Dear Friends! Mica is here! I hope you’ll read it and that you’ll love it! As always, there’s plenty of action, humor, and sexiness! And if you have the inclination, leave a review somewhere. Tell another reader it’s okay to take a chance on a crazy little town called Dead Horse! ~DD

MONTANA BOUNTY HUNTERS:
DEAD HORSE, MT

Authentic Men… Real Adventures…

An ex-Special Forces bounty hunter, who likes working alone, accepts the challenge of teaching a feisty young woman how to hunt…

Former Army Special Forces, Mica Ford, is a bounty hunter now. He likes the work and likes being his own boss. When a hunt goes awry, and a team of hunters from Montana Bounty Hunters provides an assist, he’s persuaded to at least listen to what the head of their agency has to offer and agrees to a meeting.

Amy Calloway wants more than anything to prove to the people of Dead Horse, Montana, that she’s not a loser simply because she shares a last name with “those Calloway brothers.” Since she’s not cut out for any other more reputable job, she has set her sights on being a bounty hunter. She’s fit, has spent an afternoon or two at the firing range, and has watched every episode of Bounty Hunters of the Northwest – We’re Dead Horse. When she walks into the MBH office to ask for a job, she knows she’s as ready as she’ll ever be.

Mica has no intention of accepting a job with MBH, but he watches Amy work up the courage to demand her chance. Her sincerity and courage impress him, and it doesn’t hurt that she’s cute as hell. He finds himself accepting a trial run working with the team and then commits to training Amy—just to make sure she stays safe. However, keeping her safe while teaching her how to hunt becomes a challenge when Amy starts improvising during takedowns…

Get your copy here!
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Also Available in Print!

I have a new release!!!
Read a snippet below!

~RC

Protecting His Second Chance

Plagued with guilt after her brother’s death, a grieving woman has a chance at a second chance.

Living in a haze of mistrust and tragedy, Chosen Shaw has closed herself off from everyone. Once known for her ability to see things that can help others, she’s now the woman who killed her brother.

Bend Ryder is the new sheriff in town and has a mess to clean up after the last one met an untimely death. He’s eating, sleeping and breathing a cold case involving a mysterious kidnapping, and is willing to do anything to solve the case—even if that includes looking outside of the box. Truthfully, he doesn’t believe Chosen has a “gift” but enlisting her help might be his only hope.

But, she’s left that world behind. Can he convince her to help?

Soon, they find themselves embroiled in another kidnapping.

The two find a solid connection, despite the pressures all around them. As trust and romance grow, the demons of the past start to build walls. They have a tight hold on her emotionally and physically. If she has any chance for a future with the man she loves, she must absolve herself from the guilt and let love heal her heart…and help solve a crime that has been a dark cloud over Second Chance.

Protecting His Second Chance is a story of grief, guilt, angst, redemption, and a happily ever after. Love is the ultimate healer.

Buy links:
Amazon US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BV3GTRG4
Amazon Ca: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0BV3GTRG4
Amazon UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BV3GTRG4
Amazon AU: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B0BV3GTRG4

Chapter One

“It’s okay. This happens to all men.” The seductive blonde brushed her fingers down his bare abs.

Bend Ryder drew his hand away from his forehead and looked down at the woman curled up beside him in his bed. She peered up at him through a veil of thick eyelashes and her plump lips slowly eased into a teasing grin. Farrah was new in town, visiting after her uncle, Sheriff Jackson Mellough, met an untimely death on Snowbleed Mountain.

Two days after his private funeral, the town of Second Chance elected Bend to office—or rather dumped the duties into his lap and expected him to clean up the mess. Since then, he’d been busy undoing everything Mellough had done over his long career.

Farrah slid her fingers along the waistband of his boxers. “It’s the stress.” Her slight movement caused the sheet to slip away from her hip. A diamond glistened at her belly button and a quarter sized heart tattoo sat an inch above her pelvic bone. Sweat beaded Bend’s brow and he cursed under his breath.

“Maybe I can help solve the problem,” she purred.

She shifted to her knees, but Bend caught her shoulders in a gentle grip. Her chin snapped up and she nailed him with her brooding brown gaze. The tip of her tongue slid over her bottom lip as if to remind him what he was missing.

A woman as beautiful and desirable as Farrah had never faced this problem, he surmised, even if she tried to pacify his ego by saying this sort of thing happened all the time. A streak of disappointment sliced through him. Truthfully, he’d never had this particular issue before tonight.

Maybe it was the stress.

“I don’t think this is going to work.” He kicked the sheet away from his feet and slid to the edge of the bed. “Sorry.” He stood, glancing down at her. She now had the sheet tight against her breasts as if she were saving the view for someone worthy.

Damn. He was broken.

Grabbing his jeans off the floor, he stepped into them. He realized her gaze was still on him, maybe expecting him to change his mind? He continued to pull his clothes on.

“I think I know what’s happening.” She bounced on the springy mattress, her smile returning.

“Then you mind explaining it to me?” What he wanted was for her to get dressed and leave so he could lick his wounded pride in peace.

“That case you’ve been working on. The cold case with the missing child. Something like that could just about wear down anyone.” She grabbed her cellphone from the nightstand and scrolled through the screen, giggling. “Do you have TikTok, cowboy?”

“Nope.” He turned his back to her.

“You should. These videos are so weird but they’re funny. Anyway, we could make a video with you asking the public for help. We can do that now.”

“I’ll think about it.” But he knew he wouldn’t. He didn’t want anything to do with social media, and he especially didn’t want to look at her. He was embarrassed, and no doubt this would be the first and last time he and Farrah would be naked together. She didn’t need to waste her time on a man who just dipped out on her.

The case of the missing five-year-old, Bradley Hoffman, did weigh heavily on Bend’s shoulders. Once he’d taken over as sheriff, he’d gone through the unsolved cases in the area and something about the information—or rather the lack there of—set off alarm bells in his head. For the last two months, Bend had been eating, sleeping, breathing the mysterious kidnapping. The boy had been riding his bike alone and he vanished from the dead-end road leading to the apartment complex where he and his mother lived. The bike had been found but the boy was gone. Mom’s call to Mellough didn’t come until the next day. Not one witness came forward and out of the ten or so people interviewed no one saw anything suspicious.

“It’s not called a cold case for no reason.” Farrah pushed herself off the bed, completely confident in her nude body.

He slowly fastened each button on his shirt while he watched her dress. She even did that with an air of seduction. He’d be kicking himself in the ass for days—maybe longer. He hadn’t been with a woman in months, and his dry spell wouldn’t be ended today. “I’ve turned over every stone, every piece of dirt, and I’ve found nothing. How can a child disappear without a trace?” He dropped down on the end of the bed and dragged over his boots.

Once she had her romper into place, she flounced over and plopped down beside him. “You’re being too hard on yourself. Jackson had been a lot of things, but one thing’s for certain, he loved the attention a solved, high-profile case brought him. Maybe this case isn’t solvable?”

Bend had never been a quitter. He wouldn’t have taken the job unless he knew wholeheartedly that he was a right fit, and had the right intentions. He agreed that Mellough loved his ego being stroked, but the man also had a lazy streak the size of Montana. “Every case is solvable.”

Farrah laid her hand on his shoulder. He liked her, but happily ever after just wasn’t in the cards for them. They enjoyed hanging out, grabbing a beer on occasion and discussing life. Although she could be a bit flighty and ran through men like an out-of-control bulldozer, she also had a good head on her shoulders. She had a lot of dreams for her future. Earlier, they’d been downstairs in Crew and Brew shooting some pool when out of the blue she asked if she could see his bedroom.

The rest was history…literally.

“Hey, it’s important that you stay ahead of this. You’re better than my bastard of an uncle. People don’t doubt this, so don’t doubt yourself. There will be plenty of cases.”

He offered her a smile. “You’re a good woman, Farrah.”

“I know.” She stood and jutted her chin at the crumpled bed sheets. “And that’s why I’m not going to let this bother me.”

“Trust me. This isn’t about you.”

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If you didn’t already know, I’m fast at work on my next Montana Bounty Hunter story, Mica. It’s scheduled for release on February 28th.

I’m having fun with the story, I hope you will too. Naturally, we meet our hero in the middle of a takedown of a skip. I love dropping my heroes and heroines in the middle of the action. Action scenes fly by fast, and there are so many things that can go wrong. I hope you enjoy meeting Mica. He hasn’t met his love interest yet, but she will make a big impression. 🙂

Be sure to get to the end of this post. I have a big ole list of contests you still have time to enter!

Montana Bounty Hunters: Dead Horse, Montana — Mica

MONTANA BOUNTY HUNTERS:
DEAD HORSE, MT
Authentic Men… Real Adventures…

Mica Ford wasn’t one to hold grudges. At least not these days. Grudges required fury and bile, and he’d had his fill of pointless anger and heartburn.

However, he was beginning to get a bit perturbed by the crew of bounty hunters working out of an office in Dead Horse, Montana. This was the third time they’d crept into one of his stakeouts. Twice now, he’d had to withdraw from a takedown and let them score his target. There were just too many of them, and again, he hadn’t wanted a dustup, wasn’t looking for a fight. But this time, he’d be damned if he let them scoop a third bounty right from under his nose.

This time, his target was one Norman P. Rudd. The bounty was high enough that Mica could live off the proceeds for a good four months. According to the bail bond company’s description, Norman had failed to appear before the judge to begin his trial for numerous charges stemming from an incident where Norman had gone “postal” on a neighbor whose political campaign posters didn’t share his flavor of affiliation.

Norman hadn’t stopped at simply pulling up the neighbor’s signs and burning them in a bonfire in the middle of the man’s front yard. No, he’d taken a tree branch, set the end on fire, and then torched his neighbor’s house and RV and then set wood he’d stacked beside a propane tank on fire. The explosion from the tank had rattled and broken windows throughout the neighborhood, including Norman’s. Even before the firetrucks and police arrived, the neighbor had pulled in front of his house, jumped out of his pickup, and the two men had entered into a brawl. The neighbor had been horrified by the damage to his home and belongings, but worse, his favorite blue tick hound had been locked inside the house when it was set on fire.

The house and RV? Mica wouldn’t have bothered to do more than shake his head and collect the insurance—belongings didn’t matter much, and you couldn’t take them with you when you left this world, but he could understand someone goin’ loco over the murder of a four-legged best friend. For that alone, Norman was a piece of shit who deserved to spend the rest of his days in jail. However, since he’d lost his mind and fired up his neighbor’s property, Norman had proven himself to be a bit smarter, evading police and bounty hunters while hiding out in the Absaroka Range. Mica couldn’t guess his intentions, but he suspected Norman thought he could hopscotch through mountains and forests to hide out there for a while until he lost some weight and grew a beard—something to disguise his ugly, memorable features. His mistake had been coming in for a night to shower and sleep in a soft bed.

Mica had tracked him to a motel in Belgrade, Montana. The night manager had just confirmed that someone of Norman’s broad build had indeed rented a room at the end of the building. He’d asked for menus from restaurants that offered delivery, then he’d kept quiet, not budging from his room.

Mica had already walked the perimeter of the building and tried peeking into the room, but the curtains were pulled closed and the frosted glaze on the bathroom window behind the building didn’t allow him to make out anything other than the fact there was a light turned on inside the room.

Before he could bust in the door, he had to know that Norman was inside. So, he’d hunkered down in his truck, waiting for his break, hoping Norman ordered food before the last restaurant closed for the night.

He watched through his tinted windows as another SUV and a truck pulled into the lot. He groaned when he saw the female hunter, Marti of naked-body-shop-video fame, enter the motel office. When she’d come out, she’d scanned the parking lot, and her gaze had locked on his vehicle.

So, she knew someone else was on Norman’s trail. Mica snorted. They might have the advantage of more hunters to enter the chase, but he had the better vantage, parked right in front of Norman’s room while they had to park farther down the row.

A small compact sedan entered the lot. It had a lighted sign on top of it, advertising Papa Ralph’s Pizza. So, Norman wasn’t starting his diet anytime soon. The sedan moved slowly down the row of parking spaces, then stopped right behind Mica’s vehicle. A car door slammed, and a lanky teenager ran toward the door, carrying an insulated pizza delivery bag that looked like it held two pizza boxes. Mica partially lowered his driver’s side window so he could listen as he watched the kid knock on the motel room door.

The lights inside doused. The kid stiffened and backed away a step, his head turning side to side like he was unsure of his safety. Read the rest of this entry »

UPDATE: The winner is…Stacey Kinzebach!
*~*~*

Last year wasn’t my most prolific writing year—that’s for sure. However, I did have several releases. Some were re-edited, re-released titles (the Dark Realm stories), but most were new series books, including two Brotherhood Protectors books! Today, I just wanted to provide the list and release dates of the titles in case you missed one. If you’re interested in one of the stories, click on the covers to check them out!

• 01/07/22 – AFTER DARK, Dark Realm series, short story
• 01/25/22 – ELI, Montana Bounty Hunters: Dead Horse, MT series
• 02/15/22 – HUNK OF BURNING LOVE, Cowboys on the Edge, short story
• 03/22/22 – NO TENDER MERCY, Texas Vampires series
• 04/26/22 – DARK SEDUCTION, Dark Realm series
• 06/21/22 – VICTORIA’S SIX, Brotherhood Protectors: Colorado series
• 07/26/22 – GABRIEL, Montana Bounty Hunters: Dead Horse, MT series 
• 08/12/22 – WHAT A WOLF WANTS, Dark Realm series, short story, 
• 10/11/22 – GUARDING HANNAH, Brotherhood Protectors: Team Wolf series

2022 Novels/Novellas

2022 Short Stories

Contest

For a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card, tell whether you’ve read any of these stories or which titles might interest you now! Easy, right?

UPDATE: The winner is…Shirley Long!
*~*~*

I’m still working on the big plan, but I’m pretty sure about the stories I’m aiming to release this next year.

A few you already know about:

From Montana Bounty Hunters, Mica, which is set to release on February 28 and Jackson on June 16.

Then there are also a couple I’ll write for a new connected series, We are Dead Horse, MT: Hard Knox, which I hope to release in March, and Cold Hard Cash, set to release April 25.

Then there are some I don’t have covers or titles for yet, but I know you’ll be there when I do get them up, two new group-related projects in my sister’s Brotherhood Protectors world to join my previous efforts:

  

Beyond these? I’m not sure. I have a romantic comedy I started years ago that I’d like to finish called Little Green Dreams, and it’s about, you guessed it, aliens. Maybe another Cowboys on the Edge series story. We’ll see how ambitious I get. This year I slowed way down so far as the number of titles I released. I may not have published a ton of stories, but I’m very happy with the ones I did, so there’s that.

I need to light a fire under my butt. Or have someone give it swift kick every now and then to “motivate” me.

As for other promises? I’ll try to figure out some more fun things to do here on this blog. More guests, more contests, more puzzles? More free reads? A serialized story? More behind the scenes of a writer’s life? You tell me what you’d like to see here and be entered to win a $5 Amazon gift card!

Open Contests

1. Things on a Christmas Tree Word Search! (Contest) — This one ends soon! Win an Amazon gift card!
2. Tell me a story… (Contest) — Win an Amazon gift card!
3. Elizabeth Andrews: Starting the Countdown (Giveaway) — Win a FREE book!
4. New Year’s Day Word Search! (Contest) — Win an Amazon gift card!

UPDATE: The winner is…Debra Guyette!
*~*~*

Hello, everyone! I want to start by thanking Delilah for letting me come play here with you all again. I always have a good time when I visit.

So, about that title…my countdown to the new year isn’t in hours or minutes yet, but I am counting down the days. I love looking forward to a new year, don’t you? It’s always so full of possibility and opportunity, and all kinds of good things we can’t even imagine yet. It’s almost like getting ready to start reading a new book by a favorite author or seeing a movie you’ve anticipated for months.

I don’t make ‘resolutions’ for the year. I quit that a long time ago, but I do work out goals for myself every year, personal things I want to get done, and writing goals (still working on the new goals as I write this). ‘Resolutions’ seem so…inflexible, I guess, like passing a new law or something. Too daunting that way.

If I call them goals instead, they become something I want to do, not have to do, and I can break each one down, and figure out the steps and time needed to accomplish them. For example, most authors have a general idea of how long it will take them to write a book, so they can break that time frame down—if it usually takes someone three months to write a 90,000-word story, they can figure out how many words they need to write each week, each day to make their three-month goal on time, and if there is an off-day, they can adjust to make up for the words they didn’t get done that day. That sort of goal-setting feels to me more achievable than simply writing a list of resolutions for the year—ie, for the next year, I have to lose X pounds, organize my life, look for a new career, etc.

Besides getting my goals finalized this week, we have a family dinner to start the new year, so while the basics of the meal are always the same, I do need to figure out dessert. Something else I will do to wave the old year goodbye is write down a few wishes for the new year, and then near midnight on New Year’s Eve, I’ll burn that list and send the wishes to the universe. If our weather forecast for this weekend is right, I may have to improvise to avoid the rain, but I have time to figure that out.

I would love to hear how you bring in the new year…do you set goals or make resolutions? What other traditions do you enjoy? Everyone who comments between now and the start of the new year will be entered into a drawing for an eBook copy of one of my three books, winner’s choice.

Happy New Year to you all, and may all your New Year wishes come true!

About Elizabeth

Lifelong book addict Elizabeth Andrews fell in love with romance novels at an early age and now writes her own, full of sexy heroes and strong heroines. Her stories range from paranormal to contemporary, to who knows what her imagination might come up with along the way, but happy endings are a guarantee!

She is a married mother of two who’s got a room overflowing with her book collection and a garden full of herbs and veggies that needs occasional attention between writing and reading binges.

You can find out more at ElizabethAndrewsWrites.com

UPDATE: The winners are…Jennifer Beyer, Debra Guyette, and ButtonsMom2003!
*~*~*

I love my Montana Bounty Hunters. I’ve said it before, but I try hard to make each of them individual rather than cookie-cutter characters with different names. I also love to dream up unique takedowns for your reading pleasure and to showcase who these men are. One of the sexiest characters I’ve written is Cochise.

Cochise

MONTANA BOUNTY HUNTERS: Authentic Men… Real Adventures…

Former Army sniper, Cochise Mercier, left Denver SWAT under a cloud of controversy, which was why he ended up back home in Montana, and where he heard about the Montana Bounty Hunters. The “cloud” didn’t seem to bother his new boss, so he’s “all in” and finding he enjoys hunting down fugitives for bounties, encumbered by fewer rules.

Sammy McCallister is a by-the-book sheriff’s deputy, who has a beef with bounty hunters. Forced to stand by with her gun in her holster, while hunters take down scumbags, she’s particularly irked by the new guy in town. Cochise, with his long black hair and thousand-yard-stare, makes her uncomfortable, itchy in ways she’s never felt before. When she finds herself needing his help late one night, the reason for her irritation becomes all too clear. She wants him. But first, they have to make it out of the mountains alive…

Contest

Are you all caught up reading the original Montana Bounty Hunters series?

For a chance to win a download of one of the stories you may have missed
(I’ll pick three winners!), tell me this:
What profession other than bounty hunters would you like to see in my Montana Bounty Hunters—Dead Horse branch, and beyond—stories?

Here are all the Bear Lodge Montana Bounty Hunters! Yes, it’s an old meme and Brian’s been out a while, but do you really care? 🙂

MONTANA BOUNTY HUNTERS: Bear Lodge, MT
Authentic Men… Real Adventures…
Reaper: https://amzn.to/2NztLpv
Dagger: https://amzn.to/2zo6Dav
Reaper’s Ride: https://amzn.to/2KKkisI
Cochise: https://amzn.to/2zq4avV
Hook: https://amzn.to/2UrpyYh
Wolf: https://amzn.to/2yUTjr5
Animal: https://amzn.to/2H4Roob
Big Sky Wedding: https://amzn.to/33GprwK
Quincy: https://amzn.to/2QlleM8
Brian: https://amzn.to/2ZV8m2G

Excerpt from Cochise:

Cochise Mercier, the new hire at Montana Bounty Hunters, took a deep breath to force his heart to slow its pace. A trick he’d learned as an Army sniper to make sure a jerking breath didn’t mess up a shot. The trick worked in most situations when he needed his mind to slow and for his focus to home in on a target or a situation. Clearing his mind meant he was able to take in more of what was happening around him and enabled him to discard the things that weren’t important—like the way the wind beat a tree branch against the side of the house, a steady thump that sounded almost like clomping footsteps. Instead, he concentrated on the way the light, beaming through the tall arched windows at the front of the house, flickered whenever his target paced left or right, telling him where their mark was. An important fact, because in minutes, he’d have to breach the oak front door and be ready to take him down—with his weapon or his body, depending on whether Randy Pinter was armed. A fact Cochise would have to ascertain in a split second.

“Can’t see any movement in the back rooms,” came Jamie Burke’s voice through his earpiece. “I think he’s alone.”

He still wasn’t used to hearing a woman’s voice on the comms. He’d never had a female as part of any of his missions on the ground with the Army, and Denver’s SWAT had, at the time, been all male. That voice interrupted his calm. His instinct was to protect women and children, but she was a part of this team—and his boss—so again, he drew a deep breath, pushed aside his concern, and concentrated on his target. Pinter was pacing in front of the window to the right of the front door.

“Girlfriend’s car isn’t in the garage,” came Sky Reynold’s deep voice. “Must have gone for takeout. I’m moving around to the front.”

“Deputies just arrived,” Lacey Jones’s too perky voice sounded. “I’ll go brief them about what’s about to go down. Make sure they know we have the owner’s permission to be here.”

Cochise could hear the excitement in her higher pitch. Thank God, she was back at the road with the vehicles. The thought of her cotton-candy sweetness being anywhere near Pinter made him shudder. The girl might have qualified with her weapon and might be doing well with her self-defense classes, but she had no real experience going head-on with bad dudes. He didn’t want to be around the first time she was truly tested.

“You call it, Cochise,” Jamie said.

With his heart as slow as when he slept, he felt the familiar ice-water chill flow over him. “Ready,” he whispered and then stepped away from the bushes beside the porch. “Moving toward the door… On three. One…two…three.”

He pounded three times on the door. “Federal Recovery Agent! Get down on the floor!”

Then, just as they’d rehearsed, Sky popped up, used a short cudgel to break the right front window, and tossed a flashbang grenade through the opening he’d made.

Cochise turned his back and crouched beside the door. A split second later, he heard the explosion and a muffled shout. He stood and swung the battering ram against the thick front door. The frame around the door splintered. He tossed the ram and kicked the thick oak, waiting as it slammed forward against dark wood flooring. Then pulling his weapon from its holster, he stepped onto the door into the foyer. Read the rest of this entry »