Widow Carrie Collins’ life had spiraled out of control since her detective husband had been killed during a sting-gone-bad. She was alone, drowning in bills, and trying to stay strong for her kids. At her snapping point, Carrie was thankful when her husband’s best friend took the wheel. He kept the kids for a week and exiled her to a dude ranch in the country to get her head together. She was afraid a year wouldn’t get that job done, but she went.

At the ranch, as she expected, her worries followed her, but then she met Dylan Thomas, a long-legged, very handsome former bull rider who seemed determined to distract her. Dylan made her remember what it was like to be a young, desirable woman who was alive and carefree. Carrie put her problems in the bed of his pickup and took a front seat with him to indulge that fantasy, but her fantasy is cut short when she gets a call from home that her son is in trouble.

Carrie rushes home to discover the boy had been trying to find the truth about his father’s death because he believes it was a set-up, even though Internal Affairs said otherwise. When skeletons start to fall out of the closet from his amateur sleuthing and they arrive on her doorstep with pistols in hand, Carrie believes he might be right.

Her husband’s former partner sends Carrie and the kids back to the ranch to hide out while he figures things out, but there would be no fantasies this time. This was real and Carrie was in full out mama-bear mode because nobody was going to hurt her children. Not even the cowboy who tries to insert himself into the papa bear space by cozying up to the kids and vowing to protect them.

Her temporary lover had made it clear he didn’t do relationships and that he would be leaving the ranch as soon as he got his medical walking papers to go back to the rodeo, so how could she depend on him for anything? Better yet, how could she allow herself or her kids to fall in love with a man she knew would crush their already bruised hearts when he walked away?

**NOTICE** This book has a new cover, but the content has not been changed. All of the books in the Texas Trouble series can be read standalone.