Well, my friends, I have been writing my tailfeathers off this year, and the new series, The Texas Brand: Generations is about to get a third tale. DEPUTY BRAND GETS HER MAN releases on this most auspicious date, 11/11. It’s Willow’s story, and there’s a big series reveal at the end, so don’t skip the epilogue!
I’m deep into the first draft of Book 4, HIRED HUSBAND, as we speak. There are eight planned in this series.
Here’s a little taste of DEPUTY BRAND GETS HER MAN:
Stu said, “You ain’t gettin’ in mah truck without a search warrant, lady deputy.”
He made it an insult. Willow pressed her lips and nodded. “It’s illegally parked, I think,” and she got to her feet and started toward the truck. “It’s blockin’ the driveway. I oughtta move it. Prevent an accident.”
Stu jumped up too. He put himself directly in front of her and bent so close to her face she could smell his beer breath. “I don’t think you want to do that.”
“Oh, you’re readin’ me wrong, then, because I very much want to do that.”
He drew back a fist to punch her. She never knew whether he’d have actually done it, though, because a different fist hit him in the face. It had come from behind her, like a piston driving directly over her left shoulder and crunching Stu’s nose.
Gringo. Jeremiah. He put his hands on her shoulders, moving her gently to the right as Tank and Tuck surged his way like Dumb and Dumber. He put Tank to his knees with a shot to the front of his neck, but Tuck punched the Gringo right in his bearded chin, snapping his head back. Willow stepped in front of him and kneed Tuck Barker in the balls. He doubled over and fell to his knees.
“Assaulting an officer,” she said.
“That guy hit first,” Stu muttered.
She put her hand on her sidearm but didn’t pull it. The message was clear. The three goons got up and ambled toward their truck, yelling all the way.
“You assaulted us!” Stu accused.
“You drew back to hit me,” Willow said. “I got witnesses. Don’t come back here, boys. You’re banned for life. And if it’s you pulling all the crap around Mad Bull’s Bend, you’ll do time for it. I’ll see to that.”
Stu and Tuck got into the truck and slammed the doors. Tank climbed into the back causing the bed to sink six inches. They sped around the building, through the parking lot in back and out the other side—the one with the IN arrow, then roared down the highway belching black exhaust.
She’d kept her eyes on them the whole time.
“You should’ve arrested him,” the Gringo said.
“If you’d’ve let him hit me, I could’ve arrested him,” she said, finally turning to face Jeremiah. “And then I could’ve got a warrant and then got the goods on all three of ‘em. You see how that works?” She raised her brows, because there was blood dripping from his bushy beard. “Where’s that comin’ from?”
He looked down, shrugged. “Chin, maybe?”
“Jeez Louise. Come on, come with me.” She didn’t take his arm or anything, just led the way. She grabbed some paper napkins from a dispenser on one of the tables, handed them back to him and kept going, inside, around the muttering patrons who hadn’t expected a floor show with their meals.
As she passed the bar, Cat handed over the first aid kit, a large white tackle box with a red cross painted on it. One tableful of folks applauded as she passed. She didn’t know if it was for her or the Gringo.
The stairs were just this side of the archway to the dance floor and stage, and she headed up them and into the private bathroom Ethan had built for Lily as a wedding present. It was dusky rose with creamy trim and even a corner shower with glass doors. There was a big counter with a basin on one end, and the mirror behind it was lined in lights. She put him in the chair, in front of the counter’s lighted end.
Then she turned to look at his face and sighed. “Lord, why haven’t you shaved that brush lot off?”
“Why? Would you like me better if I did?”
“Possibly, but either way, I could at least assess the damage.” She started opening drawers. Lily kept the place stocked with all the usual bathroom supplies. But there were no electric trimmers she could locate. She did find scissors though, pulled them out, and came toward him. “What do you say?” she asked, opening and closing the blades like the jaws of a shark.
“I’m at your mercy, Deputy.” He opened his arms to his sides, closed his eyes and waited.
Willow didn’t know why she did it. She could’ve just handed him the scissors and wished him luck. But instead, she moved right up close to him, put her hand on his forehead, and pushed his head back. Then she held the soft beard between her fingers so it wouldn’t pull too much, and she cut. And cut. And cut. The scissors were fine and sharp and they did a good job. She slid her palm over his cheek, then snipped. She cradled his jaw, then snipped. She inched her way across his upper lip, snipping with care, revealing his face more and more.
Then she stood back, staring at him. The blood was coming from a gash in his chin, but hadn’t stained his neck or even his shirt, thanks to the beard. She gave him a wet cloth to hold there.
“There’s a shaver in the cabinet under the sink, there,” he said, dabbing the cut, and pulling the cloth away repeatedly. Every time he did, new blood welled. “Ethan and Lily threaten me with it every time they see me.”
She got the electric shaver out while he dug around in the first aid kit. He plucked out a couple of butterfly bandages and a tube of antibiotic ointment.
“Band-Aids won’t stick to whiskers,” she said. “Besides, I think you need a couple stitches, there.”
“I’ll pinch it together if you’ll shave around it,” he said, and he took the cloth away. Blood welled and he pinched the cut together, wincing a little.
She plugged in the shaver and moved it carefully around his fingers on his chin. She knew it was hurting. “Looks deep.”
“He was wearing a ring.”
“Not by accident, I bet.” She finished and set the shaver down. “Thanks, Gringo. That could’ve been my face.”
“De nada.”
“But don’t let it happen again.”
He looked confused as he cleaned the wound with alcohol wipes and dabbed on ointment, leaning over the counter closer to the mirror, his head tipped up to focus on his chin. Then he applied the butterflies like it wasn’t his first time and covered them with a bigger adhesive strip.
“There.” He sat back.
“Yeah, not quite.” She nodded at the mirror. He looked again.
He had uneven stubble everywhere except his chin.
“I see what you mean,” he said, and then he reached for the razor, leaned over the sink, and resumed shaving.
When he finished, he turned to face her, running a hand down his cheek and grinning. When a dimple appeared, she could’ve sworn she heard the sound of a bullet ricocheting off stone inside her head.
Ohmygod that jawline, and that cleft in his poor, wounded chin.
“That feels good,” he said, smoothing his cheek. “Glad you made me do that.”
“Yeah, well…” She looked around for something to use to defend herself against the onslaught of whatever this was. She was a little bit light-headed, a little bit giddy, and a whole lot turned on—had been, right along, but she knew better.
She wanted to be sheriff of Quinn County one day. She couldn’t be playing around with an ex-con who was the sole heir to a dead crime boss’s ill-gotten wealth.
Up to now, she’d been keeping her distance from Jeremiah Thorne. But she’d felt something ever since she’d hit him with her pickup. And whatever it was, it had just taken a turn for the worse.
Looking around the small room as if for rescue, she spotted the tall skinny closet where the towels were stacked, opened it, and took the broom and dustpan from their hooks. She handed them to Jeremiah. “You’d best clean up all this hair or Lily’ll have our hides for bar rags.”
Then she left him there. But that face—sans beard—and its knowing expression were burned into her mind. That slight smile, and the twinkle of mischief in eyes so blue they sizzled…
She never should have made him shave.
Excerpt from DEPUTY BRAND GETS HER MAN by Maggie Shayne
Text copyright © 2025 by Maggie Shayne, Published by Oliver Heber Books
DEPUTY BRAND GETS HER MAN by Maggie Shayne
The Texas Brand: Generations #3
She’s a good girl.
Willow is a deputy in the Quinn County Sheriff’s Department and wants to be sheriff someday.
But she has a dangerous case she can’t seem to solve, and a smoking hot man she can’t seem to shake. Why can’t she keep her hands off Jeremiah Thorne? Every time he touches her, she burns, even though she knows he’s keeping secrets that might cost her everything.
He’s a bad boy.
An ex-con like Jeremiah has no business sleeping with a cop. He was taught growing up, The law’s the enemy. Every time. No exceptions. But Willow’s attraction to him is too good an opportunity to pass up, and seducing her will be no hardship because he’s just as hot for her. He needs her help to find a treasure worth a half million dollars that his father left hidden in her dusty, West Texas town. And sex seems the easiest way to get it.
A man beyond redemption, a woman who won’t give up, and a love that can’t be denied!
Romance Small Town | Romance Western [ Oliver-Heber Books, On Sale: November 11, 2025, e-Book, / ]
Buy DEPUTY BRAND GETS HER MAN: Kindle | Amazon CA | Amazon UK | Amazon DE | Amazon FR
About Maggie Shayne
New York Times and USA Today bestselling, RITA® Award winning Author Maggie Shayne published 62 novels and 22 novellas for five major publishers over the course of 22 years. She also spent a year writing top story arcs for CBS’s Guiding Light and As the World Turns and was offered the position of co-head writer of the former. An offer she tearfully (it was lots) turned down. It was scary, turning down an offer that big.
But in March 2014, she did something even scarier. She went indie. And it went so well that by July 2015 she incorporated her business, Thunderfoot Publishing Inc. She’s never enjoyed her job more. This new frontier of publishing is bringing Maggie success like she’s never seen before in two distinct areas of her work.
First, her contemporary western romances, The Texas Brands series and the Oklahoma All-Girl Brands. And secondly her beloved paranormals, including the Wings in the Night series, which has the distinction of being the second vampire romance novel series ever, launching just a year after Lori Herter’s Obsession series created a new genre.
Maggie is also an acclaimed thriller writer with her award winning Brown and de Luca novels, and many more. Maggie Shayne is extremely accessible to her readers, interacting with them daily, via her Facebook pages and twitter accounts.
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