Wanted: fake fiancée for a wealthy rancher
Benefits: all your dreams come true
#1 Rule: don’t fall in love
The woman on his doorstep is brash, independent and holding a baby! His father won’t approve, which makes her perfect for Joshua Grayson’s scheme. He’ll pretend he’s marrying unsuitable Danielle Kelly to keep his father from meddling. He won’t be tempted to touch her, to claim her...or to fall in love.
She was supposed to be flirtatious.
To play the part of the moneygrubbing tart with loose morals he needed her to be, that his family would expect her to be. But right now she was shocked into immobility.
He moved his hands then, sliding them around the back of her neck, down between her shoulder blades, along the line of her spine until his hands spanned her waist. She arched, wishing she could press her body against his. Wishing she could do something to close the distance between them. Because he was still sitting in his chair and she in hers.
He pulled away, and she followed him, leaning into him with an almost humiliating desperation, wanting to taste him again. To be kissed again. By Joshua Grayson, the man she was committing an insane kind of fraud with. The man who had hired her to play the part of his pretend fiancée.
“That will do,” he said, lifting his hand and squeezing her chin gently, those blue eyes glinting with a sharpness that cut straight to her soul. “Yes, Ms. Kelly, that will do quite nicely.”
* * *
Claim Me, Cowboy is part of the Copper Ridge series from New York Times bestselling author Maisey Yates
Dear Reader,
I read a news story about a man who decided to find his son a wife by placing an ad for him in the paper. And of course, I thought, there’s a book in that.
It turned out there wasn’t just one book in that, but a few.
This particular story starts off with an ad placed by a well-meaning and meddling father. Joshua Grayson’s father thinks his son would be happier if he had a wife. Joshua disagrees. And so he places a counter ad of his own, looking for an unsuitable woman to pose as his prospective fiancée, in order to teach his dad a lesson.
But what he gets is a whole lot more than he bargained for.
Love can come from the most unexpected places, and Danielle Kelly and the baby she brings along with her to Joshua’s house are definitely unexpected. Definitely unsuitable.
And undoubtedly everything the confirmed bachelor needs.
This book is proof that story inspiration can come from a variety of places. I had fun writing it, and I hope you enjoy it, too.
Happy reading!
Maisey
Maisey Yates
Claim Me, Cowboy
Maisey Yates is a New York Times bestselling author of more than thirty romance novels. She has a coffee habit she has no interest in kicking and a slight Pinterest addiction. She lives with her husband and children in the Pacific Northwest. When Maisey isn’t writing, she can be found singing in the grocery store, shopping for shoes online and probably not doing dishes. Check out her website: maiseyyates.com.
Books by Maisey Yates
Harlequin Desire
Copper Ridge
Take Me, Cowboy
Hold Me, Cowboy
Seduce Me, Cowboy
Claim Me, Cowboy
Texas Cattleman’s Club: The Impostor
The Rancher’s Baby
HQN Books
Copper Ridge
Shoulda Been a Cowboy
Part Time Cowboy
Brokedown Cowboy
Bad News Cowboy
A Copper Ridge Christmas
Take Me, Cowboy
One Night Charmer
Visit her Author Profile page on www.Harlequin.com, or maiseyyates.com, for more titles!
Join Harlequin My Rewards today and earn a FREE ebook!
Click here to Join Harlequin My Rewards
http://www.harlequin.com/myrewards.html?mt=loyalty&cmpid=EBOOBPBPA201602010002
For Jackie Ashenden, my conflict guru and dear friend. Without you my books would take a heck of a lot longer to write, and my life would be a heck of a lot more boring.
Thank you for everything. Always.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Epilogue
Excerpt from His Best Friend’s Sister by Sarah M. Anderson
November 1, 2017
LOOKING FOR A WIFE—
Wealthy bachelor, 34, looking for a wife. Never married, no children. Needs a partner who can attend business and social events around the world. Must be willing to move to Copper Ridge, Oregon. Perks include: travel, an allowance, residence in several multimillion-dollar homes.
November 5, 2017
LOOKING FOR AN UNSUITABLE WIFE—
Wealthy bachelor, 34, irritated, looking for a woman to pretend to be my fiancée in order to teach my meddling father a lesson. Need a partner who is rough around the edges. Must be willing to come to Copper Ridge, Oregon, for at least thirty days. Generous compensation provided.
One
“No. You do not need to send pics.”
Joshua Grayson looked out the window of his office and did not feel the kind of calm he ought to feel.
He’d moved back to Copper Ridge six months ago from Seattle, happily trading in a man-made, rectangular skyline for the natural curve of the mountains.
Not the best thing for an architect to feel, perhaps. But he spent his working hours dealing in design, in business. Numbers. Black, white and the bottom line. There was something about looking out at the mountains that restarted him.
That, and getting on the back of a horse. Riding from one end of the property to the other. The wind blocking out every other sound except hoofbeats on the earth.
Right now, he doubted anything would decrease the tension he was feeling from dealing with the fallout of his father’s ridiculous ad. Another attempt by the old man to make Joshua live the life his father wanted him to.
The only kind of life his father considered successful: a wife, children.
He couldn’t understand why Joshua didn’t want the same.
No. That kind of life was for another man, one with another past and another future. It was not for Joshua. And that was why he was going to teach his father a lesson.
But not with Brindy, who wanted to send him selfies with “no filter.”
The sound she made in response to his refusal was so petulant he almost laughed.
“But your ad said...”
“That,” he said,
