LITMIR.BIZ

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      For Lesley—because mothers are always mothers, birth or otherwise.

      And for Cil—because so are sisters.

      CHAPTER ONE

      SHERIFF JED JACKSON eased down on the brake and slid one arm across to stop his deputy sliding off the front seat.

      ‘Well,’ he muttered to the grizzly bear of a dog who cocked an ear in response, ‘there’s something you don’t see every day.’

      A sea of loose steer spilled across the long, empty road out to the Double Bar C, their number swollen fence-to-fence to seal off the single lane accessway, all standing staring at one another, waiting for someone else to take the lead. That wasn’t the unusual part; loose cattle were common in these parts.

      He squinted out his windscreen. ‘What do you reckon she’s doing?’

      Adrift right in the middle of the massing herd, standing out white in a sea of brown hide, was a luxury sedan, and on its roof—standing out blue in a sea of white lacquer—was a lone female.

      Jed’s mouth twitched. Ten-fifty-fours weren’t usually this entertaining, or this sizeable. This road didn’t see much traffic, especially not with the Calhouns away, but a herd of cattle really couldn’t spend the night here. His eyes lifted again to the damsel in distress, still standing high and dry with her back to him, waving her hands shouting uselessly at the cattle.

      And clearly she couldn’t.

      He radioed dispatch and asked them to advise the Calhoun ranch of a fence breach, then he eased his foot off the brake and edged closer to the comical scene. The steer that weren’t staring at one another looked up at the woman expectantly.

      He pulled on the handbrake. ‘Stay.’

      Deputy looked disappointed but slouched back into the passenger seat, his enormous tongue lolling. Jed slid his hat on and slipped out the SUV’s door, leaving it gaping. The steer didn’t even blink at his arrival they were so fixated on the woman perched high above them.

      Not entirely without reason.

      That was a mighty fine pair of legs tucked into tight denim and spread into a sturdy A-shape. Not baggy denim, not the loose, hanging-low-enough-to-trip-on, did-someone-outlaw-belts, de-feminising denim.

      Fitted, faded, snug. As God intended jeans to be.

      Down at ground level, the length of her legs and the peach of a rear topping them wouldn’t have been all that gratuitous but, from his steer-eye view, her short blouse didn’t do much to offset, either.

      The moaning of the cattle had done a good job disguising his arrival but it was time to come clean. He pushed his hat back with a finger to the rim and raised his voice.

      ‘Ma’am, you realise it’s a state offence to hold a public assembly without a permit?’

      She spun so fast she almost went over, but she steadied herself on bare feet, and then lifted her chin with grace.

      Whoa. She was…

      His synapses forgot how they worked as he stared and he had to will them to resume sending the signals his body needed to keep breathing. He’d never been so grateful for his county-issue sunglasses in his life; without them she’d see his eyes as round and glazed as the hypnotised steer.

      ‘I hope there’s a siege happening somewhere!’ she called, sliding her hands up onto her middle. Her righteousness didn’t make her any less attractive. Those little clenched fists only accentuated the oblique angle where her waist became her hips. Her continuing complaint drew his eyes back up to the perfectly even teeth she flashed as she growled at him with her non-Texan vowels.

      ‘Because

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