Hissy fits broke out at the Blanchett household when The Passion Within, the second book in Deborah E. Garofano’s Rancher’s Legacy trilogy, arrived.
“Me! Oww! Me! Oww!” Mittens trilled as soon as Nancy Blanchett, one of Mittens’s housemates, laid the book on the sofa. She then went to retrieve the western apparel the cats often wore for Halloween. The eldest of the household’s three felines, Mittens, twitched her tail, asserted her sense of entitlement, and snagged the book and the costumes before Messi and Marino even knew what was going on. But as soon as they sensed competition, the first cat fight erupted.
“I read the first book, first,” Mittens chattered, “so I get to read the second, first. And I already know the plot, the setting, and the characters.”
She smugly reminded her feline companions that The Rancher’s Legacy‘s plot involves a love triangle: the beautiful, independent editor, Eliza Wentworth; the wealthy, charming rancher, Harlan Gibbs; and the handsome, brawny ranch hand, John Jakoby Stone. Mittens gazed upon the verdant lanai of her Florida home. Even though she had never been to Montana, where the story takes place, she nevertheless catnapped about lolling under the Big Sky, prowling the rugged Bridger Range, fly-fishing the Gallatin River, and roaming wild, open spaces, chock full of prairie dogs, gophers, and grizzlies.
Messi disturbed the reverie with a different priority.
“I don’t care about the plot,” she caterwauled, snuggling into a stylized vest that accentuated her curves. “This is a romance. The book’s not called Montana. It’s The Passion Within. I want to read the passionate sex scenes and fantasize about being with a cowboy.”
“They’re not cowboys,” Marino growled, ears back. “They’re ranch hands. They work with horses, not cattle. Besides, like Stone, I’m a stud. And the story is told primarily from his perspective. So, I get to read it first. And, quite frankly,” he mugged for the camera with a daring swagger. “I’m the real deal. You gals look like imposters.”
Mittens stiffened her tail and showed her claws. She wouldn’t give up without a cat fight.
“Eliza and Stone had just gotten together at the end of the first book,” she mewed. “But the love triangle continues. I need to know what happens, because even though Harlan died, his ghost permeates the ranch …”
“Ghost!” Messi yowled. “I’m afraid of ghosts. I don’t want a scary story. I want passion, sex, romance.”
“Silly kitty,” Mittens snarled. “That’s simply a metaphor for Harlan’s presence.”
While they hissed about horses and ghosts, Marino pounced on the book, trotted off to his favorite hiding place, and curled up to learn a few things about Stone and his mystique.
That left Mittens and Messi in a cat-spat.
“Then I get to read it second,” Mittens snarled, hairs bristling. “I read the first first, so I get to read the second second.”
Messi, still sporting her fancy vest, knew her place. Flicking her tail, she moseyed off to play with a cardboard box. That was far more exciting than any book.
