The Rancher and His Unexpected Daughter. Sherryl Woods

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      “I don’t know about this,” she muttered, shooting him an accusing look. “What happens now?”

      “I’ll lead you around the paddock until you get used to it. Don’t worry about Misty. She’s placid as can be. She’s not going to throw you, unless you rile her.”

      “Is there anything in particular that riles her?” Jenny inquired, looking down at him anxiously. “I’d hate to do something like that by mistake.”

      “You won’t,” he promised.

      It only took two turns around the paddock before Jenny’s complexion began to lose its pallor. Satisfied by the color in her cheeks that she was growing more confident by the second, Harlan handed her the reins.

      Panic flared in her eyes for an instant. “But how do I drive her?”

      “You don’t drive a horse,” he corrected. He offered a few simple instructions, then stood by while Jenny tested them. Misty responded to the most subtle movement of the reins or the gentlest touch of Jenny’s heels against her sides.

      “Everything okay?” he called out as she rode slowly around the paddock.

      Jenny turned a beaming smile on him. “I’m riding, aren’t I? I’m really riding!”

      “I wouldn’t let you enter the Kentucky Derby just yet, but yes, indeed, you are really riding.”

      “Oh, wow!” she said.

      Harlan chuckled as she seemed to catch herself and fall silent the instant the words were out of her mouth. Clearly she feared that too much enthusiasm would indicate a softening in her attitude toward this so-called prison sentence she felt had been imposed on her.

      “I’m ready to get down now,” she said, her tone bland again.

      Harlan patiently showed her how to dismount. “I think you’re going to be a natural,” he said.

      She shrugged with studied indifference. “It’s no big deal. I’d like to go inside now. Too much sun will give me skin cancer.”

      He hid another grin. “Run on over to the kitchen. Maritza will give you some suntan lotion. She might even have some of those cookies she was getting ready to bake out of the oven by now.”

      “Jeez, milk and cookies, how quaint,” she grumbled, but she took off toward the house just the same.

      “Be back here in fifteen minutes,” he shouted after her.

      “Slave driver,” she muttered.

      Harlan shook his head. If she thought that now, he wondered what she’d have to say when she saw the fence he intended for her to learn how to mend.

      * * *

      Janet wasn’t sure what to expect when she drove back out to White Pines late that afternoon. She supposed it wouldn’t have surprised her all that much to find the ranch in ashes and Jenny standing triumphantly in the circular driveway.

      Instead she found her daughter sound asleep in a rocker on the front porch. Harlan was placidly rocking right beside her, sipping on a tall glass of iced tea. He stood when Janet got out of the car and sauntered down to meet her. Her stomach did a little flip-flop as he neared.

      To cover the tingly way he managed to make her feel without half trying, Janet nodded toward her daughter. “Looks like you wore her out, after all.”

      “It took some doing. She’s a tough little cookie.”

      “At least she thinks she is,” Janet agreed. She allowed herself a leisurely survey of the man standing in front of her. “You don’t appear to be any the worse for wear. You must be a tough cookie, too.”

      “So they say.”

      He tucked a hand under her elbow and steered her toward the porch and poured her a glass of tea. Jenny never even blinked at her arrival.

      “Business any better today?” Harlan asked only after he was apparently satisfied that her tea was fixed up the way she wanted it.

      Rather than answering, Janet took a slow, refreshing sip of the cool drink. It felt heavenly after the hot, dusty drive. Her car’s air-conditioning had quit that morning on her way back to town and she hadn’t yet figured out where to go to have it fixed. The sole mechanic in Los Piños, a man with the unlikely name of Mule Masters, was apparently on vacation. Had been for months, according to Mabel Hastings over at the drugstore.

      “My, but this tastes good,” she said, sighing with pure pleasure. “It’s hotter than blazes today. I thought I’d swelter before I got back out here.”

      “What’s wrong with your car? No air-conditioning?”

      “It quit on me this morning.”

      “I’ll have Cody take a look at it when he comes in,” he offered. “He’s a whiz with stuff like that.”

      “That’s too much trouble,” she protested automatically. For a change, though, she did it without much energy. It seemed foolish to put up too much of a fuss just to declare her independence. That was a habit she’d gotten into around her ex-husband. Weighing her independence against air-conditioning in this heat, there was no real contest. Air-conditioning would win every time.

      “Nonsense,” Harlan said, dismissing her objections anyway. “It’ll give Cody a chance to snoop. He’s dying to get a closer look at you, so he can tell his brothers that I’ve gone and lost my marbles.”

      Startled, she simply stared at him. “Why would he think a thing like that?”

      His gaze drifted over her slowly and with unmistakable intent. “Because I’m just crazy enough to think about courting a woman like you.”

      Janet swallowed hard at the blunt response. She could feel his eyes burning into her as he waited patiently for a reaction.

      “Harlan, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea here,” she said eventually.

      It was a namby-pamby response if ever she’d heard one, but she’d never been very good at fending off the few men bold enough to ignore all the warning signals she tried to send out. She’d ended up married to Barry Randall because he’d been persistent and attentive…until the challenge wore off.

      With that lesson behind her, she should be shooting down a man like Harlan Adams with both barrels. Suggesting he might be getting the wrong idea hardly constituted a whimper of protest.

      He reached over and patted her hand consolingly, then winked. “Darlin’, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the ideas I have. You’ll have to trust me on that.”

      That, of course, was the problem. She didn’t trust him or, for that matter, herself. She had a feeling a man with Harlan’s confidence and determination could derail her plans for her life in the blink of an eye. She couldn’t allow that to happen for a second time.

      “You running scared?” he inquired, his lips twitching with amusement.

      “Scared? СКАЧАТЬ