Must Love Cowboys: This steamy and heart-warming cowboy rom-com is a must-read! (Once Upon A Time In Carly Bloom (good short books .TXT) 📖

Copyright © 2021 Carol Pavliska

Cover design by Sarah Congdon.

Cover photography by Rob Lang.

Cover copyright © 2021 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

Author photograph © Karen Kuplack

The right of Carly Bloom to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Published by arrangement with Forever, A division of Grand Central Publishing.

First published in this Ebook edition in 2021

by HEADLINE ETERNAL

An imprint of HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP

Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library

eISBN 978 1 4722 6300 1

HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP

An Hachette UK Company

Carmelite House

50 Victoria Embankment

London EC4Y 0DZ

www.headlineeternal.com

www.headline.co.uk

www.hachette.co.uk

Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

About the Author

Also by Carly Bloom

Praise for Carly Bloom

About the Book

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Epilogue

Don᾿t miss Big Bad Cowboy

Try Cowboy Come Home, another Once Upon a Time in Texas novel

Find out more from Headline Eternal

About the Author

Carly Bloom began her writing career as a family humor columnist and blogger, a pursuit she abandoned when her children grew old enough to literally die from embarrassment. To save their delicate lives, Carly turned to penning steamy, contemporary romance. The kind with bare chests on the covers.

Carly and her husband raise their mortified brood of offspring on a cattle ranch in South Texas. Also? Carly is vegan. The cows love her.

To find out more about Carly, visit her website at www.carlybloombooks.com, find her on Facebook www.facebook.com/authorcarlybloom and follow her on Twitter @carlybloombooks and Instagram @carlybloombooks.

Also by Carly Bloom

Once Upon A Time In Texas

Big Bad Cowboy

Cowboy Come Home

Must Love Cowboys

Praise for the Once Upon a Time in Texas series:

‘Sexy, smart, sensational’

Lori Wilde, New York Times bestselling author

‘Big Bad Cowboy is sweet and sexy!’

Jennifer Ryan, New York Times bestselling author

‘Fans of Susan Elizabeth Phillips will delight in this funny, optimistic, quirky contemporary’

Publishers Weekly, starred review

‘Bloom has invented a place we want to hang up our hat and kick up our spurs any time she’s got a story to tell’

Entertainment Weekly

About the Book

Beau Montgomery is living his best life . . . until he’s left in charge of Rancho Cañada Verde. With his dyslexia, he’d choose a saddle over spreadsheets any day. His best hope is to ask the town librarian for tutoring. Only he’s had a crush on the book-loving beauty since his junior high days – and despite being a smooth talker, he can’t help getting tongue-tied every time they meet.

Alice Martin doesn’t regret putting her career above personal relationships – but when Beau comes to her for help, Alice decides to see what she’s been missing. She’ll improve Beau’s reading skills if the handsome cowboy teaches her how to flirt and agrees to be her date to an upcoming wedding. But when the town’s gossip mill gets going, they’re forced into a fake romance to keep their deal a secret. Soon Alice is seeing Beau in a whole new way . . . can she turn their imaginary story into a real-life happy-ever-after?

To Ellie and Camille, the boldest, strongest, and smartest heroines

I’ve ever created.

Acknowledgements

What can I say? I wrote a book during a pandemic. And kudos to you, by the way, if you completed anything during the year of our Lord 2020. Seriously. Raise your glass if you made your bed or a sandwich, because you’re a winner.

My biggest thank-you goes to my editor, Junessa Viloria, who managed to scoot me and this book across the finish line without ever uttering the word deadline. She’s an author whisperer, and working with her is an utter delight.

Thank you to my copyeditor, Lori Paximadis, for getting down to the nitty-gritty with such aplomb (if I used that word incorrectly, she’ll no doubt tell me), and to Bob Castillo for making sure that I’m happy with every single word. Extra-special thanks to Estelle Hallick for loving Big Verde and working so hard to promote my books. She’s spectacularly creative and fun, and she’s still my favorite Disney princess. Finally, thank you to my agent, Paige Wheeler, for always believing in me and my work.

Writing can be lonely for an extrovert (even when there’s no pandemic), so I leaned heavily on a few folks to keep me energized and motivated. First, thank you to my family, who became my captive audience during quarantine. Their support never wavered, even when I had to break the news that they were my new social circle.

Thank you to Jessica Snyder, who literally babysat me every morning while I drafted (via Zoom). If she didn’t hear the keys clacking, she cracked the whip. She calls herself a writing coach, but she’s more of a dominatrix.

Thank you to my community of writers, especially Amy Bearce, who was always available for a Zoom chat. As usual, she read every word of every version of this book, and she did it cheerfully. Thank you to Sam Tschida and the writers at Smut U, some of whom relentlessly wrote through wildfires in addition to a pandemic. I’m lucky to have them as cohorts. Thanks to Alison Bliss and Kamau Khary for their willingness to cyber-sprint with me when I didn’t want to write alone, and to Erin Quinn, Sasha Summers, Jolene Navarro, Patricia Walters-Fischer, and Teri Wilson for their readiness to lend an ear.

Thank you to my assistant, Jenn Jaeger, and to my