A Cowboy To Kiss. Mary Leo

       Prologue

      “You can’t be a cowboy. You’re a girl,” ten-year-old Jake Scott stated as if everyone on the entire planet already knew this fact. Then he rolled his eyes and climbed up the side of the wooden horse corral, his cowboy boots slapping each rung with a loud thump while his small hands expertly grabbed hold, having done this many times before.

      When he arrived at the top, he perched himself on the thick rail, swung his feet over it and stared at the three horses his dad had recently purchased. They were taller than most of the other horses he’d ridden, and their height scared him as he watched them prance around the large space in a tight formation. His dad had promised that the brown-and-white paint would end up being his, once the animal was trained, of course. At the moment, Jake couldn’t even imagine getting anywhere near the young stallion without his dad close by. The horses had only recently been separated from their moms and were easily spooked in their new surroundings.

      “Haven’t you ever heard of a cowgirl?” Kenzie Grant countered as she deliberately followed him up the side of the corral, shoving her dumb doll into her back pocket. She never went anywhere without it. Even took it to the roundup. Who brings a doll to a roundup?

      As far as Jake could tell, this girl tried her darnedest to irritate his normally easygoing self. Ever since she’d arrived at the ranch with her family of mostly girls, Kenzie had been a constant thorn in Jake’s side. Her brother didn’t pay him much mind, and her sisters mostly stayed at the house. But Kenzie seemed to stick to him like glue.

      There was no getting rid of her. She followed him around all day like a lost baby goat, mimicking his cowboy ways, trying to learn something that no girl, especially a girl who wasn’t even nine years old yet, could do as good as a boy.

      “Aw, cowgirl’s not even a real word,” Jake said. “Not really. At least not from where I come from, and I come from Montana, where cowboying is a man’s world.”

      “Then what are you doing playing cowboy? You’re not a man. You’re just a kid, like I am.”

      “I gave up playing a long time ago, not like you, who still carries around a stupid doll.”

      “This doll’s not stupid. She’s smart. And for your information, this is a cowgirl who runs her own ranch...just like I will when I grow up. Don’t you know that kids can be anything they want to be? Don’t you have any imagination at all, Jake Scott?”

      Kenzie pulled herself up on the top rung, carefully swung each leg over the side, then sat down right next to Jake. Kenzie was tall for her age, and strong, stronger than Jake liked to admit. Plus, she was smart as a whip and could usually figure out even the toughest tasks Jake tried to stump her with.

      Kenzie Grant was just plain annoying.

      “Sure I do. Like I can imagine myself riding that palomino with the flaxen mane and tail until I’m an old man.” He nodded toward the horses, wondering if this newly declared cowgirl even knew which one was the palomino.

      “Horses only have a life expectancy of twenty-five to thirty years. You’ll hardly be an old man when it dies.”

      “Who said?”

      “My dad, and he knows a lot about horses. He used to raise them, which is exactly what I’m going to do when I grow up. I’m going to raise horses, and run a ranch, my own ranch, with cattle and a bull. We might even grow some potatoes. Idaho is the potato capital of the world.”

      She stretched out her arms to make her point. Who cared about a dumb ol’ potato anyway?

      Nobody, that was who. Especially nobody who lived in Montana.

      “There you go again. Making no sense. That’s not a ranch. That’s a farm. Ranchers don’t grow anything but livestock.”

      “I can grow anything I want, and I can do anything I want. All you want to do is ride some ol’ horse. You’re just jealous ’cause I’m going to be a rancher...a rancher who does it all. Now who’s stupid, Jake Scott? I don’t want to talk to you anymore today.”

      Then she twisted herself to get back down the side of the corral.

      “So what happens tomorrow? Are you going to talk to me tomorrow?”

      He suddenly didn’t want her to go. For all her orneriness, he liked having her around. His two brothers were a lot older, so they didn’t pay much attention to him, and his mom and dad were too busy with ranching to ask more than a million “did’ja” questions every day... Did’ja brush your teeth? Did’ja help clean out the stalls? Did’ja finish all your chores...

      “We’re leaving tomorrow. Don’t you know anything?”

      “Then I guess this means we won’t be talking at all.”

      “What do you care? I’m just a dumb cowgirl.”

      She climbed all the way down, then jumped off the bottom rung and ran off leaving him alone. He wanted to run after her, and turned to do it when he spotted her brother, Carson, coming up to meet her. Jake liked her brother, Carson. He could ride a horse better than any kid he’d ever seen and Jake had hoped that Carson would teach him a few tricks. That probably wouldn’t happen now that he’d told Kenzie all that silly stuff about her being a dumb cowgirl. He knew perfectly well that some girls were even better at ranch work than boys. He just didn’t want to admit it to Kenzie. She was only eight years old and he’d bet his new boots she was brave enough to ride that palomino his dad had brought home.

      He was simply too shy to admit it...and much too shy to admit he liked hanging with her, even if she did carry around a stupid doll.

       Chapter One

      Kenzie Grant had only one thought on her mind when she walked out the front door that morning: frozen semen.

      The way she had it figured, it was her best shot. She’d tried other forms of semen and they simply didn’t take or the specimen would be rendered useless before she’d even had a chance to use it.

      Semen was funny that way, she thought, just as unpredictable as the stud who provided it.

      “Are you confident this will work?” she asked her younger sister, the only doctor Kenzie trusted with their future. Coco wore a straw cowgirl hat over her short-cropped dark hair, a deep blue T-shirt, stretch jeans, and high work boots that laced up the front. Kenzie never could understand why anyone would prefer those to slip-on Western boots, but Coco rarely wore anything that didn’t lace up. She was the tallest of the four sisters, exactly six feet tall in her bare feet, and usually carted around a Yorkie named Punky. Today, Punky had to stay home. Apparently he was busy keeping a tiny kitten company that someone had recently left on Coco’s doorstep. Among Punky’s many virtues, he was an excellent babysitter to just about any creature in need, and that included cats of all sizes.

      “At this point, it’s your safest bet,” she told Kenzie, her gaze on the Teton Mountain range off in the distance. It was a particularly beautiful morning in Idaho’s Teton Valley, the crisp blue sky dappled with billowy white clouds and the sun bursting through, sending rays of golden sunlight streaming down to the ground in columns of warmth. The temperature had finally risen and Kenzie had dressed for the part in a brown T, boot-cut jeans, her favorite tan boots and a wide belt held in place with the All-Around Cowboy buckle she’d won four years ago at the local ranch rodeo, the belt and buckle riding low on her hips.

      Work gloves and her phone were stuffed in one back pocket, and a packet of spicy beef jerky in the other just in case she had to miss lunch, which had been almost every day last week. She was hoping this week would go easier.

      Dora and Dolly, the family’s yellow Labs, sniffed the ground as they searched for any new scents that may have dropped from the sky overnight, happy to chase after whatever