Down the Alley: A Western Star Novella

By Mary Kit Caelsto

Lora and Clint go their first overnight show and rodeo since he came to live and work on her farm. Not only is she still navigating her growing feelings for him, but also she's dealing with her divorce and the fallout from it. She hopes the show will help them both professionally and personally, but there's a catch. Her ex-husband is at the rodeo and rumors are flying about her marriage and her new relationship with Clint. She needs to navigate the gossip, keep her head down, and run down the alley to keep winning the day money. Her farm and her dreams, not to mention future with Clint, relies on her ability to focus and to do what she does best--win!

Note: This novella takes place between Western Star 1 and 2, but can be read as a standalone story. The Western Star series is a slow burn cowboy romance series featuring a fiercely independent cowgirl who faces the ups and downs of running her own training center with the same courage she brings to her relationship with a mysterious cowboy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mary Kit Caelsto
• Release date: Feb 6, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005129279

Book preview

< Down the Alley>

A Western Star Novella

Mary Kit Caelsto

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

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Down The Alley

Preview: Spins Are Wild

Fox Hunt Inn Sign Up Backmatter

Preview: Steady On Course

About the Author

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, places, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

DOWN THE ALLEY

Copyright © Mary Kit Caelsto, 2021

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Cover Art ® 2021

Cover art by Epona Author Solutions

Book formatting by Epona Author Solutions (http://www.eponaauthorsolutions.com)

Electronic Publication Date: February 2021

This book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the author.

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Also By The Author

Equestrian Women’s Fiction

Noble Dreams Series

Steady On Course

Standing On Course

Correction On Course

Walking On Course

Course Perfect

Shadbelly Faults

Husband On Board

Double Clear

Riding Double

Rompers & Rosettes

Crossed Rails

International Obstacles

Baby Green

Mare Stare

Future Courses

Western Star Series

(women’s fiction w/ romantic elements)

Spins Are Wild

Turn And Burn

In The Chute

Back In The Saddle

Winning It All

Sweet Equestrian Romance

Shiloh’s Second Chance

Equestrian Romance (Mildly Sensual/Mainstream)

Racehorses & Romance Series

Racing Home

Claiming His Irish Trainer

His Irish Proposal

Fantasy/Magic Realism

Radio Arcanum/Musimagium

Hidden

Tonic Chords

Of Songs & Horns

Songs & Paperwork

Chasing Neptune’s Cat

Draco Magus

Radio Arcanum

The Pegasus Enchantment

The Pegasus Project

Pegasus In Flight

Pegasus Gathered (coming soon)

Rota Rising~Tyche

From The Deep

Bad Luck Titan

Racing Luck

Healing Luck (Rota Rising Book 1 - coming soon)

The flow of unloading at a show had a rhythm to it, a weave and dance down the aisles with tack trunks and horses, dodging wheelbarrows full of manure from those who had arrived a day or so earlier. Lora led Badger to his stall next to Lolly, with a tack stall between her horses and Clint’s. He shook the last bit of shavings into the stall, then stepped out just in time for her to turn the gelding loose inside. She stepped back, shut the door, then turned to him. Great teamwork.

We all good?

Yep. If you want to stay here and keep an eye on things, I’ll go park the trailer.

Sure thing. He turned to the tack stall, and she took a moment to admire his backside in the jeans, before going to her truck. She parked in the lot with the rest of the RVs with trailers, or as in her case, trailers with living quarters, since they’d be staying there for the duration of the weekend. She hadn’t talked to Clint about sleeping arrangements yet. They were adults. They could make it work. She kept an air mattress in one of the cupboards in case she trailered for someone else and they needed a place to stay. One of them would sleep there. She’d done it before. It wasn’t the most comfortable in the world, but it worked.

Thinking about being in the close confines of the trailer with Clint set her nerves tingling. This was their first show together since he’d moved into her basement apartment. With the space of the farm, and the house, they’d been dancing around one another, and their mutual attraction. Now, in a space smaller than her bedroom…it’d be difficult to ignore the truth.

As she walked back to the barn, she thought about her ex. Thinking about Billy certainly cooled any heated thoughts she had about Clint. Then again, two people, stuck in the living quarters of a horse trailer during a storm, that’s how their relationship began. It seemed to be a pattern that she invited Clint to the show with her and said he could sleep in her trailer.

She smiled when she saw her