Long, Tall Texans_ Boone (Long, Tall Texans #35) - Diana Palmer Page 0,80

one, this time. She works in a library.”

Keely smiled. “Good for Clark. How about Winnie?”

He hesitated. “I don’t know. She’s changed. She’s gone all silent lately. Probably mooning over Kilraven.” He shook his head. “That bird isn’t going to settle down in some small town. He’s got big city written all over him.”

Keely promised herself that she’d make time to talk to her best friend and let her cry it all out.

“Sleepy?” he asked.

She nuzzled against his shoulder. “Not really. Why? Did you have something in mind?” she teased.

“In fact, I did.” He leaned closer, brushed his mouth over hers in a whisper of contact. “Yeast rolls.”

Unprepared, she burst out laughing. “Yeast rolls?”

“I haven’t had a decent roll since before we married,” he pointed out, “and you’re all healed now. Besides, nobody makes bread like you do.”

“Well, if that’s how you feel, I’d love to bake you some yeast rolls!” she replied. Her eyes shimmered with amusement. “But I’d need a little encouragement, first.”

He pursed his lips. “What sort of encouragement?”

“Be inventive,” she coaxed.

He got to his feet, swung her up into his arms and started for the staircase. “Inventive,” he assured her with a chuckle, “is my middle name.”

She tucked her face under his chin and listened to the heavy, hard beat of his heart and smiled with anticipation. She felt as if she were being reimbursed for all the long years of loneliness and sorrow that she’d endured. Her scars, she decided, didn’t matter so much after all. And the happiness she’d found with Boone was worth every one.

* * * * *

Cowboy Cort Grier left Texas behind to get a fresh start. No entanglements, no problems—or so he thinks. So when he soon butts heads with his exasperating—but undeniably alluring—neighbor, Mina Michaels, Cord does his best to resist her appeal. But true love on the range might just be in store for this unexpected pair…

Read on for a sneak peek of Wyoming Heart,

the exciting new Wyoming Men romance

from New York Times bestselling author Diana Palmer!

CHAPTER ONE

CORT GRIER WAS disillusioned with life. He owned a huge Santa Gertrudis breeding stud ranch in West Texas. He was thirty-three now, in his prime, and he wanted to have a family. His father had remarried and moved to Vermont. His brothers, except for the second youngest, were all married with families. He wanted one of his own. But every woman he thought might be the one turned out to be after his money. The last one, a singer, had laughed when he mentioned children. She was in her own prime, she told him, and she had a career as a rising star. No way was she giving that up to live on some smelly ranch in Texas and start having babies. She wasn’t certain that she was ever going to want a child.

And so it went. Women had been a permissible pleasure for many years, and while no playboy, he’d had his share of beautiful, cultured lovers. The problem was that after a time, they all looked alike, felt alike, sounded alike. Perhaps, he told himself, he was jaded. Certainly, age hadn’t done much for his basically cynical nature. He found more pleasure these days in running the cattle ranch than he did in squiring debutantes around El Paso.

The ranch was a bone of contention with prospective brides. Every one of them enthused about his vast herds of Santa Gertrudis cattle, until they actually saw the ranch and realized that cattle were dusty and smelly. In fact, so were the cowboys who worked with them. One date had actually passed out when she watched one of the hands help pull a calf.

Not one of his dates had liked the idea of living so far from the city, especially around cattle and hay and the noise of ranch equipment. Park Avenue in New York would have suited them very well. Perhaps a few diamonds from Tiffany’s and an ensemble from one of the designers who showed their wares during Fashion Week. But cattle? No, they said. Never.

Cort had never liked the girl-next-door sort of woman. In fact, there were no girls next door when he was younger. Most of the ranchers around where he lived had sons. Lots of sons. Not one female in the bunch.

The point was, he reminded himself, that the kind of woman who’d like ranch living would most likely be a woman who’d grown up on a ranch. Someone who liked the outdoors and animals and didn’t mind