Lost Lady - Leanne Karella

• Author: Leanne Karella
• Publisher: Wings ePress
• Year: 2006
• Genre: Contemporary Cowboy Romance
• Setting: Interior British Columbia
• Purchase: Lost Lady
  • e-ISBN 1-59088-515-5
  • Print-ISBN 1-59088-538-4

Book Description

Gentle talkin' Joe McIntyre needed a cook for the Double H guest ranch. Instead, he got a woman with no memory of her past, and who brings out every protective instinct he ever possessed.

Joe and Jenny find strength, comfort and love in each other's arms. But is that love unbreakable, or will the final pieces of Jenny's past tear them apart forever?

Reviews

• "...will have readers crying one minute and smiling the next, and leave them overwhelmed with the sensation of WOW." - 5 Angels and RECOMMENDED READ - Fallen Angel Reviews

• "... a beautiful romance that should be savored. Be prepared to laugh, to cry, and to exalt in the triumph of love while reading this heartwarming tale." - 5 Hearts - Love Romances

Teaser

Jenny Smith stared at the long, dusty road in front of her and once again questioned the impetuousness of her journey. Sighing, she swiped the back of her wrist across her forehead, wishing for a hat that blocked more of the blistering sun than her cheap baseball cap. One painful step at a time, she made her way alongside the gravel road. The shrubs and dirt were marginally easier on her tired feet than the rough rocks on the road.

As she shifted the small backpack containing her worldly goods onto her left shoulder, she silently cursed her dust-dry mouth. She’d run out of water almost an hour ago, and now she’d gone far beyond parched. Her stomach quivered with queasiness, and pain throbbed behind her eyes. She had no idea how far she had left to go.

To convince herself to keep going, Jenny unrolled the newspaper she clutched, seeking the ad she’d circled nearly three days ago while sitting in a doctor’s office in Williams Lake, British Columbia.

The ad read:

Help needed! Chef for guest ranch. Must be able to prepare three meals a day for up to fifteen people. Double H Ranch, Cache Creek, B.C. See Joe McIntyre.

At a loss for an alternative, Jenny had packed her measly belongings into a backpack one of the nurses at the hospital had given her, and then bought a bus ticket to Cache Creek with the money donated by the nurses and doctors of the Williams Lake Hospital.

The bus had arrived in the tiny town of Cache Creek a little after one in the morning. After spending the remainder of the night in the bus station, catching catnaps between fits of restlessness, she asked for directions to the Double H. The walk wasn’t supposed to have been more than thirteen miles, a four-hour hike, in her estimate. But by eight that morning, the heat had been sweltering, slowing her pace to almost a crawl.

She seriously began to question her sanity.

A little giggle, even to herself sounding a bit hysterical, bubbled out of her. She’d been seriously questioning her sanity for several months now. She didn’t even know if she was qualified to cook for fifteen people. And what if this Joe McIntyre didn’t give her the job? What if someone else had already filled the position?

What in God’s name was she doing out here in the blazing heat of midday?

As she crested another one of the numerous hills, she finally saw her destination. Or had she begun to hallucinate? What stood before her looked nothing like what she’d pictured in her mind. Sure, there were barns, but the big log house would be more suited to a ski chalet set in the mountains than a ranch house set among sagebrush and mesquite. And there were other houses. A few of them. Horses grazed in the corrals beyond the barns. Not a cow in sight.

Oh, no, what if this is the wrong ranch?

~ * ~

Joe McIntyre spread ointment on the sturdy stallion’s haunch. “That’s a boy,” he said in a soothing, almost cooing manner. The horse flinched at the sting of the ointment and nudged Joe’s shoulder in protest. “I know, big guy. You’ll be back in fighting form in a few days.”

Stepping out of the stall after reassuring the horse with a few well-placed scratches, Joe turned toward his long time friend and partner. “Chiggar will be fine, Colton. It’s not a bad wound.”

The men started down the long aisle between stalls toward the door of the barn. Huge exhaust fans, set high in the eaves, blew air through to keep the animals cool.

“Thanks Joe, I was really worried about him. I can’t believe he took on a wild stallion in a fight.” Colton chuckled. “And it was over me, not some pretty young mare.”

Joe had to laugh, too. Chiggar had been born on the ranch nearly ten years ago. Joe had trained him to be a good cutting horse for working with the cattle, but Colton had adopted him as his own. Now the old boy had gone to battle for his owner. Not a bad thing, seeing that if Chiggar hadn’t taken on the stallion, Colton probably would have been trampled to death.

Joe couldn’t imagine his life without Colton. Though no blood relation bound them, they’d been closer than brothers for more than twenty years. The thought of something happening to Colton sent a cold shiver through him. Colton, Colton’s wife and their children were Joe’s only family.

He glanced over at Colton as they stepped from the cool barn into the arid desert heat that sucked the air right out of his lungs and the moisture from his mouth. The temperature had been hovering around one hundred and ten for several days. The land was dry. There’d been no hint of rain for over a month.

“You coming in to see Cassie?” Colton swiped the sweat off his brow before resettling his charcoal gray Stetson on his head. “She hates being stuck in the house all day with no one but the kids to entertain her.”

Cassie, the sweetheart, was seven and a half months pregnant with twins and was supposed to stay off her feet. Colton and Cassie had only been married a year and they already had a set of adopted twin five-year-olds, Wolf and Willow. “Of course. I miss having her around. And since there isn’t a lot we can get done in this heat, I might as well enjoy some womanly company and air conditioning.” Joe chuckled at Colton’s narrow-eyed glare. “Even if it is your woman.”

There was nothing Joe enjoyed more than seeing Colton happy. The fact that there was finally a woman on the Double H to add her charm, her wit, and her temper when needed, was definitely a bonus in his book.

Joe was right behind Colton as they stepped into the shade of the wide, southern-style porch that wound around the big log home Wyatt, Colton’s father, had built after Colton adopted the twins.

Just as he reached the door, Joe glanced back and saw someone coming down the road.

“You expecting someone, Cole?” he asked as he stepped back down the steps onto the gravel path.

Colton came down next to him. “Nope. Not today. And who in blazes would be out walking in this heat? We’re not even taking the horses out in it.”

Joe tipped his buff-colored cowboy hat back a bit and squinted through the heat waves shimmering off the sun-scorched ground. “Looks like a woman.”

Joe and Colton headed across the yard toward her. She was an itty-bitty thing, couldn’t be much more than five feet tall. Her faded blue jeans were a good two sizes too big, barely hanging on her hips. She looked like she could use a few solid meals. The strap of a knapsack hung over one shoulder. Her head, covered with a black baseball hat, hung down as she stared at the ground.

As they grew closer, Colton called out to her.

Her head lifted. She stopped dead in her tracks and her mouth dropped open.

“Welcome to the Double H,” Colton said as they approached her. “Can we help you with something?”

Her gaze swept between Joe and Colton, her eyes wide with what Joe recognized as fear. Then those pretty, wide eyes settled on Joe. They were the most intriguing shade of golden brown he’d ever seen, so light they were almost amber.

“Ma’am?” Joe asked softly. Her cheeks glowed a dangerous shade of red. Her full lips looked chapped and pale. Limp tendrils of sweat-dampened hair clung to her long, shapely neck.

Her mouth snapped shut and she glanced at Colton, then back to Joe. She visibly shivered in the blazing heat.

“Ma’am,” Joe said in the easy, gentle voice he used when he worked with frightened animals. He could see the fear and confusion in those lovely eyes and didn’t want to alarm her further. She looked very... lost. “I think we need to get you in out of the sun. You’re looking a might peaked there, sweetheart.”

The lady held out her hand. In it was a newspaper. Just as her pale lips opened and Joe expected her to say something, her eyes fluttered and she started to crumple. Both Joe and Colton made a grab for her. Joe got his arm around her just before she hit the ground.