Cover Designer: Najla Qamber Designs
Cover Models: Willis Totten and Courtney Boyett
Description:
Three weeks. All Alyssa O’Riordan needs is three weeks away from her wealthy life in New York City, to clear her mind and decide what she wants from her life. A dude ranch in Wyoming seems like the perfect place for a temporary escape from the cage her life has become.
What she doesn’t expect is to come face-to-face with a handsome cowboy, who’s just as grumpy and rough as he is good-looking. All of a sudden, the promise of a relaxing, invigorating holiday seems long gone.
Three weeks. For Sean Maclaine, three weeks around the new guest feel like an eternity. After his first-hand experience with the upper class, rich daddy’s girls have become his worst nightmare, so when Alyssa O’Riordan shows up at his family’s ranch, he knows the time won’t go by fast enough. All he has to do is stay away from her, and count the hours until she finally goes back to New York.
Three weeks. Will three weeks be long enough for them to get over their prejudices and start looking beyond the surface?
EXCERPT
“Damn!”
Sean stood up and slammed his rubber gloves hard on the floor. Alyssa gave a start, and instinctively took a step back.
“What’s wrong?” she dared to ask, hoping it wasn’t something she’d said or done.
“Rosie’s ready to deliver and my parents will be gone all day. Even if I called them now they wouldn’t be back in time and I just can’t do this alone.”
He removed his cowboy hat and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. A second later, he started pacing nervously back and forth, scratching the back of his neck as if he wanted to peel the skin off. It was weird to see him like this, totally out of control.
“You’ve never done it before?” she asked, immediately regretting her surprised tone which would probably upset him even more. She braced herself for his reaction but instead he hung his head, and shook it in resignation.
“I’ve seen my father doing it a hundred times, but all I did was assist him. I wouldn’t know where to start.”
“I’m sure you’ll know what to do once you start. I can try to help, if you want.”
He stopped pacing and looked at her with a smirk on his face.
“Help? Ha! Wouldn’t you ruin your manicure?”
The way he cocked his left eyebrow and his ironic tone made blood rush straight to her head. Her cheeks flushed; she had never wanted to slap someone so much as she did now, not even Julian back in court.
“You know, if you don’t want people to treat you like a stupid countryman, maybe you should stop acting like one!”
This guy always managed to make her lose her mind; he seemed to bring out the most irrational and instinctive part of her. It scared her more than it annoyed her. She’d always considered herself a good-mannered girl who knew how to behave at dinners amongst upper-class people, but ever since she came here she’d become a different person—somebody she didn’t know and was afraid of.
He shrugged, totally unfazed by her words. “I thought you said you were a lawyer: what would you know about it? How could you possibly help? I didn’t know lawyers in New York had cows in their backyards.”
“You’re just a stupid, childish, pigheaded man with a smaller brain than that of a country rat,” she spat out, unable and unwilling to control herself any longer. She’d had enough of his harshness. She’d done nothing to deserve it. “I’ve grown so tired of your stupid prejudices. I don’t know what’s so wrong with me, apart from belonging to a wealthy family. I didn’t ask for it, and I’m sorry if it bothers you, but that’s the way it is.”
She turned around, meaning to leave, but she realized that if she did it would be just like admitting he was right, and that she was only a posh city girl who didn’t want to ruin her designer clothes and manicure. She turned back and glared at him.
“I wish I could just walk out and leave you to it, but I’m sorry for Rosie and I want to do something to help, even if it only means fetching a bucket of water or bringing some more hay.”
She folded her arms across her chest and shot him a look of defiance, as if to challenge him to say one more nasty word to her now. If only one of them could play the part of the adult then she knew she’d have to be it.
Sean stood up and slammed his rubber gloves hard on the floor. Alyssa gave a start, and instinctively took a step back.
“What’s wrong?” she dared to ask, hoping it wasn’t something she’d said or done.
“Rosie’s ready to deliver and my parents will be gone all day. Even if I called them now they wouldn’t be back in time and I just can’t do this alone.”
He removed his cowboy hat and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. A second later, he started pacing nervously back and forth, scratching the back of his neck as if he wanted to peel the skin off. It was weird to see him like this, totally out of control.
“You’ve never done it before?” she asked, immediately regretting her surprised tone which would probably upset him even more. She braced herself for his reaction but instead he hung his head, and shook it in resignation.
“I’ve seen my father doing it a hundred times, but all I did was assist him. I wouldn’t know where to start.”
“I’m sure you’ll know what to do once you start. I can try to help, if you want.”
He stopped pacing and looked at her with a smirk on his face.
“Help? Ha! Wouldn’t you ruin your manicure?”
The way he cocked his left eyebrow and his ironic tone made blood rush straight to her head. Her cheeks flushed; she had never wanted to slap someone so much as she did now, not even Julian back in court.
“You know, if you don’t want people to treat you like a stupid countryman, maybe you should stop acting like one!”
This guy always managed to make her lose her mind; he seemed to bring out the most irrational and instinctive part of her. It scared her more than it annoyed her. She’d always considered herself a good-mannered girl who knew how to behave at dinners amongst upper-class people, but ever since she came here she’d become a different person—somebody she didn’t know and was afraid of.
He shrugged, totally unfazed by her words. “I thought you said you were a lawyer: what would you know about it? How could you possibly help? I didn’t know lawyers in New York had cows in their backyards.”
“You’re just a stupid, childish, pigheaded man with a smaller brain than that of a country rat,” she spat out, unable and unwilling to control herself any longer. She’d had enough of his harshness. She’d done nothing to deserve it. “I’ve grown so tired of your stupid prejudices. I don’t know what’s so wrong with me, apart from belonging to a wealthy family. I didn’t ask for it, and I’m sorry if it bothers you, but that’s the way it is.”
She turned around, meaning to leave, but she realized that if she did it would be just like admitting he was right, and that she was only a posh city girl who didn’t want to ruin her designer clothes and manicure. She turned back and glared at him.
“I wish I could just walk out and leave you to it, but I’m sorry for Rosie and I want to do something to help, even if it only means fetching a bucket of water or bringing some more hay.”
She folded her arms across her chest and shot him a look of defiance, as if to challenge him to say one more nasty word to her now. If only one of them could play the part of the adult then she knew she’d have to be it.
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An avid reader since her childhood years and being an only child, Roberta always enjoyed the company of her fictional friends from the children’s books she loved reading, while she dreamed of writing her own stories one day.
It was when she discovered novels by authors Rosamunde Pilcher and Maeve Binchy in her teenage years that she realized it was time she put down in words the stories she had kept well hidden in her mind until then.
What started as a hobby, soon turned into a real passion and a way of life, until she could no longer keep the stories to herself, and decided to get over her fears and share them with the world.
Roberta lives in Italy, but her dream is to move out of her country and live either in a thatched cottage in the Irish countryside or in a country house with a swing on the back porch, somewhere in the United States, where she would love to spend her days writing novels as a full-time job, and maybe one day even get as far as writing a screenplay for a movie.
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