#TeaserTuesday – Not like the storybooks… #HonorableRancher #IntheRanchersCare

Ben Sawyer has been in love with Dana Wright since kindergarten, but she grew up and married his best friend. She is now a single mom and, as the widow of their town’s military hero, even more off-limits to Ben.

Today, they’re matron of honor and groomsman at their friends’ wedding.

(Note: *** used for italics.)

~~~

Before he could get to his feet, she left, running away like that princess in the fairytale his niece asked him to read to her over and over again.

No, not a princess. The one who took off without her glass slipper—Cinderella.

Dana was no Cinderella. She hadn’t left a shoe behind. Hadn’t even dropped a button from that pink dress as something for him to remember her by. As if he could ever forget her.

She’d been the heroine of a story he’d once created long ago, a story he’d had to write in his head because he hadn’t yet known how to spell all the words.

How did it go? Like in his niece’s storybook…

***Once upon a time,*** that was it.

***Once upon a time, in the Land of Enchantment—otherwise known as the state of New Mexico—Benjamin Franklin Sawyer had high hopes and a huge crush on the girl who sat one desk over from him in their classroom every day.

No other girl in town, Ben felt sure, could beat Dana Smith, and most likely no other woman in the world could compare to her, either. In any case, without a doubt, she was the cutest of all his female friends in their kindergarten classroom.

Unfortunately, when the teacher moved his best friend, Paul Wright, to the desk on the other side of Dana’s, Ben saw his hopes dashed.

The crush, however, continued. For a good long while.

As for Benjamin Franklin Sawyer’s hopes…***

Well, not every story had a happy ending.

~~~

Honorable Rancher is still available as a stand-alone novel and has also been re-released in the 2-in-1 anthology, In the Rancher’s Care.

In the Rancher's Care - Amazon