Book 4: The Cowboy’s Sweet Elopement featuring sweetheart veterinarian Brant Wylder!
ebook price $4.99
Paperbacks also available.
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LARGE PRINT PAPERBACK AMAZON
LARGE PRINT PAPERBACK BARNES & NOBLE
Veterinarian Brant Wylder is determined to get out of the friend zone!
April MacFarlane wishes her best friend, veterinarian, Brant Wylder would see her as more than another rescue. Someone he might choose for his own happily ever after.
Can she convince him the only thing in need of rescue is her heart?
Brant knows April’s life is a mess, and figures the last thing she needs is her BFF hitting on her. After all, he just extracted her from a loveless marriage, gave her a job, as well as a home for her and her four-year-old son. Plus, she’s got to be freaking out over the sudden return of her first love, the man everyone believes came to win her back…
There’s no way April’s ready for love.
But when Brant and April find themselves on the doorstep to the local chapel on New Year’s Eve, ready to say “I do” for reasons of practicality, will this cowboy find a way to move out of the friend zone and into the husband zone?
Find out in The Cowboy’s Sweet Elopement, a friends to lovers sweet romance which can be read alone or within The Cowboys of Sweetheart Creek, Texas series.
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” Kathryn
“” Rebecca
SNEAK PEEK FROM THE COWBOY’S SWEET ELOPEMENT:
“Where’s the gift for Brant?” April MacFarlane asked her four-year-old son, as she sifted through the torn wrapping paper under the small tree by the front window. It was a slim blue package, and she feared it might have gotten shredded or lost in the Christmas-morning mess.
Kurt beamed up at her, his face smeared with the chocolate he’d eaten from his Christmas stocking. He’d barely stopped moving since six that morning, his belief in Santa and everything good still strong despite the recent divorce of his parents. Christmas was truly magical.
Even Heath, Kurt’s father, had paused his battle with her long enough to get their son a gift—though he hadn’t yet arrived for a quick morning hello as promised, and it was nearly noon.
“Here it is,” April exclaimed, pulling the wrinkled package out from under a yellow tractor. She smoothed the wrapping paper, knowing her son had worked hard on this gift for their family friend Brant Wylder, who was due to pop by shortly.
Kurt bounced his way across the couch and snagged it from her hands. “I want to give it to Daddy Brant.”
“Daddy Brant?” she repeated, her body stilling.
It was true the two of them had spent more time around Brant lately, and that her son looked up to him. But there was no reason for him to grant the sweetheart of a man daddy status. Even though there had been the odd heated look passing between her and Brant lately.
But he wasn’t about to be Kurt’s new daddy anytime soon. Brant had a habit of rescuing women like the strays that came into his veterinarian clinic, and sadly, that was April’s current status. So if he did make a move, it would likely be borne out of his need to save her. It wouldn’t be because he saw her as a sexy and appealing woman he wanted to date.
But that’s what New Year’s resolutions were for. Even though the holiday was a week away, April had already made hers. She was going to straighten out her life, and prove to herself and the community that she had become more than the impetuous gal Brant had grown up alongside on the ranch. More than some female who cried on his shoulder when life and her whirlwind romances didn’t turn out like her fantasies. More than a woman down on her luck and in need of a hand up.
“When’s he gonna get here?” Kurt asked, bouncing across the cushions again.
April picked him up and set him on the floor. “No jumping on the couch. And you can’t call Brant ‘Daddy.’ He’s just a friend.”
“Colby got a new daddy. Why can’t I?”
“You have one,” April said firmly. Heath just didn’t act like a dad very often. Partly because his job as a rodeo stock contractor kept him on the road a lot, and partly because he hadn’t been quite ready to be a father. Or a husband.
“I never see Daddy,” Kurt whined.
April sighed, and whispered, “I know, sweetie.”
“Why can’t Brant be my daddy?” Kurt asked with a stubborn pout.
“It doesn’t work that way.” Although she had to admit the man would make an amazing father. He’d been the one to teach Kurt how to tie his shoelaces and had been there when he’d counted to ten for the first time, last week. He was sweet, kind, and made both her and Kurt happy.
“Brant’s just a friend,” April repeated, her heart sinking as she admitted that truth.
“Is he a firefighter?”
“What? No. He’s a veterinarian and a rancher. You know that.” Kurt spent time on the Sweet Meadows Ranch as well as at Brant’s clinic, Call of the Wyld(er), where she worked as a part-time receptionist.
“Mrs. Fisher said Daddy Brant is good at rescuing you.”
April rocked back on her heels. All the more reason to get her life on track again if even the gossips at the diner saw her in the same way she feared Brant did, and were talking about it in front of her son.
“He’s a helpful friend,” April said patiently. “You ignore what you hear from others, okay? And you need to call him Brant, sweetie. Not Daddy Brant.”
She could only imagine the gossip that would start if that name got out. Brant had been instrumental in helping her leave her marriage to Heath just before Christmas, and some people were already speculating about her and Brant, even though she’d spent two years on her own working up the courage to quit.
“Now go wash your face. He’ll be here soon.”
Kurt ran around the couch, making revving sounds. “I hope he gets here right now!”
“Wash your face.”
Her son spun off into the bathroom, but when the doorbell rang moments later, he ran out again, dripping chocolaty water.
“Dry your face!” April said, watching the drops hit the floor. “But wash better first, okay?”
Kurt pivoted sharply, returning to his task. April took a moment to smooth her red sweater before heading to the door. One hand on the knob, she inhaled, then exhaled, calming the butterflies in her stomach. When she and Brant were teenagers, he’d been a strong, dependable friend, and nothing more.
But somewhere along the line things had changed for her. Somewhere between all the tears Brant had dried when she’d whirlwind dated his older brother Cole, breaking up so many times and making up again during their early twenties that April had lost count. Somewhere between then and finding out she was pregnant, after what was supposed to be a rebound relationship with Heath Thompson. Or maybe it had changed more recently, when she’d walked away from her marriage to rebuild her life, and had found Brant there, hand extended, ready to help.
He had always been there for her, encouraging her to laugh, supporting her decisions, making her now-generous curves feel downright sexy despite how tightly her clothes fit. But she’d only recently realized that he was exactly what she’d always been looking for. And that he was returning her lingering gazes.
All she had to do was straighten out her life and be a strong, self-sufficient woman who could stand as an equal in front of him, ready to offer her heart.
With one last inhale to battle the butterflies, April opened the door, unable to hide her cheerful smile at seeing a handsome Brant Wylder on her doorstep.
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Keep reading!
ebook price $4.99
Also available in paperback!
Copyright Jean Oram 2021