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McKettrick's Pride

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Overview

The only wide-open space Rance McKettrick wants to see in his future is his hometown in his rearview mirror. The down-to-earth ex-rancher is determined to make a fresh start with his two young daughters--and leave his heartbreaking loss and family's successful corporation far behind. He sure doesn't need Indian Rock's free-spirited new bookstore owner Echo Wells confusing his choices...and raising memories he'd rather forget. But her straightforward honesty and reluctance to trust is challenging everything Rance thought he knew about himself. And when their irresistible attraction puts their hearts on the line, Rance and Echo must come to grips with who they really are to find a once-in-a-lifetime happiness.

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Author Information

Bio of Linda Lael Miller

In 2006, New York Times bestselling author Linda Lael Miller left the Arizona horse property she's called home for the past five years and listened to the call of her heart. Packing up her dogs, Sadie and Bernice, and her four horses, the author of more than seventy novels bid farewell to her home in the desert and returned to the place of her birth, Spokane, Washington. The daughter of a town marshal, Linda grew up in Northport, WA, a community of 500 on the Columbia River, 120 miles north of Spokane. Her childhood remembrances include riding horses and playing cowgirl on her grandparents' nearby farm. Her grandparents' spread was so rustic that in the early days it lacked electricity and running water. As delightful as this childhood was, Linda longed to see the world. After graduating as valedictorian of her high school class, she left to pursue her dream at the age of eighteen. Because of the success of her writing career, Linda was able to live part-time in London for several years, spend time in Italy and travel to such far-off destinations as Russia, Hong Kong and Israel. Now, Linda says, the wanderlust is (mostly) out of her blood, and she's come full circle, back to the people and the places she knows and loves. Before Linda begins her writing day, she takes her first cup of coffee while enjoying the scenic view of the wooded draw behind her new home. The first morning there, a snowfall blanketed the pine trees, something she had missed in the desert outside Scottsdale. Still enamored with the people she came to love in Arizona, she says she will still set books in that starkly beautiful area, and, of course, Washington. Devoted to helping others pursue their dreams, the author will launch her seventh round of the Linda Lael Miller Scholarships for Women in May 2007. A talented speaker, she donates all her speaking honoraria to her scholarship fund. The stipends are awarded to women who seek to better their lot in life through education. It's no wonder the protagonists in Miller's novels are women her readers admire for their honor, courage, trustworthiness, valor and determination to succeed, despite overwhelming odds. "These qualities make them excellent role models for young women," Miller explains. "The male leads possess equally noble traits that today's woman would be delighted to find in her life's mate." The author traces the birth of her writing career to the day when a Northport teacher told her that the stories she was writing were good, that she just might have a future in writing. Later, when she decided to write novels, she endured her share of rejection before she made her first sale.

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Additional Info

Imprint

Harlequin Enterprises

Filesize

758.72 KB

Number of Pages

384

eBook ISBN

9781552549247

Excerpt from: McKettrick's Pride by Linda Lael Miller

THE DOG, FUR SOAKED, MATTED and muddy, sat for-lornly on the rain-slicked pavement, next to Echo Wells's custom-painted hot-pink Volkswagen bug. Echo, rushing from the truck-stop restaurant with the remains of her supper in a take-out box, in hopes of not getting too wet before she reached her car, stopped cold.

"I do not need a dog," she told the universe, tilting back her head and letting the drizzle wash away the last tired traces of her makeup.

The dog whimpered. It was a large creature, of indeterminate color and breed. A slight indentation around its neck revealed that it had once worn a collar, and its ribs showed. One forepaw bore the brownish stain of old blood.

"Oh, hell," Echo said. She glanced around the parking lot, empty except for a few semitrucks and an ancient RV, but there was no one in sight, no one conveniently searching for a missing pet.

The dog had obviously been on its own for days, if not weeks--or even months.

Just imagining the loneliness, fear and depriva-tion the poor thing must have experienced made Echo shudder and opened a gaping chasm of sympathy within her.

The canine wayfarer had either been dropped off--there was a special place in hell, in Echo's opinion, for people who abandoned helpless animals--or it had gotten away somehow, while its owners were gassing up at the pumps or inside the restaurant having a meal.

"I just had this car detailed," Echo told the dog. The bug was her only vanity, a reckless indulgence with psychological implications she didn't care to examine too closely.

The animal whimpered again, and looked up at her with such sad hope in its soulful brown eyes that Echo's heart melted all over again.

Resigned, she rounded the car and opened the passenger door with one hand, balancing the take-out box in the other. The dog slunk along with her, half crouched, limping a little.

"Go ahead," she said gently. "Get in."

The dog hesitated, then made the leap into the seat--mud, rainwater and all.

Echo sighed, opened the take-out box and stood in the rain, hand-feeding the animal the last of her meat loaf special. So much for staying within her travel budget by stretching every meal into at least two more.

Ravenous, the poor critter gulped down its supper and looked up at Echo with such pathetic gratitude that tears came into her eyes.

"Don't worry," she said, to herself as much as the dog. "Everything's going to be okay."

She closed the car door, let the rain wash her hands clean, holding them out palms up as if in supplication, and rubbed them semidry on her ancient tan Burberry coat before settling behind the wheel once more.

The dog, dripping onto Echo's formerly clean leather seat, eyed her with weary adoration.

Echo started the car, and the combination of wet dog and her own soggy raincoat instantly fogged up the windows.

"This is Arizona," she complained to her new traveling companion. "It's supposed to be dry."

The dog sighed, as if to concur that nothing was as it should be.

"You really are wet," Echo remarked matter-of-factly. She switched on the defroster, pulled the lever to open the trunk and braved the elements again to get out the quilt she'd carried around with her since childhood. After bundling the dog, she peeled off her raincoat and tossed it over the seat before getting back in the car and buckling up.

Cocooned in faded colors, the dog sighed again, lay down as best it could given the disparity between its size and that of the seat, and was snoring by the time Echo pulled out onto Highway 10.

Two and a half hours later, on the outskirts of Phoenix, she turned into the lot of a medium-priced chain hotel. The rain had stopped, and there was a muggy warmth in the night air.