The courtship of dillon’s father Rust Creek Ramblings The town’s new doctor, widower Drew Strickland, is dedicated to his job and to his seven-year-old son, Dillon. Young Dillon has set his sights on making pretty school librarian Josselyn Weaver a part of their family. But Drew is afraid to love again, and Josselyn fears rejection. Buckle up your backpacks, dear readers, and see if a bighearted little boy can lead his grieving dad and our favorite librarian down the path to true love! After writing more than eighty books for Mills & Boon, STELLA BAGWELL still finds it exciting to create new stories and bring her characters to life. She loves all things Western and has been married to her own real cowboy for forty-four years. Living on the south Texas coast, she also enjoys being outdoors and helping her husband care for the horses, cats and dog that call their small ranch home. The couple has one son, who teaches high school mathematics and is also an athletic director. Stella loves hearing from readers. They can contact her at [email protected]. Her Man on Three Rivers Ranch The Arizona Lawman Her Kind of Doctor The Cowboy’s Christmas Lullaby His Badge, Her Baby…Their Family? Her Rugged Rancher Christmas on the Silver Horn Ranch The Maverick’s Bride-to-Order Her Sweetest Fortune Fortune’s Perfect Valentine Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk The Little Maverick Matchmaker Stella Bagwell ISBN: 978-1-474-07807-8 THE LITTLE MAVERICK MATCHMAKER © 2018 Harlequin Books S.A. Published in Great Britain 2018 by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental. By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher. ® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries. To my late brother, Lloyd Henry Cook. I miss you so much. Contents “Wow! Look at all the people, Dad! This is gonna be super fun!” Stifling a groan, Drew Strickland pulled his gaze away from the large crowd milling about on the grassy lawn of the Rust Creek Falls park to glance down at his seven-year-old son, Dillon. The child’s brown hair was already mussed 
