Once Upon a Cowboy. Pamela Tracy

      “Unca Joel is walking with me. You can come?” little Caleb asked Beth.

      “No, but thank you for the offer. I need to be heading home. I’ve got some things to do,” Beth replied.

      “Go ahead, walk with us,” Joel invited. “I’ll use the time to ask you out again and to thank you for saving my life.”

      “I didn’t save your life. You’d have regained consciousness and driven yourself to the hospital.”

      “No, I wouldn’t have. I needed you.”

      “Well, you’ve said thank-you already. That’s enough.” She checked her watch. “I need to be going.”

      “You’re right,” Joel jumped in. “Going out with me? Tonight? Dinner?”

      “Joel, you’ll be here for a few months and then you’ll leave. You’ve always been really good at leaving people behind,” Beth said, tussling Caleb’s hair and heading for her car.

      “You take every opportunity to throw that in my face. Maybe I never knew they cared.”

      It was too late. She was out of hearing range.

      Caleb tugged on Joel’s pant leg. “I care.”

      Dear Reader,

      The idea for Once Upon a Cowboy came to me during a church service. No, really, I was paying attention to the sermon about the prodigal son. It’s just that the minister was touching on some points I’d never really considered. First was the real definition of prodigal. It means heavy spending. For years, I thought it meant absent. Then, the lesson veered toward what the father could have done from the beginning, when his son asked for the inheritance early. The father could have taken his son to the city gate and had him stoned for being disobedient.

      When I think about how many times I’ve been disobedient … And, if you want to know the truth, I always pay attention to Prodigal Son sermons because I’ve never quite been able to shake the belief that the older son had something to complain about.

      Thus, Once Upon a Cowboy was born, with a returning hero (Joel) who missed out in so many family memories but is soon determined not to miss out on any more—especially when he falls in love with a most unlikely heroine. Then, there’s the heroine (Beth) who has to learn that taking risks is part of life—and who better to teach her than a wounded cowboy who wants to get in the saddle again? Throw in an older brother who needs his younger brother more than he’ll admit, a trio of nephews who do not understand the concept of privacy, a stepfather who only wants what’s best for both his boys, and a misguided mother who needs forgiveness, and you have the kind of story that only happily-ever-after can provide.

      Thank you so much for reading Once Upon a Cowboy.

       Once Upon a Cowboy

      Pamela Tracy

      

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

      But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.

      —Luke 15:20

      To those returning and those who never strayed: both take courage. Also, to the mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers who welcome the wanderers home.

      Chapter One

      A memory knocked.

      Before Beth Armstrong had time to even think about opening the door to the past, she slammed on her brakes, hard. Her wheels slid and the car went sideways until she finally came to an abrupt stop facing the royal blue truck that looked hauntingly familiar.

      The truck wasn’t going anywhere. Not after the power skid that took it off-road, bouncing over an irrigation ditch and plowing into the McClanahans’ fence.

       Help me, Lord, and please let whoever is in there be all right. Don’t let this be a fatality.

      She pushed open her car’s door and—with only the moon to witness her flight—managed to make it through the grass, then down and up the irrigation ditch. She climbed clumsily over one of the broken fence posts using the truck to steady herself.

      The vehicle was caught in mangled barbed wire and still warm to the touch. The smell of gas and exhaust warred with the strong aroma of the McClanahans’ hay field. She balanced on the shattered fence, trying to get the courage to move forward and wishing she had more than the glow from her headlights combined with the truck’s taillights to assist her. As if answering her prayer, the truck’s driver’s side door opened, and the light from the inside dome gave her all the illumination she needed.

      The memory stopped knocking. Just one look at what lay in the truck’s bed—a gear bag and bull rope—opened the door to the past and let the memory in.

      Joel McCreedy.

      The prodigal son.

      It had been more than eight years since he’d been the focus of her girlhood fantasies.

      He didn’t look like a fantasy now. He slouched forward against the steering wheel, his face turned her way. His eyes were closed, and a trickle of blood ran from a cut just above his left eye. She closed her eyes. Blood. Not good.

      Opening her eyes, she reached in and gently touched his shoulder. “Joel, are you awake? Are you okay?” Her voice sounded loud in the silence of the moment. He didn’t move at all. She looked at his chest to make sure it moved up and down. It did. He was still alive.

      “Joel!”

      He moaned, didn’t open his eyes and then slumped forward. This time, his chest hit the horn. Beth nearly toppled over thanks to her precarious perch, before shouting again, this time over the noise, “Joel!”

      Well, okay, she could holler Joel’s name until the cows came home for all the good it would do. Not that he’d be able to hear her over the blare of his horn. Carefully, she nudged him back so he wasn’t pushed against the steering wheel. Nothing changed, not the expression on his face or the stillness of his body.

      Roanoke had one ambulance, and she could get him to town faster than it could get here, most likely. “Joel, you might need to help a bit here.”

      His eyelids fluttered, and he grunted. She took both hands and shoved with all her strength. As he slowly adjusted to the passenger side, papers, folders and what looked like a Bible fell to the floorboard. “You weigh a ton, Joel,” she muttered.

      “And that’s just my aching head,” he moaned.

      Good, at least he was conscious and somewhat lucid. When he was finally settled on the passenger side, she let out her breath. She got behind the wheel and tried closing the door—no such luck—so she buckled her seat belt and put his truck in Reverse.

      One thing about old, old trucks. They were made of pure steel. Backing up, Beth managed to destroy a bit more of the McClanahans’ fence. She bounced over the irrigation ditch and skidded only a bit on the dirt road as she aimed for traction and headed into town, stopping just long enough to turn off her own car’s headlights and grab her purse, before hurrying back to Joel’s truck.

      He hadn’t moved.

      With one hand clutching the door closed and the other clasped tight on the steering wheel, she made it maybe half a mile before Joel finally stirred again and turned to look at her. In the shadows, she couldn’t see his eyes, but she knew they were a deep brown and full of hurt.

      She had a million questions and not all of them had to do with his health. Joel McCreedy, the prodigal son, back in Roanoke, Iowa. He must have just arrived, because