Excerpt: Even Cowboys Get the Blues by Amie Stuart
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About the Book
Tim Caldwell doesn’t do relationships…
Not after his wife walked out on him and their daughter ten years before. He’s got a well earned reputation as a Casanova Cowboy who’s never met a woman he couldn’t talk into bed…until Toni duBois. Disinterest isn’t something he’s is used to. Neither is playing by someone else’s rules.
Toni duBois doesn’t do forever…
After fifteen years away, Toni’s headed home to Louisiana in search of the answer she needs and the redemption she craves. She doesn’t plan on hanging around in Bluebonnet, Texas, any longer that she has to and she isn’t interested in a steamy, sexy entanglement. Regardless of how good looking said entanglement might be.
Rene Caldwell doesn’t do step-moms…
Unfortunately for both them, Tim’s teenage daughter, Rene has opinions. Lots of them. And she’s feeling a certain kind of way about Toni—mostly pissed. So when she pulls out all the stops to keep Toni from getting her hooks into Tim and Toni’s dark past is revealed, no one is safe from the fallout.
Excerpt
Daddy had woken up Thursday morning a total bear. I figured if The Witch wasn’t putting out, then she must be holding out, and that was bad. Very bad. She was holding out for the big leagues, the big time, the big ring–the rock even.
She wanted marriage.
I’d be damned if I survived three years of Skinner and her shit only to fall victim to a bigger enemy, so after Daddy left for the bar Thursday night, I sat on my bed, a pile of change and bills in front of me.
I’d decided to buy her off. Either I’d bribe her to sleep with Daddy, so he could get her out of his system, or bribe her to leave the damned state and go back to wherever the hell she’d come from. I didn’t know if two hundred thirty-seven dollars was enough, but it was all I had, every penny I’d saved for nearly two years in hopes of hiring a private detective to search for my mother. Another lost cause. I’d always had some vague plan in the back of my mind to find my mom, bring her home and reunite her and Daddy. Of all the screwed up schemes I’d ever come up with, that one honestly took the cake. I was stupid. It was stupid. But it was money well saved, and I figured my plan to get rid of Toni was pretty damn solid.
I waved before darting off in the direction Toni had gone. I found her stretched out on the bench, her feet propped up on the back. She raised her head and looked at me as I came to screeching halt not three feet from where she lay.
“Daddy’s looking for you.”
“I know.” Her voice was husky, and she sounded tired.
“And I have a proposition for you.” I slowly edged closer, my heart clanging against my ribs.
“What sort of proposition?”
“I don’t have a whole lot of time.” I looked over both my shoulders as if I expected Daddy to appear any minute. And I pretty much figured he would. He was so damned determined. “My Dad really likes you. But I don’t.” I opened my purse and yanked out the bag of bills and change, dropping it on her belly as my lip-gloss clattered on the bricks. “There’s two hundred and thirty-seven dollars in there. Everything I have in the world,” I said as I bent over and felt around on the ground for my lip gloss. “I’ll give it to you if you either leave town or have sex with my dad.”
“Rene Linette Caldwell, what the fuck are you doing?”
“Shit,” I muttered, my eyes on Toni.
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About the Author
Amie Stuart is the last of a dying breed: a Native Texan. She writes sexy, emotional contemporary romances set in small towns. In the past, she’s worked as a receptionist, a daycare office manager, delivered pizzas, and was even a hairdresser for five years–all fodder for the writing gig. That and all those Barbara Cartland romances she cut her teeth on.
None of those careers can compare to her favorite job: writer. She’s a storyteller through and through, even when she’s keeping tabs on her almost-grown sons and many pets, or organizing promo and planning trips for her day job as a personal assistant. She smokes, she drinks, she writes–sometimes at the same time.
