A COWBOY STATE OF MIND – Jennie Marts
Creedence Horse Rescue – Book 1
Sourcebook Casablanca
ISBN-10: 1492689114
ISBN-13: 978-1492689119
ASIN: B 083ZLF17B
June 30, 2020
Contemporary Cowboy Romance

Creedence, Colorado – The Present

Zane Taylor and the border collie he hasn't named leave Logan Rivers' ranch in his pickup to go to Creedence to get some supplies. Zane also wants to go to the local diner and get some biscuits and gravy before going home. His father, Birch, waits at home. Birch's heart attack is the cause of Zane's return to his hometown. Logan, who gave Zane the unwanted nickname Horse Whisperer, asked him to help on the ranch, but the woman he worked for in Montana wants him to return to work at her ranch real soon. He sees the broken-down car of the local diner's waitress, Bryn, the one woman who haunts his mind, on the side of the road. She always looks at him as if the scar running down his face is invisible. He gives her and her dog Lucky a lift into town.

Parked outside the Creedence Country Café is a very dirty horse trailer with an equally dirty mare inside. Inside the diner the owners of the trailer wait for their food. Bryn finds out they are taking the horse to be slaughtered. She offers to take it. They insist on a hundred dollars. Money Bryn doesn't have. She is barely making ends meet. When Zane leaves a hundred-dollar tip, Bryn gets the horse. It takes Zane's horse ability to get the frightened mare out of the trailer. Together he and Bryn walk the horse the few miles back to her ranch. Soon more abandoned animals are given to her, starting her horse rescue.

Bryn's mother left her and her brother at their grandparents' house and never returned, but she has a very open and caring heart. She fears Zane is going to break it. Zane's dad blamed him for his mother's death in birthing him. Birch is a malicious, often drunk, man. Long ago in a fit of rage, he sliced Zane's face leaving a scar. The scar isn't the only reminder Zane has of his father's cruelty. It left him knowing he isn't the type of man Bryn deserves. The emotional aspects of this story will keep everyone reading and wondering how these two will ever come together. This wonderful story shows it isn't only horses that need rescuing.

Robin Lee