Title: Lone Star on a Cowboy Heart

Author: Marie S. Crosswell

Publisher: NineStar Press

Release Date: 03/26/2024

Heat Level: 1 - No Sex

Pairing: Male/Male

Length: 49300

Genre: Contemporary Western, contemporary, Lit/genre fiction, Arizona, M/M, asexual, aromantic, bisexual, law enforcement, cowboy, platonic, companionship, crime/robbery, gun violence, bartenders, blue collar, friends to partners

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When Montgomery Clarke saves Deputy Sam Roswell’s life during an armed robbery, both men go home thinking they’ll never cross paths again. Instead, a friendship blossoms between them as they work together to track down a wanted man: the surviving robber who escaped the scene of the crime with a sack of cash.

Drawn to each other despite their starkly different personalities, Montgomery and Sam quickly bond in a way neither man has with anyone else in years. Their friendship awakens Sam’s long-buried and unexplored romantic feelings for men, while reviving Montgomery’s deepest longing: for a platonic life partner. Sparked by violence, Sam and Montgomery’s connection becomes cemented in yet another dangerous confrontation when they finally catch up to Joel Troutman, the robber on the run.

A year later, Montgomery and Sam are best friends with an exceptionally intimate relationship. What should be their first happy Christmas season together, however, suddenly turns sour when Montgomery gives Sam the cold shoulder without explanation. Brought together once again by crime—this time, one involving a teenage girl—Sam and Montgomery reckon with their feelings for each other. Will they remain friends or become partners?

Warning: Language

Lone Star on a Cowboy Heart

Prescott, Arizona

September 2014

Sam Roswell stops for dinner at the Dog Bowl Diner in his civvies, his department-issued sidearm locked in his desk drawer at the sheriff’s office. He chats up his waitress just to feel better about eating alone, then watches the other people in the diner, half cop on the lookout for mischief and half wishing he could meet a new friend. There’s a young couple with a pair of restless kids who can’t stay seated longer than a minute, an old husband and wife tucked into a two-person booth, three men and a woman side by side at the chrome-rimmed counter, and some teenagers hanging out on the other side of the place. None of them pay him any attention.

Two men wearing black knit masks over their faces dart into the diner, each of them leading with a gun. Sam freezes in his seat, watching in disbelief as they split up to cover the room.

The man in a long-sleeved navy blue T-shirt moves into the more heavily populated section of the diner and shouts, “Everybody take out your wallets. Now!”

The second man, wearing a dark red T-shirt under his jacket, goes up to the counter and points his gun at the first employee he sees. “Open the register! Open it!”

The blonde waitress with big hair hurries to the cash register positioned at the right end of the counter and tries to obey, hands twitching and eyes panicked. She fails at her first attempt.

“Hurry up!” Red Tee yells, steel revolver gleaming in the white light of the ceiling bulbs.

The register drawer clicks and slides open, and the waitress yanks stacks of bills out of their compartments and drops them on the countertop.

“Put the money in the bag! Put it in the fucking bag!”

She scrambles for the cash with one hand, then shoves it into the cloth bag Red Tee slid onto the countertop. He snatches the bag away from her and passes it to his accomplice, who holds it in front of the family with kids.

“Put your wallets in the fucking bag and pass it on,” Blue Tee says to them. “Now!”

One of the children starts to cry, pink-faced and whimpering.

A boy sitting at the table of teenagers bolts for the door, but Red Tee gets hold of the hood on his sweatshirt and yanks him back.

“Where the fuck are you going?” Red Tee yells, wrapping his free arm around the boy’s neck and pressing his gun into the boy’s head. “Huh?”

One of the teen girls yelps.

Sam stands up and makes for Red Tee, plucking his badge off his belt as he goes. His pulse races, waves of adrenaline washing through him. He’s not thinking, his body drawn to the trouble like a piece of metal to a magnet.

“Hey, hey,” he says, too soft-spoken for the circumstance. He holds the badge in his hand, so everyone can see it. “Just calm down. The kid’s not going anywhere. Send him back to his seat, and you and your pal can get out of here.”

“A cop, huh?” Red Tee says, arm still wrapped around the teenager’s neck, the gun unrelenting against his skull. “We got us a fucking cop in here.”

Blue Tee glances over at Sam, still following the bag of money around his section of the diner as it changes hands.

“Where’s your gun, asshole?” Red Tee says to Sam.

“Let the boy go,” Sam replies. “You got your money. You don’t have to hurt anyone.”

Red Tee stares at him through the eyeholes in his mask, silent for a long beat, then pushes the teenager away from him. He points his gun at Sam’s chest.

“He don’t even have a fuckin’ gun,” says Blue Tee, the bag of money in his hand. “Don’t be stupid. Let’s fuckin’ go.”

Sam’s standing with his hands up in front of him, badge in the left.

Red Tee doesn’t budge, staring him down with the revolver.

“I said, let’s go,” Blue Tee barks.

“Fuck this cop,” says Red Tee as he cocks back the hammer on his revolver.

BANG!

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NineStar Press | Books2Read

Marie S. Crosswell writes long fiction, short fiction, and poetry.

Her novellas Texas, Hold Your Queens; Alchemy; Cold, Cold Water; and The Silence of Lightning are available online wherever digital books are sold. Her short fiction has appeared in Thuglit, Betty Fedora, Plots with Guns, Tough, and other indie crime fiction publications. She’s a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College where she studied creative writing and friendship. She lives in the American West. Visit her Website for more!

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