Cowboy Player: Cowboy Cocktail, Book 3 (10 page)

If Elvis Presley had come swooping down on the back of a solid-gold pterodactyl, Melody would not have been more shocked. With an expression of expectant glee, the reporter lowered the microphone to Clark’s mouth.

“Melody Santos,” Clark said slowly, looking up at her, “you’re beautiful, strong, and courageous. I’ve never known you to run from challenges. You’re my partner in crime and the best friend I could ever ask for. You said you were looking for your fairytale ending. Well, I can’t give you that. What I can give you is the rest of my story. I want us to write it together. I want it to be our story.” He licked his lips. He was red as a tomato. “You and me, what we are now—that happened real fast. But when I know something, I know it.” With a nervous smile, he gestured to the camera and the crowd. “And I want the whole world to know it too.” He took her hand and stroked her fingers. “I love you. Will you marry me?”

Melody stared blankly at him, her brain struggling to process what was happening.

Who did this kind of thing?

Who jumped from friend to one-night stand to engaged like some kind of deranged bullfrog?

The Clark she thought she knew was a player and a flirt. He didn’t believe in long-term relationships. He’d never had a girlfriend.

But the Clark kneeling in front of her today was telling the world a different story. He loved her. He wanted to be her husband. He was making a promise to her even though there were no guarantees that she wouldn’t break his heart in front of thousands of people. The naked vulnerability in his expression made her chest ache.

He was right. This was no game.

There was crazy and then there was Clark MacKinnon crazy—her kind of crazy. And only one answer blazed in front of her, crystal clear.

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, I’ll marry you.”

He put his hat back on and slipped the ring on her finger. Before she had a chance to look at it, her big cowboy grabbed her and swung her around in a circle. The crowd cheered as the elated reporter signed off on the segment, sniffling and a little teary-eyed.

When the cameras were off, Clark put her down and leaned in for the kiss.

“You okay?” he said.

“No,” she whispered. As she stroked his cheek, her pretty diamond ring glittered in the sunlight. “Where did you get this?”

“It was my grandmother’s. I asked my mom for it last night.” He grinned. “She cried for an hour.”

“If my son were marrying a girl like me, I’d cry for an hour too.”

They looked at each other, smiling like idiots.

“I love you, Clark,” she said.

Clark nodded. “Yeah. I know.”

“Even though you’re a little screwed in the head.”

“So are you, sweetheart. We make a good match.” He dipped his head but she dodged the kiss.

“Wait. Promise me one more thing,” she said, putting her fingertip to his lips.

He lifted an eyebrow. “Something tells me this is not going to be the last thing.”

“Hush. Promise me you won’t do that thing anymore—that eye thing you do when you’re picking up women. The one where you memorize their eye color.”

“What eye thing? You mean this?”

When Clark looked into her eyes, warmth suffused Melody’s body and all of the clatter and racket of the world fell quiet. In the shelter of that beautiful, dark gaze, Melody learned the truth. She held his attention not because she was the most beautiful or fascinating woman in the world, but because he had chosen to give it to her, along with his promise of a lifetime of love. Marrying Clark seemed like an insane gamble. But in her heart she knew it was a safe one.

“Kiss me,” she whispered.

Her best friend took her in his arms and smiled. “With pleasure.”

About the Author

Mia Hopkins writes lush romances starring fun, sexy characters who love to get down and dirty. She’s a sucker for working class heroes, brainy heroines and wisecracking best friends.

When she’s not lost in a story, Mia spends her time cooking, gardening, traveling, volunteering and looking for her keys. In a past life, she was a classroom teacher and still has a pretty good “teacher voice” and “teacher stare.”

She lives in the heart of Los Angeles with her roguish husband and two waggish dogs.

For more books, freebies and fun stuff, please visit her website at
www.miahopkinsauthor.com
or connect with her on Twitter
@miahopkinsxoxo
.

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Cowboy Cocktail

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Cowboy Resurrection

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Forget chocolate and flowers. This homegrown honey is all the sweetness he craves.

Cowboy Cocktail,
Book 1

Small-town life is nothing but a waiting room for eighteen-year-old honor student Corazón Gomez. Work and school leave little time for love, but with a full-ride Ivy League scholarship and a one-way ticket out of the boondocks, who needs it?

The answer appears on Valentine’s Day when her old cowboy crush ambles into the ice cream parlor where she works, inviting her to go on a late-night ride in his truck. For the first time she wavers between staying on the straight and narrow, and going off-road with the handsome heartbreaker.

After four years working on ranches all over the country, Caleb MacKinnon is back on the family farm helping out his mom and brothers while his father fights cancer. The one bright spot: smart, funny, and wickedly sexy Cora.

From the start, they both know this blazing-hot love affair can’t last. But when autumn comes and Cora has to leave for the East Coast, Caleb must find a solution to keep himself—and his heart—from falling apart.

Warning: Contains hard, cherry-poppin’ sex in a pickup truck and a cowboy charmer who talks dirty in two languages.

Ball-busting businesswoman meets no-holds-barred cowboy. He’s gonna need a longer rope.

Cowboy Cocktail,
Book 2

Marketing hotshot Monica Kaur has put her big-city life on hold to help bail out her brother’s failing business. Now she’s got three months to plan and promote a rodeo, the first her tiny hometown has ever seen.

To ensure the rodeo’s success, Monica enlists a local hero, a rancher’s son who’s made a name for himself on the bull-riding circuit. Problem? She can’t stop daydreaming about the cocky bastard—and all the things she longs to do to him out behind the chutes.

Professional bullfighter Dean MacKinnon is home helping his family while his father fights cancer. Haunted by bad memories, jaded by love, Dean finds escape in a no-strings-attached go-round with brainy, sexy Monica, whose close-knit Sikh-American family would sooner run him out of town than see her with a notorious rodeo romeo.

In private, Monica and Dean play as hard as they work. But as the rodeo draws near, that clean break they promised each other is getting more and more hung up in the rigging.

Warning: Contains rope play, motel nooners, a blue-eyed charmer with a taste for kink, and a brown-eyed princess with a taste for cowboys.

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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

Samhain Publishing, Ltd.

11821 Mason Montgomery Road Suite 4B

Cincinnati OH 45249

Cowboy Player

Copyright © 2016 by Mia Hopkins

ISBN: 978-1-61923-521-2

Edited by Jennifer Miller

Cover by Syneca

All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

First
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
electronic publication: June 2016

www.samhainpublishing.com