Cowboy Come Home Read Free Page B

die.
    “Yes,” she said.
    Taking her up on the offer was worth the aggravation of working for her, for he’d gain cattle in the bargain. They’d be his start for his own spread.
    But he still didn’t have a place to run them, and the open range was over. What little remained had been eaten clean in this drought. So all he could do was sell them and bank his profits or do as she suggested.
    “Sam Weber still the foreman on the Circle 46?” he asked.
    “I’m not sure. Ned told me that daddy hadn’t run much there but a small herd of longhorns and some mustangs,” she said. “After Daddy died, Ned thought it best to have a couple of men there to keep vandals from running off with the stock. He said the foreman decided to move on.”
    She’d been fed a line of whitewash if she thought those horses were wild. It was mighty clear she hadn’t had the inclination to visit the place herself to see what needed to be done. Clear too that Sam hadn’t come down to discuss what should be done with the thoroughbreds, though he could see where the man wouldn’t want to work for Ned.
    “I want it in writing that I’m the new foreman at the Circle 46 for the next two months,” he said.
    Brittle silence cracked in the room, and for a heartbeat he suspected she’d refuse. “What if I don’t find somebody to replace you by then?”
    Not his problem. “One other thing. I won’t work with Ned.”
    “No, you won’t,” she said. “He was Daddy’s pick. Not mine. It’s time to part ways.”
    “He won’t go easy.”
    “I know,” she said at last, but didn’t say why.
    Not that she needed to give him a reason. It was clear that Ned had been taking advantage of her naiveté. Just like that bastard had accused him of doing.
    “I’ll draw up the papers,” she said.
    He gave her time to return to her desk before turning around. But she hadn’t moved.
    She stood before him, chin high and big eyes full of worry and heartache. He stilled the urge to reach for her, to pull her into his heat and hardness and drink from her soft lips.
    He’d hired on to do a job, and he aimed to put himself first this time. She’d soon find out he wouldn’t bow to her every whim. He damn sure wouldn’t be lured back into her bed again.
    Now if he could just convince his body that he didn’t want her ...

Chapter 2
     
    Daisy forced air into her lungs and hoped her knees wouldn’t buckle as she made her way back to her daddy’s big desk heaped with its monstrous responsibilities. My God, the last person she had expected to ever see again was Trey March.
    But here he was, just inches from her. Bigger than she remembered.
    Each breath she took drew him deeper into her and brought the memories that were never far from her mind to aching, pulsing life.
    All she had to do was reach for him.
    So tempting.
    In his arms she could forget the hell she’d endured these past six months. Just once more she could lie beside him, skin on skin, with their hearts beating in tandem like she’d dreamed of doing night after lonely night.
    Nobody could stop her now for giving herself to the cowboy she’d fallen in love with the first time she’d seen him. Nobody but her remaining strong, remembering the sad fact that the only love they’d shared had been physical. The only heart involved had been her own. That’s all she’d ever have with him.
    She’d given him all her love, and he’d taken it and her hopes and her dreams and then he’d ridden away.
    Daisy couldn’t go through that again, yet here she was sitting behind her daddy’s desk staring at a blank piece of paper. Trey wanted proof that he’d be in charge. He didn’t trust her.
    But then she didn’t trust him either. In fact she’d learned not to trust anyone save Ramona, her husband Fernando and their son Manuel.
    She wasn’t a starry-eyed innocent any longer. She saw men in a whole new light. She saw Trey for what he was instead of what she desperately had wanted him to be.
    Yet