A Match Made in Texas

By Karen Witemeyer

Description:

A Cowboy Unmatched by Karen Witemeyer in the novella collection A Match Made in Texas

Tired of living in the shadow of his older brothers, Neill Archer leaves the family ranch, determined to prove himself his own man. After two years of doing everything from laying railroad track to driving cattle, he's nearly saved enough to purchase his own spread. While passing through a small town in the Texas panhandle, a handwritten ad literally falls into his lap during the local church service and convinces Neill that God is steering him toward his next job.

There are two things Clara Danvers cannot hide—her grandmother's Comanche blood and her hugely pregnant stomach. After her husband got himself shot cheating at cards six months back, she has worked hard to make the shabby cabin he'd left behind truly hers. But there are some things a pregnant woman can't repair, and a leaky roof is one of them. When a handsome cowboy shows up at her door with a tale about a nameless woman hiring him to fix her roof, she's suspicious but desperate enough to let him work.

Scarred by the men who have failed her in the past, Clara is forced to trust the stranger when danger threatens her child. Neill might prove to be an able protector, but can she trust him with the battered remains of her heart?

Book Takeaway:

Galatians 6:2 says we are to "Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ." While many of us are good at helping others with their burdens, we often refuse to let others help us carry our own. Whether it be pride that keeps us from accepting help or fear that others will let us down or think us weak, it is hard to ask for help. Yet that is what the brotherhood of Christ is all about. Carrying each other's burdens. That is the message of Neill and Clara's story. Not only are we to be willing and eager to serve others in their time of need, but we are also to step out in trust and humility and allow others to serve us in the same way.

Awards:

Why the author wrote this book:

My story, A Cowboy Unmatched, came about because I really wanted to write a happy ending for the last of the Archer brothers. Travis and Jim had found their true loves in Short-Straw Bride. Crockett and Joanna had their happy ending in Stealing the Preacher. But the youngest Archer, Neill, still needed his story told. I had so much fun turning the tables and putting a pretty (and very pregnant) widow on the business end of a shotgun to meet him when he arrived to work on her roof. Since the reclusive Archers were always scaring visitors off their land with the threat of firepower, this seemed poetic.