Long blurb TWRP bcc: Disaster strikes DEA Agent Holt Donovan twice, when a gunfight ruins his mission and a car crash kills his brother and sister-in-law. Home on the Colorado ranch to raise his infant nephew, Holt enlists a nanny—Maddy McCoy, the woman who once jilted his brother. The world-traveling photographer never expected to return to Colorado, the only real home she ever had, and to the man she never forgot. Burned out from covering too many starving children and refugees and short on funds, Maddy agrees, vowing to keep her heart safe. What neither of them knows is that by bringing her into his home, Holt has placed her in the crosshairs of a killer. As Holt and Maddy cope with their desire for each other and the resentments of the past, their investigation into the brother’s death leads them into escalating danger and a shocking discovery.

Short blurb: Disaster hits DEA Agent Holt Donovan twice. A gunfight ruins his mission and a car crash kills his brother and sister-in-law. Home on the Colorado ranch to raise his orphaned nephew, Holt hires a nanny, Maddy McCoy, who once jilted his brother. Can danger and a shocking discovery bring them together?

Shorter blurb: When Holt returns to his Colorado ranch to raise his orphaned nephew, he is forced to hire the woman who once jilted his brother as nanny, but can danger and a shocking discovery bring them together?

Excerpt #1– 474 words:
Bobby’s siren wail penetrated Holt’s consciousness like a nail in his skull.

He opened one eye. The lighted digital clock beside his bed read two o’clock. Right on time, little guy. “Coming,” he mumbled.

One foot on the floor. The other. He raked fingers through his hair, then pushed to his feet. Starting for the door, he snapped alert as though slapped. 

Maddy McCoy. 

He’d finished some paperwork in the office, then slipped off to bed early. But escape didn’t work worth a damn. The image of Maddy’s sassy face and the memory of her scent kept him torturing his sheets for hours before he finally slept.

Damn, she was in the master bedroom. He couldn’t troop through the house in his skivvies. Blinking in the darkened bedroom, he stumbled back and forth like a drugged steer as he searched for his jeans. Didn’t he leave them on the chair? Or on the floor? No. He put away the clean ones and tossed the manure-smeared ones into the washing machine. Where they remained.

Bobby cranked it up a notch. He could rival that opera singer, Luciano something. 

Hell with it. Holt hit the door and burst into the hall. 

And collided with a slim figure in filmy white. 

He stumbled to a halt and braced himself as his arms went around her to stop her fall. She emitted a small yelp like a cartoon eek. Under his hands, her slender body in the silken covering was a miracle of curves and soft, toned female flesh. His body tightened and his pulse raced off to distant planets. The hallway suddenly didn’t have enough air.

He immediately set her away a step. Then he stepped back another. “Sorry. Bobby.” The baby’s cry subsided to hiccups and whimpers. No emergency, to his relief.

“Thought that was my job,” she said. “Two o’clock bottle. Diaper change. Like that.”

“You’re here to spell me when I’m doing ranch work.”

“A rancher needs sleep.” She returned his scowl, although humor tugged at the corner of her lips. “Why do you want me here if you won’t leave Bobby to me?”

He opened his mouth, closed it again with a snap.

Bobby cranked it up again. Only taking a breather. His wail rivaled an air raid siren.

“If you’ll get out of my way,” she said, tossing her hair and smoothing her nightshirt so it highlighted her breasts, “I’ll see to the baby.” The grin popped out, accompanied by a slow perusal down Holt’s body. “Nice…legs.” 

He blinked, shot a glance downward. Damn, betrayed by his tented boxers. His Adam’s apple jumped as he swallowed hard. He jerked to the side along the wall, as if someone had pressed a knife to his side. “Bobby’s all yours.”

“Great!” She turned and swung her hips as she flounced toward the baby’s room. 

Excerpt #2 – 403 words
Maddy retrieved her hat and eased it on her head. “Guess I’ll just have to ignore hat hair.” Grinning, she placed her left foot in the stirrup.

With her long legs, she needed no assistance mounting a horse, even a tall one like Chica. The faded denim of her designer jeans stretching across her rounded behind drew his gaze like a lodestone. 

Holt dragged his glance away, afraid he’d be tempted to give her a boost, as an excuse to put his hands on her. No matter what he thought of her, his desire for her only grew. Hell, he was getting used to constant arousal. Sex with Maddy would be like the woman herself. Sensual. Exhilarating. Nothing but trouble. 

And he couldn’t stop wanting her.

A flash of light across the meadow caught his eye. Sunlight reflecting on a mirror? 

Or on metal?

He lunged for Maddy before she could swing her right leg over the saddle. 

“Get down!” 

She gasped with surprise, falling into his arms like a newborn colt, all long limbs and slender body. Her hat tumbled away to the side. “What the hell!”

Something whizzed past them. The aspen branch above exploded into splinters. The crack of a rifle shot echoed across the meadow.

Holt and Maddy dropped to the ground. 

Both horses startled. The mare jolted away. Bandito reared and hoofed at the sky. He bolted upstream after Chica.

Another shot slammed into the aspen’s trunk. Shattered wood fragments sprayed them like pellets.

Maddy’s heart raced. Trembling, she clung to Holt. “Gunshots,” she whispered, more to express the reality of it than to state the unnecessary. 

Holt kept one arm around her as they crab-crawled toward a scraggly cedar bush. “Stay down. This isn’t much protection, but we have no choice. At least he can’t see us.”

“Who could be shooting at us?” Dried stubble beneath their shelter pricked at her bottom. She huddled in his embrace, taking comfort in his familiar smell and the heat of his hard body. Shifting for comfort, she scooted closer.

“He’s over there on the dirt track.” Expression as hard as the silver in Ghost Mountain, he peered across the meadow. “And I doubt he mistook us for a deer. Must have a hell of a site on that rifle.” 

Her discomfort flicked away, and a moment later, an idea ramped up fear to full-blown panic. “It could be Rob’s murderer!”

Review 1: “Seeking emotional romance and spine-tingling suspense? Susan Vaughan brings it home in Twice a Target.” – Ann Voss Peterson, bestselling author of Pushed Too Far

Review 2: “TWICE A TARGET gives you heart pounding excitement from beginning to end.” – Fresh Fiction

Award: Winner Write Touch Readers Award