Once Upon a Cowboy By Maggie McGinnis
Whisper
Creek # 1
Releasing
June 30, 2015
Loveswept
In
this sexy Whisper Creek romance for readers of Kristan Higgins, Susan
Mallery, and Molly O’Keefe, a red-hot cowboy uses some Montana
magic to give a reclusive beauty her happily ever after.
Yoga
instructor Jessalyn Alcott radiates peace, calm, and serenity—on
the outside. Inside, she still feels like the broken, desperate girl
from the trailer park. She’s got dark secrets she can’t share,
which is why she never lets her relationships go beyond the third
date. But when she travels to the Whisper Creek dude ranch for a
friend’s wedding, Jess is enchanted by a cowboy whose deep blue
eyes, dimpled smile, and rock-hard body make it tough to remember why
she keeps running scared.
Cole
Driscoll has struggled to find his place on a family ranch where he’s
always played second fiddle. His future might be uncertain, but he’s
sure of one thing: He wants Jess by his side. Easier said than done.
When it comes to getting close, she’s full of excuses, and he longs
to fix the hurt he sees in her eyes. Now that she’s at Whisper
Creek, there’s nothing he wants more than to break down the walls
around her heart and heal her pain with the power of love.
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Jessalyn is known for her calming ways but it only masks the pain of her past. A past that she would be horrified if it was to let out. It was only when she received a letter about a past love one dying that it left cracks behind that wall she was hiding. Things start to get even more complicated when she is asked by her friends to say in town and she starts to fall for Cole. Her past is eating away at her and is looking to come around maybe with the help of her friends a Cole she'll be able to rid her demons.
I absolutely loved this book. I loved that there was a bit of snippets to let the readers onto what happened to Jessalyn but not completely give away what happened because once everything was out I was floored to what happened to her and how she was dealing with it now. This book is about hope and learning to let past grievance go. I loved that she was able to trust Cole and her friends to let them in on what happened to her. That mystery of the past and her relationship with Cole kept me hooked. I loved watching their relationship grow. I loved that in the ending she was able to get the courage to face her demons. (Is that a spoiler? Sorry if it is, just so hard to speak about what I love about this book without killing it!) I loved how Cole was with the children and Jessalyn. He was a overall great guy and I loved his character as well, but from the way I'm talking about this book you can tell that Jessalyn was my favorite character. I loved the story line. This is the type of book it gets easy to get sucked in and hard to let go of when its not over.
Fantastic start to the Whisper Creek Series, I'll be sure to keep my eye out on this series. I highly recommend you lovely readers to check out this book!
5 of 5 Stars!
JULY
25, THIRTEEN YEARS AGO
She’d
always imagined a gun would make a louder sound, especially on a
sticky summer night with only the crickets as competition. But it was
more of a pop—like a kids’ toy rather than a lethal weapon—as
Billy aimed it at the cashier and pulled the trigger.
Wait
in the car, he’d said.
I’m gonna get Old Man
Mack to sell me some beer.
So
she’d sat in the passenger seat, eyes glued on the store’s plate
glass front window, figuring the worst he was going to do was pull
his charming I-forgot-my-ID
act.
Her
hand went to her mouth as Mack grabbed his own chest, spun, and then
fell behind the counter. She felt blindly for the car door handle as
she watched Billy scoop bills from the cash drawer, but she couldn’t
get out fast enough. She heard a strangled sound that must have come
from her as he came flying out of the store carrying a case of Bud
and the money.
He
wrenched open the driver’s door and tossed the case toward her,
then gunned the engine before he had his door fully closed. Gravel
spit out behind them as he swung onto the pavement and shot the car
toward downtown, and she couldn’t seem to take a whole breath as
she watched the rearview mirror.
“That
was Mack.” Her voice came out in a whisper. “You just shot . . .
Mack.”
“You
know him?” Billy looked over at her, then grabbed her knee. Hard.
“Mack shoulda
let me have the beer, princess.”
He
squeezed harder, making her wince. “You didn’t see nothing, you
got that?”
“God,
Billy. We need to call the police. He needs an ambulance.” She
didn’t dare crane her neck to look out the back window, but
couldn’t get the sight of Mack crumpling behind the counter out of
her head.
Billy
let out a short, maniacal laugh that made her cringe. “People need
to learn who’s in charge around here, princess. Sometimes you gotta
teach hard lessons, you know?”
Oh,
she knew, all right. Mack wasn’t the only one Billy was trying to
teach lately. She felt for the door handle again, but the speedometer
was holding steady at forty. Leave it to Billy to shoot a guy cold,
then obey the speed limit all the way back to his apartment. She dug
her fingernails into her palm, desperate to be out of this
car—desperate to be as far away from Billy as possible.
She’d
had her breakup speech memorized for three weeks now, but still
hadn’t had the courage to deliver it. And now? She shivered, scared
to her very core. If Billy’d shoot Mack over a case of beer, what
would he do to her if
she tried to cut him loose?
“We
can’t just leave him there, Billy. What if he—dies?” Her voice
cracked as she pictured Mack handing her a piece of bubble gum every
Saturday when Grampy used to bring her in for a root beer and a
scratch ticket.
“Who
we gonna call, princess? The po-lice?”
He drew out the word like it amused him. Billy looked over at her
again, and she shrank toward the door. “We need to have a little
talk about this?”
“No.”
Their last little talk had
left her with a bag of frozen peas on her ribs and a headache that
didn’t go away for a week. She took a catchy breath. “No little
talk.”
“Good.”
He nodded, pointing toward the case on her lap. “Crack me one of
those brews, wouldja? I think I earned it.”
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