AUDIOBOOK
About
A swoony, sweet YA rural romance between a rancher and the Hollywood hotshot she's tasked with turning into a cowboy-perfect for fans of Kasie West, Erin Hahn, and Kristy Boyce!
Sixteen-year-old Cassidy Sterling can't imagine life beyond her family's Wyoming ranch. Her days are filled with colt breaking, cattle rustling, and an online Intro to Astronomy class. Seventeen-year-old Wilder Nash also has his sights set on the stars-the ones on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. A teen heartthrob, he's now he's ready for the big time. To land a lead role as a cowboy in a prime-time mini-series, he must convince the casting director he's an experienced horseman. The problem? He's all hat and no cowboy.
With less than a month to learn to ride, Wilder heads to Silver Stallion Ranch.
Cassidy's quiet life is disrupted when Wilder arrives. As he mucks out stalls and grooms horses, Wilder begins to see there's more to life than his looks. And Cassidy starts imagining a future beyond the ranch. The growing spark between them threatens to ignite into something more, but Cassidy must decide if she's brave enough to take the reins of her own life. Meanwhile, Wilder faces a choice: the glamorous life of a star or a simpler life under the stars. Katrina Emmel is the author of Near Misses & Cowboy Kisses and Trail Rides & Starry Eyes. She grew up in New Hampshire, moved to the Midwest for graduate school, and continued traveling westward until she reached the Pacific. Now a SoCal resident, Katrina lives in an active household with her husband, two children, father-in-law, and their twin beagles, Doc Holiday and Wyatt Earp. In addition to writing fiction, she loves science, crafts, making up silly songs for her kids, and supporting monarch conservation by planting lots of milkweed. Chapter 1
Cassidy
The heap of carrots in front of me shrinks as I peel them for Sunday dinner. I've al-ready finished with the potatoes, which are cubed and in a pot on the stove, ready for boiling and mashing. I'm so used to peeling, dicing, and slicing up veggies for dinner that I barely think about it anymore.
When I was younger, the piles of vegetables seemed insurmountable, and I used to get blisters where the ancient metal peeler rubbed against the soft pad of my palm. Now that I'm seventeen, I have years of experience and hard-earned callus-es to protect me.
Rough skin.
Ragged nails.
Rope burns.
A hand model, I'll never be.
I toss the carrots with salt, pepper, olive oil, and a few sprigs of fresh rosemary from the garden before spreading them in a baking dish. The cowboy steaks are seasoned and marinating, ready for Dad to throw on the grill as soon as he and Grandpa get back from riding out to the south pasture to check on the cattle.
Hardly anything goes to waste here on the ranch--not if we can help it--and the hogs are more than happy to snack on our kitchen scraps and week-old leftovers. I use the back of the knife to scrape the vegetable peels off the cutting board and into the antique enameled slop bucket. I can remember my grandmother having me hold the bucket for her while she scraped kitchen trimmings in. The kitchen is full of reminders of her.
A collection of tea tins.
Hand-tatted doilies.
The kitchen witch she made hangs over the sink, the doll's frizzy gray hair billow-ing out under a crooked black hat. She sits on a broomstick of sticks and dried wheatgrass. When I was little, Grandma and I would gather up twigs, herbs, and bits of leftover twine, and we'd sit on the back porch while she taught me to make little brooms that I'd leave as gifts for all the fairies I was sure lived out by the duck pond.
Grandma's been gone for two years, but sometimes the grief rushes at me from out of the blue.
I blink back tears and grab the slop bucket. The handle squeaks as I make my way from the kitchen to the mudroom. My sturdy red rubber boots are on a mat by the door, snuggled between Dad's old work boots and
Sixteen-year-old Cassidy Sterling can't imagine life beyond her family's Wyoming ranch. Her days are filled with colt breaking, cattle rustling, and an online Intro to Astronomy class. Seventeen-year-old Wilder Nash also has his sights set on the stars-the ones on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. A teen heartthrob, he's now he's ready for the big time. To land a lead role as a cowboy in a prime-time mini-series, he must convince the casting director he's an experienced horseman. The problem? He's all hat and no cowboy.
With less than a month to learn to ride, Wilder heads to Silver Stallion Ranch.
Cassidy's quiet life is disrupted when Wilder arrives. As he mucks out stalls and grooms horses, Wilder begins to see there's more to life than his looks. And Cassidy starts imagining a future beyond the ranch. The growing spark between them threatens to ignite into something more, but Cassidy must decide if she's brave enough to take the reins of her own life. Meanwhile, Wilder faces a choice: the glamorous life of a star or a simpler life under the stars. Katrina Emmel is the author of Near Misses & Cowboy Kisses and Trail Rides & Starry Eyes. She grew up in New Hampshire, moved to the Midwest for graduate school, and continued traveling westward until she reached the Pacific. Now a SoCal resident, Katrina lives in an active household with her husband, two children, father-in-law, and their twin beagles, Doc Holiday and Wyatt Earp. In addition to writing fiction, she loves science, crafts, making up silly songs for her kids, and supporting monarch conservation by planting lots of milkweed. Chapter 1
Cassidy
The heap of carrots in front of me shrinks as I peel them for Sunday dinner. I've al-ready finished with the potatoes, which are cubed and in a pot on the stove, ready for boiling and mashing. I'm so used to peeling, dicing, and slicing up veggies for dinner that I barely think about it anymore.
When I was younger, the piles of vegetables seemed insurmountable, and I used to get blisters where the ancient metal peeler rubbed against the soft pad of my palm. Now that I'm seventeen, I have years of experience and hard-earned callus-es to protect me.
Rough skin.
Ragged nails.
Rope burns.
A hand model, I'll never be.
I toss the carrots with salt, pepper, olive oil, and a few sprigs of fresh rosemary from the garden before spreading them in a baking dish. The cowboy steaks are seasoned and marinating, ready for Dad to throw on the grill as soon as he and Grandpa get back from riding out to the south pasture to check on the cattle.
Hardly anything goes to waste here on the ranch--not if we can help it--and the hogs are more than happy to snack on our kitchen scraps and week-old leftovers. I use the back of the knife to scrape the vegetable peels off the cutting board and into the antique enameled slop bucket. I can remember my grandmother having me hold the bucket for her while she scraped kitchen trimmings in. The kitchen is full of reminders of her.
A collection of tea tins.
Hand-tatted doilies.
The kitchen witch she made hangs over the sink, the doll's frizzy gray hair billow-ing out under a crooked black hat. She sits on a broomstick of sticks and dried wheatgrass. When I was little, Grandma and I would gather up twigs, herbs, and bits of leftover twine, and we'd sit on the back porch while she taught me to make little brooms that I'd leave as gifts for all the fairies I was sure lived out by the duck pond.
Grandma's been gone for two years, but sometimes the grief rushes at me from out of the blue.
I blink back tears and grab the slop bucket. The handle squeaks as I make my way from the kitchen to the mudroom. My sturdy red rubber boots are on a mat by the door, snuggled between Dad's old work boots and