ears attuned to the sound of her horse’s pounding hooves, her body to the muscular rhythm of his enormous strides. A free-runner, the gelding ate up the distance in a breathless few seconds, rocketing beneath her like a locomotive. Then the first yellow barrel flashed up.
Electricity slammed her, straight through the breastbone. Without a moment to lose, she positioned Harley and rose in the saddle. Her leg drew even with the brightly painted side, but then something odd happened to her eyes. Stars burst at the corners of her tunneling vision like fireworks and she felt herself tilt forward. She pushed down on the saddle horn a millisecond later than she should have and dropped.
Air rushed from between Amberley’s clenched teeth. In a sport won or lost in hundredths of seconds, she’d just cost herself.
She moved her hand toward Harley’s withers, opening him up a little more, squeezed with her inside leg and strove to keep him off the barrel. But that blink-fast delay caused Harley to bend too far. His rear swung, hip disengaged, his hooves kicking up clouds of dirt as he dug in and turned wider than she’d wanted.
Make-or-break time.
Setting her jaw, she pulled her weight forward, brought her rein hand closer, then reached and slid as he accelerated, balancing on the horn and staying out of his mouth to give him his head. She squinted her eyes, straining to keep the blurring world in focus.
Two...three monster strides away from the barrel and then she grabbed the reins with both hands, angling him for the next turn, mentally preparing herself in case he overreacted to the approaching wall, a rare quirk of his that’d landed her in hot water before.
Play it safe or go for it?
Driving Harley hard, they hurtled full out toward the second barrel, making back precious time, she prayed. Her lungs burned and her eyes stung, her face flaming as Harley’s silver mane streamed across it. She kept her eyes trained to the side of the barrel that seemed to slide and waver like a mirage.
Keeping her hands still despite the tremors in her gut, she angled her body back to keep Harley from anticipating and turning too soon.
The tension squeezing her chest eased a tiny bit as he responded to her cue. His gait held steady. Still. She could feel him tensing. Better play it safe, especially since the barrel seemed to jump before her eyes. Keeping her hands light on the reins, she gave him extra time she couldn’t afford on the back end of the turn in case he blew through it and didn’t bend enough. She rotated her entire body as they rounded and squinted in the direction of the last barrel.
Go, Harley.
Go.
She dug her heels into his flanks, asking for whatever Harley had left, and he responded, lunging faster still, closing the distance to the final barrel at lightning speed. Would she be able to judge it with her vision playing tricks? Air stuck in her lungs, and her pulse throbbed painfully in her throat as they committed to the final turn. They had to get around this perfectly. No room for error.
She eased back to her pockets and applied steady pressure, willing him to arc smoothly. In a flawless pivot, Harley beamed around the barrel like a champ. Then they dashed past and the world rushed back in, a tidal force, the crowd erupting as she swept under the arena and down the gated corridor.
“Fourteen ten,” the announcer crowed as she pulled up, then hopped off Harley.
“Not a bad start,” she said to him, patting his steaming neck, grateful to have made it through clean given her distorted vision. Her eyesight, corrected with strong contacts, had never been great. Lately, though, she’d begun seeing spots on bright and sunny days. Then parts of her vision started shifting in and out of focus. Exhaustion from her nonstop schedule seemed the most likely culprit, but she’d been through years of touring without anything like this ever happening before.
Harley’s silver tail lashed a fly on his rippling black hindquarter. He nickered at her and gave her a sidelong look.
