Maverick Wild. Stacey Kayne

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СКАЧАТЬ to rest. If Winifred thought she’d worm her way into their business by sending her daughter, she’d be disappointed. He was no longer a little boy who could be hauled out to the woodshed and whipped for the sheer delight of hearing him scream.

      “That’s quite all right.” Cora Mae’s jaw stiffened in a way Chance remembered it could. “I know there’s no blood shared between us. If I’m not welcome—”

      “Of course you’re welcome,” Garret insisted. “Isn’t she, Chance?”

      Chance regarded her for a long moment, certain he wouldn’t have to see her fancy yellow-clad body again if he suggested she wasn’t welcome. He had to remind himself it was never Cora Mae he’d hated. He’d once been as close to her as he had to his twin brother. In some ways, closer. That fact didn’t help to slake his unease.

      “Sure you are,” he said, though his tone didn’t carry a note of Garret’s enthusiasm. “It’s just a little hard to believe you’d travel clear across the States all by your lonesome just to see me.”

      “And Tucker, of course. How is Tucker?”

      “Just fine. How’s your mother?” he asked, forcing the words through clenched teeth.

      Her bright expression blanched. He couldn’t blame her for that. Thoughts of Winifred made him downright ill.

      “I…I haven’t seen her in years. Not since I went to work at the mill.”

      Cora Mae had been a lousy liar at the age of nine. It seemed some things hadn’t changed. The tightness in her delicate features told Chance she was lying through her pearly white teeth. “Cora Mae, if Winifred sent you here—”

      “Oh, no. She didn’t. She’s…dead.”

      His eyebrows kicked up. He wasn’t sure he’d heard her right. Over the years he’d envisioned Winifred Morgan choking on her own meanness and dying a very slow and painful death.

      “Dead?” he repeated, trying not to sound hopeful.

      Her ivory hat bobbled with her vigorous nod, but Cora Mae’s wide eyes didn’t reveal the certainty he wanted to see there. As if sensing he could read her doubt, she lowered her gaze to her clasped hands.

      Some things were just too good to be true. “How’d she die?”

      “Well I…I don’t know,” she said, her voice a tad too high. “I only received a note telling me of her passing. Since I was no longer obligated to send my wages to Mother, I chose to come west.”

      “She took your wages?”

      She bristled at that, her brow pinching in annoyance, the starch in her spine making the most of her five feet. “Of course she took my wages,” she spat. “Had I not been of some use to her, she’d have abandoned me years ago. My mother held no fondness for me. Surely you haven’t forgotten.”

      He’d tried, and had been doing a fair job of blocking out the bad memories, stupid mistakes and unkept promises made by a boy too young to understand his limitations.

      “Don’t think I’ve come looking for free room and board.”

      He had a notion she’d come seeking a lot more than room and board. Cora Mae might have been fun as a kid, but she’d since been groomed by a woman who had a nose for money and a penchant for lying.

      “I’m fully capable of finding work for myself,” she insisted. “Though…” Her gaze skated briefly toward the landscape stretched out behind him. “I hadn’t planned on you living quite so far removed from any kind of township.”

      “We’ve got plenty of room on the ranch,” said Garret. “Tuck’s been trying to talk my stubborn sister into hiring help for around the house. With the babies coming and all, this sounds like a perfect solution.”

      Cora Mae kept her wary gaze on Chance. “I don’t want to intrude.”

      A little late for that.

      “Chance,” said Garret, his tone low with warning. He nodded to his left. Chance spotted the four riders coming in from the hills. Even at a distance, he recognized the rowdy ranch hands from the Lazy J. “We should get movin’,” said Garret.

      The kid had a point. Once those boys found Wyatt, travel would become somewhat more hazardous than usual. “Line the horses.” He took Cora Mae by the elbow and ushered her toward the livery. “I’ll drive the cart.”

      “More trouble?” asked Cora Mae, her neck craned to see what had captured their attention.

      Chance smiled at the pretty patch of trouble he was about to take home. “I seem to be blessed that way.” He checked to make sure her trunk had been roped down, then held a hand out to help her up onto the seat. “After you, Cora Mae.”

      She shrugged off his touch and stepped onto the cart without his assistance. “It’s just Cora.”

      “I beg your pardon?”

      “My name,” she said, smoothing down the full yellow skirt that had swallowed the entire seat. “I shortened it when I began working at the mill. I prefer to be called Cora.”

      “That sure is a pretty name,” said Garret, already mounted on his pinto with Chance’s horse and the pack horse lined up behind.

      The kid had a lot to learn about women. Pretty didn’t mean trustworthy. There was no denying the truth he’d seen in her eyes. Cora Mae was hiding something. He was in no mood to play a charlatan’s game.

      “Better secure your hatpin, Cora Mae. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.”

      Chapter Two

      Cora clutched the seat, her feet braced wide on the buckboard as Chance drove her cart across another green valley as though he were leading the last wagon train out of hell. A biting wind flattened the tall grass before them.

      Chance’s strong frame seemed to follow every shift of the seat while she shook until her teeth rattled. So focused was he on the uneven terrain, he’d likely not notice if she toppled out. Perhaps he intended to send her careening to the ground. What on earth had she been thinking, traveling into the middle of the Wyoming wilderness to find two boys from her childhood?

      The wagon slowed as they reached the crest of another rise. Chance reined the horse to a halt. A valley stretched out before her, covered by swaying grasses bursting with wildflowers and spotted with boulders and trees.

      She uncurled her fingers from the seat and ran them briskly over her arms, trying to rub some of the chill from her skin. She glanced beside her and found Chance’s gaze intent on hers. His striking features could have been carved in granite, the sparkling green of his eyes cold and clear as a gemstone.

      “Sorry about your dress.”

      She glanced down at the dark smudges on her yellow skirt. Knowing more were on the dress front hidden beneath her crossed arms, an instant heat flared in her cheeks.

      “It’s nothing,” she said, certain the dress had fared far better than her pride. Had she actually hugged him? She СКАЧАТЬ