The Heart Won't Lie
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Vicki Lewis Thompson
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Just get up and ride… Much to his family's displeasure, Michael Hartford pens popular Western paperbacks. But despite his cowboy image, he's more Central Park West than Wild West. With a major photo shoot coming up, he'll need to be a cowboy — not just look like one! And Michael has only a week at the Last Chance Ranch to get the giddy-up in his game…. After a girl-fight scandal, socialite-turned-housekeeper Keri Fitzpatrick is cheerily unrepentant as she waits for the dust to settle. It's not long before she discovers Michael's secret and a whole lot of similarities…including an irresistible temptation to play Naughty Naked Cowboy! But does this scrappy socialite have what it takes to ensure her would-be cowboy is both saddle sore and satisfied?
Chapter 1
August 13, 1988, from the diary of Eleanor Chance
MY GRANDSON JACK, who turns ten this fall, can be a trial at times. I cut him some slack because he still carries the scars from being abandoned by his mother when he was a toddler. I’m not sure if that wound is ever going to heal, no matter how much love we all give him.
Truth be told, Jack and I have a special bond because I took over raising him for a couple of years until my son Jonathon married his second wife, Sarah. I’ve stepped back now, because Sarah is terrific with Jack and the two sons who came along after that, Nick and Gabe. The Last Chance Ranch is a happier place with Sarah living here.
But Jack is still a handful. Even so, he’ll always have a special place in my heart, and that’s partly because we both love to read, especially Westerns. Whenever the real world gets too complicated for Jack, he escapes into a book. I just introduced him to one of my favorites, Louis L’Amour, and he’s gobbling up those stories.
I remember doing the same when I first discovered Louis L’Amour back in the fifties. That man could spin a yarn like nobody’s business. I was so sad to hear that he’d died this past June, but he left us a whole lot of good reading, and I’m grateful for that.
Winters are dark and cold in Jackson Hole, and I don’t know what I’d do without my Westerns. You can bet this winter both Jack and I will be curled up in front of the fire with a book. I envy Jack having all those Louis L’Amour stories ahead of him.
I may read them all again, myself. I should probably try one of the new authors, like that Larry McMurtry everyone’s so keen on. But it just seems as if nobody quite comes up to Louis L’Amour.
