The Cowboy and the Movie Star: Royal Oak Ranch Sweet Western Romance, #1

By Elle Rush

Marki Queen is Hollywood royalty in desperate need of a knight in shining armour. Preferably one with a real horse who gives riding lessons. Thanks to her childhood television role, the whole world thinks she's an expert horsewoman. Nobody knows it was all an act. Now she has two weeks to learn to ride for real, and a small-town cowboy is her only hope.

 

Clay Lawson is not pleased that he got roped into giving riding lessons on top of all his other duties as the Royal Oak Ranch's general manager. He was told all Marki Queen needed was a refresher course, but when he discovers she's been a fake cowgirl for her whole life, everything changes.

 

The more time they spend together, the harder they fall. But is two weeks long enough to start a romance that can bridge the country-Hollywood divide?

• Language: English
• Publisher: SBD Entertainment
• Release date: Apr 11, 2023
• ISBN: 9781998825028

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

As Clay Lawson knelt in front of the toilet, he thought it was a good time to re-evaluate his life choices.

He hadn’t thought he’d made many bad ones. He was a hard worker who was now the general manager of his family’s ranch. He had the respect of his parents and his four younger siblings. He was a member in good standing of the local business community.

But he must have taken a wrong turn somewhere because here he was, cleaning somebody else’s bathroom.

He had some idea of how it happened. It had started simply enough. All he did was listen to his sister agree to help a friend of a friend. In theory, it had been a good idea—especially since he wasn’t involved in the favour.

Clay already had a never-ending to-do list to keep the Royal Oak Ranch up and running. He was a member of the fourth generation of Lawsons who had been working the land and cattle on their farm in southern Manitoba. After a rocky decade that almost saw the end of the ranch, his family had recently been blessed by a bout of good fortune.

First, his closest-in-age brother Tyler had attended his ten-year high school reunion the previous summer and had chipped in on a group lottery ticket. The twelve former Hopewell High School graduates walked away with a jackpot of fifty million dollars. Tyler had invested his four million in his family. He gifted each sibling half a million dollars, which the five of them used to buy the ranch from their aging parents while also providing their folks with a retirement nest egg.

Then that winter, the four-year drought had finally broken. In the spring, the ponds filled and the water table began to return to its normal levels. If the weather continued to cooperate throughout the summer, the ranch would be able to harvest full fields of hay this year, providing them with enough feed to allow the family to expand their cattle herd after years of culling it.

After those strokes of luck, Tyler had told the family about a friend’s dilemma. Shannon, the baby of the family, immediately offered to solve the problem, calling it a terrific opportunity. She said that since the ranch was on a roll, it was as good a time as any to try to diversify the business. But as equal partners, all the siblings had to agree.

His sister had claimed leadership of the project promising she could take on the new venture in addition to her existing duties. Tyler volunteered to work with her on the marketing. The two other Lawson siblings—quiet middle sibling Paul and reckless Benton—agreed to let her run with it, offering to help when they could. Clay had enough to do without taking on another role so his only task was to promise Shannon his full emotional support.

From that family dinner came the official announcement that the Royal Oak Ranch was going to be offering private horse riding lessons for now, building to a full dude ranch experience in the near future.

Which had been step one to him ending up with a toilet brush in his hand.

Clay, are you done yet? I need the keys to the quad. His youngest brother appeared in the doorway. Benton was already sweating in the August heat. His T-shirt stuck to his back, and his hair was plastered to his forehead under his hat. I’m fixing the fence section by the highway. The trailer’s loaded, but I can’t find the keys. The leather gloves hanging from his back pocket and the bounce in his step said he was raring to get started, probably before it got even hotter.

Clay dropped the brush into its container, then stood to fish the keychain out of his jeans pocket. Are we still on track to move the herd into that pasture?

We will be by the end of the day. I’ll fix that section, and double-check the rest. Unless I find another problem, I should be home before supper.

Just in time to help Dad turn the manure piles. You might miss that opportunity entirely if you drive slowly enough.

Thanks for the tip, big bro. And for the keys. I’m sorry I’m not going to be here to meet our special guest.

You’ll get your chance. Clay flicked his hand at him and laughed as Benton sped away. With the toilet done, he picked up his bucket of cleaning supplies and headed to the kitchenette.

Step two had been reopening the bachelor cowboy quarters after a few decades of disuse. Their guests would need a place to stay.

At one time, the long, low building that stretched along the driveway had housed four workers. The apartments were designed for single men, or a couple if they didn’t mind the cramped quarters of a bachelor suite. One room with a tiny counter kitchenette and a bathroom weren’t much, but a free bed as part of their pay had been enough for the ranch hands. But as they moved on, and the ranch began its decline, the units closed one by one.

The family had reopened the first eight years earlier when Clay moved in. He wanted to get out of the house, but renting a place in Hopewell seemed like a waste of money he didn’t have. The tiny apartment on the property gave him his freedom and privacy, and still let him show up for family dinners when he didn’t feel like cooking. Three years later, Tyler took the second unit.

That left two units. One had devolved into a storage area, a catch-all for all their old furniture, every broken appliance that somebody might get around to fixing someday, and junk that was too big for the trash and needed to be hauled to the dump in its own trip. The other had been forgotten.

Until Tyler and Shannon’s brainchild. Now they both needed to be fixed up.

If all went well with the riding lessons and dude ranch, Clay and Tyler would both need to find a new place to live so all four units could be used for a party wanting to experience life on a ranch. He was safe until that happened, but this apartment still had to be cleaned and furnished unless he wanted a roommate.

The worn countertops were laminate, but the stainless-steel sink and taps gleamed after his scrubbing. The half-sized fridge was brand new, as was the microwave above it. A set of four plates and bowls sat in one cupboard, with glasses and mugs on the shelf above them. One drawer held silverware; the other held everything else, from wooden spoons to bottle openers. It wasn’t fancy, but it was everything a person needed to make a temporary home.

Shannon had convinced the others to invest in new furniture as well. A sofa that folded into a bed with a surprisingly thick mattress sat in the middle of the room with lots of space to unfold itself. A small table and two chairs were under the front window. A television and DVD player were on a small dresser on the opposite wall. His sister had stacked a dozen movies beside it; their internet service wasn’t powerful enough to allow streaming, and the satellite dish wasn’t wired to the building. Besides, if Shannon did her job right, their guest would only be in the apartment long enough to shower and