Ryder Carey… isn’t. Not really.

But his larger-than-life father isn’t getting any better, by all reports, as hard as it is for him to believe it. And Ryder isn’t getting any younger, which is a problem, since he’s been riding bulls and winning belts since he left town after high school. He figures it’s high time he comes back home to be a part of his family again, especially now.

But his family isn’t the only thing he has to deal with.

There’s also Rosie Stark.

Ryder knew Rosie back when they were kids, the way he knew everyone in Cowboy Point. He mostly knew the rest of her family, since the Starks have been in town almost as long as the Careys. And everyone knows the old lodge that sits up above their little town that the Starks used to run, then let fall into disrepair, and are now renovating.

Yet the Rosie he encountered three years ago after an American Extreme Bull Riders Tour weekend in Austin was not the little girl he vaguely remembered. Rosie was all grown up and way too pretty. And the night they shared was the kind of night that made a man’s head spin.

By the time morning came, Ryder decided that a spinning head was the kind of trouble he didn’t need. Or maybe it was that she tasted like forever, and he wasn’t ready for that. He wasn’t sure he’d ever be ready for that.

He wasn’t sorry about that—but the way he’d handled it had been less that ideal.

That he hadn’t acted the way he should have—the way a man ought to have, after a night like the one they’d shared— had stuck with him ever since. The same way the night itself had, but he tries not to dwell on that.

He settles in at home, parking his truck and trailer in the plot of land that had been carved out of the family ranch and given to him when he and his twin had turned 18. Wilder had gone ahead and built himself a whole house, but Ryder hadn’t done much more than take down a few trees and clean things up when he found himself in this part of Montana. Which wasn’t often.

But after he checks in with his father and stepmother, and all of his brothers—especially Wilder, who knows him too well—Ryder decides it’s time to go offer Rosie an overdue apology. He assumes she’ll laugh at him from the house she shares with her husband and family, having long since forgotten all about him. He figures she might not even remember him.

It was a long time ago, after all.

Still, he knows he has to do it. Not to make himself feel better, but because she deserves it. She deserved to be treated better at the time, and he’ll make sure she hears that from his mouth. Then he’ll leave her to whatever domestic bliss she’s created since, because she deserves that too.But when he turns up at Rosie’s house, he’s first struck by the fact that she still seems to have the same power over him that she did back then. That he hadn’t blown it all up out of proportion in his mind over the years.

That’s a sucker punch. But there’s a bigger one.

Two small boys who look like dead ringers for Ryder and Wilder when they were that age.

Two small boys who cannot possibly have any father in this earth…except him.

Happy release day to Megan for book three in her Carey’s of Cowboy Point series, The Cowboy’s Secret Babies!

About the Author

USA Today bestselling, multi-award-nominated, and critically-acclaimed author Megan Crane has written more than 150 books, and shows no sign of slowing down. She publishes romance as Megan Crane and M.M. Crane with an exciting backlist of women’s fiction, rom-coms, chick lit, and young adult novels. She’s also won a large and loyal fanbase as Caitlin Crews with Harlequin Presents, Harlequin Dare, Harlequin Historical, and contemporary cowboy books. And for paranormal fun, Megan partners with Nicole Helm to publish as Hazel Beck for her witchy rom-com novels.

Megan has a Masters and Ph.D. in English Literature, has taught creative writing classes in places like UCLA Extension’s prestigious Writers’ Program, and is always available to give workshops (or her opinion). She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her comic book artist husband, though, at any given time, she is likely to either be huddled in a coffee shop somewhere or off traveling the world. Preferably both.