Title: Cowboy Crazy
Author: Joanne Kennedy
Genre: Western
She kicked the country dust off her boots a long time ago…
Sarah Landon’s Ivy League scholarship transformed her from a wide-eyed country girl into a poised professional. Her job at the Carrigan Oil Company has given her the sophisticated life she longed for, but when she meets her boss’s black-sheep brother, she realizes her roots are showing.
But he’s ready to remind her she’s a cowgirl at heart.
Rebellious rodeo cowboy Lane Carrigan is determined to save the Wyoming community of Two Shot from the ravages of energy development, but Sarah’s convinced her old hometown needs a swift kick in the pants from the march of progress.
When a lapsed cowgirl collides with rodeo royalty, it’s bound to be a wild ride—and somebody’s going to end up in the dirt.
Win or lose, a bull rider always ends up in the dirt. Sometimes he jumps off and sometimes he’s tossed, but either way he winds up scrambling around on all fours trying to save his own life.
Tugging his rope tight, Lane Carrigan settled himself behind Yellow Jack’s massive hump and struggled to find purchase with his feet on the animal’s slab-muscled sides. Once he got his heels dug in, he nodded sharply to cue a cowboy to open the gate and let all hell loose with Lane on its back.
The bull shot out of the chute and hit the dirt hard with its front hooves. On impact the two thousand pound animal became lithe as a fox, flipping its hind feet up behind it and floating motionless at the top of its arc before it twisted in the air and came down spinning, whirling to the left.
Wrong way, Lane thought. The bull was spinning away from his hand, making holding on damn near impossible. He felt his body sliding sideways as the force of the spin pulled him into the well.
He hadn’t been much for physics in high school, but he’d become an expert on centrifugal force once he started riding bulls. He fought gravity, adjusting his seat and centering himself as the bull leapt again, hoisting its heels in the air and buckling its body in an extra flex that damn near sent him vaulting ass-over-teakettle past its horns.
When Yellow Jack’s front hooves hit the dirt and he spun to the right, Lane was still on top and he knew he had the bull beat. He spurred a little, flinging his arm up and back in the syncopated rhythm of the bull’s bucking—not because it changed his balance any, but because it added flash to the ride. He could hear the crowd roaring over the pounding of his own heart and the rasping of his breath, and then the harsh blat of the buzzer broke through.
He let go, vaulting into the dirt, landing on his feet and falling forward to take the ignominious four-footed scramble that was the cowboy’s lot whether he’d won or lost.
Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Yellow Jack’s jutting brow and small, angry eyes focus on him for a brief, confused moment before the bull recognized him as the annoyance that had been clinging to his back for the past eight seconds and thundered after him, bent on revenge. Getting bucked off a bull was like facing death—not just because the animal could kill you, but because time slowed down and stretched out as if you were drowning or dying. The shouts of the crowd thundered in your ears and every move seemed labored, every limb a dead weight.
He glanced back as he climbed the fence and saw the bullfighters hopping around in their baggy pants in a frantic dance of distraction that drew the animal’s attention so he could flee to safety. Once the bull turned away and forgot what it was so all-fired mad about, a pickup man on a handsome paint took over, twirling a rope carelessly and letting it fall across the bull’s hindquarters to drive it toward the exit gate. It trotted through docile as a dog now that the pesky cowboy was forgotten.
Lane glanced up at the scoreboard. 82 points.
Dang, it had felt like a better ride than that.
Sarah Landon had managed to escape form her tiny little hometown of Two Shot, Wyoming. She’d even gone to an Ivy League school. But when her sister needs her help she heads back well close to back a small city an hour away from her home town. After the tragedy’s that had haunted her teenage years, she traded spurs for heels and jeans for a suit.
Working in public relations for Carrigan Oil Company of course means she has to relate to the public in which she had been desperate to escape. This also means she has to relating to the boss’s brother, a real rodeo cowboy Lane Carrigan, She can’t keep her eyes or her hands off of him as the one secret she fought to keep comes bursting open flooding her with grief from her past and hopes toward a future.
Lane’s Brother wants to drill for oil on His Ranch. But Lane absolutely refuses, He can’t stomach the thought of letting his brother destroy the beautiful land. He’s also seen what these kind of things do to small towns., Bringing in workers that run amuck and ruin towns.
But Sarah’s determined to change his mind. In fact, her job – and her sister’s survival – depend on it.
I’ve read a lot of Joanne’s books and love how she brings these people together that bring out the best in each other.
This is a truly touching story that will grab any reader who’s struggled to be comfortable with who they really are.
Grade A
