Rancher's Refuge. Линда Гуднайт
Trusting A Cowboy
Rancher Austin Blackwell knows a wounded creature when he sees one. Although Annalisa Keller won’t reveal how she ended up stranded in Whisper Falls, his conscience refuses to let her leave. The little Ozarks town could be the perfect place for her to start over—just as it was for him. Trying to keep his own past hidden, Austin finds himself falling for the vulnerable beauty with too many secrets. Before long, Annalisa’s warmth and love of life work their way into Austin’s heart...and promise never to leave.
“Are you okay?” The question he always asked, the one that melted her anxiety.
“I’m fine. Why?” But she knew, of course.
“I upset you.”
She glanced around the glade, a pristine wilderness broken only by the train tracks.
“Only for a moment.”
He eased an arm around her shoulders, let it lie there lightly as if gauging her acceptance. “You’re safe with me.”
“I know.” And she did. In her head she knew. In her heart she knew. But bad experiences died hard.
When she didn’t pull away, Austin drew her close to his side and she rested there, letting tension drain away. Gently he opened her fingers and touched the arrowhead, a gray gleam on her palm. “Quite a find. Rare and special. There aren’t many left.”
Like him. A rare and special find. A man to trust.
She was terrified of loving again, of taking a chance. If Austin knew everything about her past, would he reject her, as broken as she was?
LINDA GOODNIGHT
Winner of a RITA® Award for excellence in inspirational fiction, Linda Goodnight has also won a Booksellers’ Best Award, an ACFW Book of the Year award and a Reviewers’ Choice Award from RT Book Reviews. Linda has appeared on the Christian bestseller list and her romance novels have been translated into more than a dozen languages. Active in orphan ministry, this former nurse and teacher enjoys writing fiction that carries a message of hope and light in a sometimes dark world. She and her husband, Gene, live in Oklahoma. Readers can write to her at [email protected] or c/o Love Inspired Books, 233 Broadway, Suite 1001, New York, NY 10279.
Rancher’s Refuge
Linda Goodnight
MILLS & BOON
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Two are better than one....
If one falls down, the other can help him up.
But it is bad for the person who is alone and falls, because no one is there to help.
—Ecclesiastes 4:9, 10
Contents
Prologue
Rumor says that if a prayer is murmured beneath Whisper Falls, God will hear and answer. Some folks think it’s superstitious nonsense. Some think it’s a clever ploy to attract tourists. Others believe that God works in mysterious ways, and prayers, no matter where whispered, are always heard.
Chapter One
Left hand riding lightly on his thigh, Austin Blackwell held the reins with the other and picked his way through the thick woods above Whisper Falls, Arkansas. If one more calf strayed into this no-man’s land between his ranch and the cascading waterfall, he was putting up another fence. A really tall one. Barbed wire. Electrified. Let the folks of the small Ozark town whine and bellow that he was ruining the ambience or whatever they called the pristine beauty of these deep woods. They just didn’t want to lose any tourist money. Well, he didn’t want to lose any cattle money, either. So they were on even playing field. He’d never wanted to open the waterfall to tourism in the first place.
Now, every yahoo with an itch to climb down the rock wall cliff and duck behind the curtain of silvery water traipsed all over his property just to mutter a prayer or two. Wishful thinking or pure silliness. He’d made the trek a few times himself and he could guarantee prayers whispered there or anywhere else for that matter were a waste of good breath.
Something moved through the