Holidays on the Ranch (Burnt Boot, Texas #1)

Holidays on the Ranch (Burnt Boot, Texas #1)

Carolyn Brown




Dear Readers,

Merry Christmas and welcome back to Burnt Boot, Texas!

Cowboy Boots for Christmas (Cowboy Not Included) has a brand-new cover and title, but the story is still the same. Set in the fictional town of Burnt Boot, Texas, where there’s a major feud going on between the Gallaghers and the Brennans, Holidays on the Ranch will kick off the Christmas season again for you this year, just like it did seven years ago.

One thing for sure in the Brown family, we all agree that home is where your boots are, just like Callie and Finn find out when they let go of the emotional baggage holding them down.

Here’s wishing you all happy holidays and that you fall in love with Callie and Finn all over again when you reread their story.

Thank you to all my readers for continuing to read my books, share them, and talk about them. Big thanks to Sourcebooks and my editor, Deb Werksman, for reissuing this book so all my readers who didn’t get it the first time around have a chance to read it. Thank you from the bottom of my heart to my wonderful agent, Erin Niumata and Folio Literary Management. And as always, thank you to my own cowboy who has stayed with me through thick and thin for fifty-five years. He can sure enough testify that it takes a special person to live with an author, and I can testify that I appreciate him for all he does to make my world a better place.

Until next time, may your lights all burn brightly and may love surround you.

Carolyn Brown





To Cathy Genna, with appreciation for all you do for romance authors!





Chapter 1


The third time is not always the charm.

Twice now, Finn O’Donnell had told the government he wasn’t interested in anything that the FBI, CIA, or any of the other alphabet agencies dangled at him like a carrot on a long stick in front of a donkey. All Finn wanted to do was watch his cattle grow fat on Salt Draw Ranch and be left alone with his dog, Shotgun.

So that black SUV coming down his lane could turn around and go on back to wherever the hell it came from. They didn’t have enough carrots in the world to make him leave his new home in Burnt Boot, Texas, and pick up his sniper rifle again. He leaned against the porch post, and with arms crossed over his broad chest, he waited.

The yellow hair on Shotgun’s back stood up like a punk rocker’s, and a low growl rumbled out of his throat. The dog took a step forward and Finn stuck a boot out to touch his leg. That’s all it took for the dog to heel even when his body quivered in anticipation of attacking something, like the wheels of that fancy SUV.

“Easy, boy. We can tell them to go to hell a third time easy as we did the first two.” He pushed mirrored sunglasses up a notch and removed his cowboy hat.

Dead grass and gravel crunched under the wheels of the black vehicle when it stopped in front of the low-slung, ranch-style house. Shotgun whined, but until Finn moved his boot, the dog wouldn’t bail off the porch and go after the intruders.

“Not yet. We’ll hear them out and then you can take a bite from the ass of their Italian suits as they get back in their van,” Finn said softly.

An identical vehicle turned down the lane and parked right behind the first one. This was something new. Maybe since he’d moved to Burnt Boot on his own ranch and wasn’t a part of his folks’ operation in central Texas, they thought they’d best send out a whole committee to persuade him. Finn looked out over the tops of the sunglasses but the SUV windows were tinted and he couldn’t see a damn thing.

“Looks like they’ve brought an extra van just for you, Shotgun. You want to join the army, old boy? You’ll have to do boot camp and learn to sniff out bombs and herd camels instead of cows. And boot camp involves more than chasing rabbits when I’m doing my evening run.”

He raked his dark hair back from his forehead and resettled his black felt cowboy hat on his head at an angle to shade his eyes better. Were they waiting for Christmas? If so, they were a little early because that was four weeks away.

He pulled his denim jacket tighter across his broad expanse of a chest and leaned on the porch post, his boot still touching Shotgun’s front leg. The entire O’Donnell family had chipped in the day after Thanksgiving to help him move from Comfort, Texas, to Burnt Boot. His herd woke up in holding pens and by nightfall they were grazing on the grass growing on Salt Draw three hundred miles away. His sister, two brothers, and a dozen cousins would put him in a straitjacket if he let the brass out there in those vans talk him back into the army after that move.

Then the door of the van flew open and a woman stepped out. He thought he was seeing things. Surely that couldn’t be his Callie.

***

Callie Brewster had listened to the man in the front seat of the SUV tell her all the reasons why she and her nephew should be in the Witness Protection Program. Now he was repeating himself and she didn’t want to hear any more, so she threw open the door the minute the vehicle stopped moving.

He said something about not getting out of the SUV until they’d talked to Finn, but she’d made up her mind. She stomped the legs of her jeans down over her boots and started across the yard. She damn sure didn’t need anyone to talk for her or before her either.

She didn’t need anyone to protect her. She could take the eyes out of a rattlesnake with any weapon the army slapped in her hands. She’d kept up her skills at the shooting range in Corpus Christi and kept in shape. But she did need someone to watch her back, and Finn O’Donnell had proven time and time again that he could damn sure do that.