What the Cowboy Never Wanted

Among the MacFarlands, Blane is the large, unsmiling man who keeps watch from the edge of the room and would rather meet a threat than admit what he feels.

A security assignment in London introduces him to Bea, a widow who has spent two years making sure her next chapter belongs entirely to her.

She is leaving England for an old house in a Cretan village above the sea, and she has no plan to let another man shape that future.

He is a Montana cowboy who answers in scowls, shows up when the work is too much for one person, and grows irritable when something will not be solved.

She talks into the quiet, draws a laugh out of him, and listens to him deny it ever happened.

One shared day should fade into a fond memory—Crete ahead of her, Montana ahead of him—but the kiss they both want is already making sensible look like a losing bet.