Spotlight & Giveaway: Cowboy Meets His Match by Margaret Brownley

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Margaret Brownley to HJ!

Hi Margaret and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, Cowboy Meets His Match!

Please share your favorite scene from Cowboy Meets His Match:

The Cowboy Meets His Match is a mail-order bride story with a twist. After the wedding vows are exchanged, the bride and groom discover they had mistakenly married the wrong person. Chase needs the marriage to meet the terms of his father’s will and Emily needs the marriage to escape her family scandal. Since divorce and annulment are out of the question, the two strangers are now stuck with one another.
 
It was hard to pick out a favorite scene because I had so much fun writing about Chase and Emily’s many clashes. The couple couldn’t be more incompatible. Nothing is more important to Chase than his beloved ranch and cattle. Emily is an Easterner through and through and can’t stand the smell, dust and isolation of the ranch. Chase is determined to turn her into a proper rancher’s wife and she’s just as determined to fight him every inch of the way.
 
The following excerpt sets the scene for the battles ahead.

Later that night, Emily closed her eyes. Leaning her head against the rim of the metal tub with a sigh, she tried to relax her tense body. Fortunately, she’d agreed to stay married to Chase for only a year.
Her eyes flew open. Oh no, what was she thinking? Twelve months on a cattle ranch now seemed like an eternity. The mere thought made her feel faint. If the relentless heat, dust, and bugs weren’t enough, every shift of the wind brought the sickening smell of cattle. There simply was no getting away from it.
But honestly, what choice did she have but to stay here? No one in town would hire her. Even more frustrating, not one person she’d approached for a job had been impressed with her Vassar College degree in liberal arts. Indeed, no one seemed to know what it was. The proprietress of the Feedbag Café had even said she wasn’t looking for an artist, liberal or otherwise.
The degree that she had worked so hard to earn appeared to be as worthless here as last month’s newspaper. Now that she knew her tuition had been paid for with ill-gotten funds, it seemed like retribution, however undeserved. The sins of the father or, in this case, her uncle…
She didn’t know how long she’d soaked in that tub, ruminating over her situation, but she suddenly realized the bathwater had turned cold. Reluctantly, she reached for the towel on the nearby vanity stool. She felt pleasantly drowsy, so maybe the long soak had relaxed her enough to get a good night’s sleep. If so, it would be the first real sleep she’d had since landing in Texas.
Standing, she stepped out of the tub onto the hardwood floor and dried herself off. Her wet hair fell down her back in tangled strands.
Just as she finished wrapping the towel around her middle, the door flew open, startling her. “Oh!”
Filling the doorway, Chase hesitated a moment, a look of apology on his face. He turned his head to address someone in the hall. “Good night,” he said over his shoulder, and Emily heard the housekeeper wish him the same.
He then entered the room and closed the door firmly behind him.
Heart thumping madly, she clutched at the towel, making sure it was tightly tucked around her. “What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded when at last she could find her voice.
The question seemed to surprise him. “Right now, I’m hoping to convince Peggy Sue and Cookie that we have a real marriage.”
“You could have knocked,” she said.
“They might have thought it strange, had they seen me knockin’ on my wife’s door.” He arched an eyebrow. “Would you have let me in had I knocked?”
“Definitely not!” she seethed.
“There you have it,” he said. “If word gets out that we’re sleepin’ in separate rooms, it will be hard to convince the executor of the will that we have a real marriage. You do remember our deal?”
Oh, she remembered it all right. Every last word. The question was, did he? “You’re not sleeping in my bed! I told you—”
He cut her off with an abrupt wave of his hand. “I know what you told me.”
His appraising look suggested he didn’t miss a thing. Not the curve of her ivory shoulders or the swell of her firm breasts showing above the tightly clenched towel. Nor did he miss her shocking display of bare legs and feet.
Cheeks flaring, she gave her head a haughty toss and lifted her chin with as much dignity as she could muster. “If you’re done gawking, I must ask you to leave.”
He raised a dark brow. “Don’t worry,” he said with a wry twist of his mouth. “Your virtue shall remain safe and secure. I’m fixin’ to occupy the next room.”
He inclined his head toward the arched doorway, leading to a small room adjacent to hers. Earlier, she had explored the space and decided that it had originally been used as a nursery. It had never occurred to her that Chase meant to sleep there.
He held her gaze. “Should you get the notion to climb into my bed, I shall put a stop to it at once.”
Her mouth dropped open. “I shall never…” she sputtered.
The corner of his mouth quirked. “Never?” he asked. “More’s the pity.”
She glared at him. “If you don’t mind, I wish to get dressed.”
“Oh, I don’t mind,” he said with a lazy drawl. “Feel free to do whatever you need to do while we talk.”
She stiffened. “We have nothing to talk about.”
“Oh, but we do. Your ridin’ lessons, for one.” He tossed a previously unnoticed package on the bed. “Your ridin’ outfit,” he said. “Mrs. Buttonwood was as good as her word. I’ll meet you at the stables first thing in the mornin’, and we’ll get started. Be ready.”
“And if I’m not?”
“If’n you can’t live up to your side of the bargain, then I shall be equally remiss in mine. In which case, you can say goodbye to your marital privileges.”
She stared at him. “My what?”
“As my wife, you’re entitled to my full support, and that includes an allowance. I’m sure you’ll find it quite generous.”
Seeming to assume the matter settled, he walked across the room with long, easy strides. Irritated that her circumstances made her dependent on him, she kicked a slipper across the room.
Stopping at the entrance to his personal room, he tossed a look over his shoulder. His dark, smoldering eyes glanced at the slipper before meeting her gaze.
“Tomorrow, after your lesson, we’ll discuss how to get you to town. You’ll need some decent foot leather and”—he glanced at her feathered French hat on the dresser—“a more practical conk cover.” He gave a slight nod. “Good night.” Without waiting for a response, he ducked through the curtains leading into the tiny anteroom.
No door separated the two rooms, only curtains. Thin black curtains. That meant he could pop into her room any time he downright pleased and without so much as a warning.
Forcing herself to breathe, Emily pressed her hands against her heaving chest. Never had she met a haughtier, more conceited and arrogant man. Ohhh. Of all the men she could have married, why, oh why did it have to be Chase McKnight?
The thought of having to put up with his condescending attitude for a year left her feeling bereft. Not even his promise of a generous allowance made the situation easier to bear.
“You can get dressed now, Mrs. McKnight,” he called from behind the curtains. “I won’t look.”
Seething, she reached on the bed for her linen nightgown. “You can look all you want, Mr. McKnight, but you won’t see a thing!” With that, she turned off the gas lamp, throwing the room into total darkness.
She quickly donned her nightgown and tried to ignore the warm chuckle floating from the other room.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
 
 

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Giveaway: Paperback copy of The Cowboy Meets His Match (The Haywire Brides #2) by Margaret Brownley

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Book Info:

His first mistake was marrying her.
His second was falling in love.

Chase McKnight will do anything to secure his family’s ranch—but marriage to a complete stranger? That’s a hard pill to swallow. Yet the will is clear: Chase needs a wife by his side if he wants to keep his home, so he meets his veiled lady at the courthouse steps and reluctantly says “I do”.

Too bad he married the wrong bride.

When Boston runaway Emily Fields agreed to marry a Texas stranger to escape her family’s scandal, she wasn’t prepared to get hitched to the wrong cowboy! Stuck in a secret compromise, she has one year to learn the ways of the ranch and convince Chase’s family they’re happily married. But when the lie becomes true, the past catches up to them and they must save the love they never expected…

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Meet the Author:

New York Times bestselling author MARGARET BROWNLEY has penned more than forty-five novels and novellas. She’s a two-time Romance Writers of American RITA® finalist and has written for a TV soap. She is also a recipient of the Romantic Times Pioneer Award. Margaret is currently working on a new series. Not bad for someone who flunked eighth-grade English. Just don’t ask her to diagram a sentence. Visit her at http://margaret-brownley.com/.