Cowboy Elite #2: Mike

She came to Texas to disappear. He’s the cowboy who refused to let her.

Olivia Langford had a thriving Manhattan dessert bar, a five-star reputation, and a life she’d built from scratch — until the night she catered the wrong party and watched the wrong man pull a trigger.

Now she’s Liv Ramsey, hiding behind a fake name, a burner phone, and a prayer, the new pastry chef at a remote West Texas dude ranch. All she needs is somewhere quiet enough to vanish.

She didn’t count on Mike Watkins.

A retired Marine combat medic turned cowboy ranch cook, Mike has spent years feeding people instead of patching them up.

The dust-covered city girl who stepped off a Greyhound and was brave enough to argue biscuit recipes with him on day one was supposed to be a seasonal hire — not the woman who’d undo every careful wall he’d built around his heart.

But shadows are circling the Watkins Ranch. A mafia boss has decided the only loose end left is the woman who saw too much.

And Mike didn’t survive combat to lose the woman who finally makes him feel alive.

She came to Bear Valley to hide.

She’s about to find out what it feels like to be found.