The Ultimate Texas Bachelor

The Ultimate Texas Bachelor
Cathy Gillen Thacker

After his made-for-TV romance goes bust, Brad McCabe hightails it back home to Laramie, Texas. Swearing off women - and the press - he works tirelessly with his brother to get the Lazy M Ranch up and running. Miraculously, his wounded pride begins to heal when the domestically challenged McCabe men hire lovely Lainey Carrington to get their lives in order….Trouble is, their tart-tongued "housekeeper" is here on false pretenses. An aspiring reporter on assignment for a splashy celebrity magazine, Lainey hopes to uncover the real story of Brad McCabe in a tell-all expose that will end his tenure as America's Most Loathed Bachelor.But all bets are off when she falls hard for the gruffly tender cowboy…. Now, once the truth comes out, this heartbreaking hottie just might break Lainey's own heart!

“I don’t mess around for sport,” Lainey whispered. “When I kiss someone it means something.”

Brad leaned toward her intimately, looking sexy as hell. Every bit the intimidating bachelor he’d been on TV. “Maybe that’s the problem," he returned, grasping her by the shoulders. “Whenever I’ve kissed someone, it’s never once meant anything close to what it should.”

“What are you trying to say?” Lainey murmured, wishing she didn’t recall quite so vividly how passionately he’d kissed, or how tenderly he’d held her in his arms.

His gaze drifted over her. “It’s high time my kisses did mean something.”

He took her into his arms and kissed her deeply. She clung to him, kissing him back. Sensations swirled through her as his hands moved down her spine, working their magic.

The kiss turned sweeter, more tender. “Brad…we really shouldn’t do—”

“Do what?” he prompted lazily, kissing her again.

“This,” Lainey said, kissing him back.

When he finally let her go, she was so dizzy she could barely stand.

Dear Reader,

There is fiction, and there is real life, and when the two come together these days it is called “reality TV.” Like many of you, I have watched programs dealing with survival, business and home decorating. But it’s the programs about romance that fascinate me the most. Can someone really find the love of their life on a semiscripted TV show? Or is it all about the money and achieving fifteen minutes of fame?

I don’t know the answer to those questions, but I do know it was a heck of a lot of fun creating my own reality television show, Bachelor Bliss, and imagining what would happen if the ultimate Texas cowboy/ladies’ man, Brad McCabe, somehow got roped into signing up to appear on one.

I figured he wouldn’t find romance there. That would come later—after the experience of chasing fame and fortune had wreaked havoc on his life.

And I knew it wouldn’t be easy, either. True love never is. Which is why I paired Brad with an old high school classmate he had barely known existed. Someone with ambition of her own—journalistic ambition. For a private guy like Brad, that’s a worst-case scenario.

How did it all end? Well, to find that out, you’ll have to turn the page….

I hope you enjoy reading this romantic comedy as much as I enjoyed writing it. If you’d like to know more about this and other books, I invite you to visit my Web site at www.cathygillenthacker.com.

Happy reading!

Cathy Gillen Thacker

The Ultimate Texas Bachelor

Cathy Gillen Thacker

This book is dedicated to Joshua Douglas Gerhardt,

ultimate flirt and total heartbreaker.

Welcome to the family, little one.

Contents

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

Epilogue

Chapter One

“Come on, Lainey. Have a heart! You can’t leave us like this!” Lewis McCabe declared as he pushed his eyeglasses farther up on the bridge of his nose.

Aside from the fact she was here under false pretenses—which she had quickly decided she couldn’t go through with, anyway—Lainey Carrington didn’t see how she could stay, either. The Lazy M ranch house looked like a college dorm room had exploded on moving day. Lewis needed a lot more than the live-in housekeeper he had been advertising for, to bring order to this mess.

Lainey studied the nerdiest—and most technologically brilliant—of Sam and Kate McCabe’s five grown sons and wondered how anyone so rich could still be so out of step with popular culture. Where had he gotten those clothes, anyway? From some 1980s-style shop?

“What do you mean us?” she asked suspiciously. Was Lewis married? If so, she hadn’t heard about it, but then her knowledge was spotty at best since she hadn’t actually lived in Laramie, Texas, since she left home for college ten years ago.

The door behind Lainey opened. She turned—and darn near fainted at the sight of the man she had secretly come here to track down.

Not that she had expected the six-foot-three cowboy, with the ruggedly handsome face and to-die-for body to actually be here. She had just hoped that Lewis would give her a clue where to look, so that she might help her friend Sybil Devine hunt the elusive Brad McCabe down and scrutinize the sexy Casanova celebrity in person.

“Brad, of course, who happens to be my business partner,” Lewis McCabe explained.