I’ve finally come to the end of the unused prologue to THE COWBOY’S BABY. Here it is.
The time passed. The camels weren’t real friendly and tended to attract motorists to her fence along the country highway, but she kept them anyway. The longhorns were now a herd and she had just begun to experiment with the miniatures of the breed, finding to her surprise something she loved and was really good at. The dog, the cat, the horses all multiplied and over the next decade Cassie’s family land became a ranch, and rich, widowed, childless, distracted Cassie became a cowboy, most of her time now spent riding up and down the fences and with her animals.
Cowboy Cassie tended the stock,moving it from one part of her land to better pastures on the other side of the highway, continually surprised at how much time that took up. Keeping trespassers from Creighton Lakeview Resort from getting in her way was her other main job.
Some people still remembered her as the Sleeping Beauty, but to most of her neighbors Cassie Lennon was now “the cowboy.” The name switch changed nothing except the image. The moat was set, the walls were protected, and the knight patrolled the castle battlements. Cassie and her baby’s animals were all as safe inside as her lost Joseph was safe inside her mind. Cassie was now thirty-five years old. If he had lived, Joseph would have been about fifteen.
It was past time for the prince to come and save her. 
COPYRIGHT by Gretchen Rix
Photos by Roxanne Rix
The prologue is beautiful. I can’t remember if you worked that info into the book as back story, but it’s so rich and interesting. It does set an entirely different tone, though. Thanks for sharing this. Maybe you could make a cool short story out of it? Kind of compress Cassie’s story into a short one? I really love the writing in this piece 🙂