Dark Horse: Bad Boy Cowboy Romance Read Free

the air. I felt as though I should be talking, should fill the silence, but no words came to mind.
    After a few more minutes, Lance nudged me, glancing down at me. "Hey," he said, shaking me a little. "Still awake?"
    I'd actually been starting to drift off a little. "Yeah," I replied, shaking myself, already feeling my joints growing stiff. "I'm still here, still awake."
    Lance nodded, but he didn't look convinced. "Maybe you should talk to me, to keep yourself awake," he suggested.
    I managed to glare up at him. "Oh, really? You want to find out more about me, even though you're a stranger?"
    For a moment, I saw the man clearly struggling to not roll his eyes at me. "Okay, fine," he gave in. "You talk to me and tell me how you ended up out here, and I'll tell you about why I'm here. Deal?"
    I didn't consider the trade for more than a second or two. I could definitely feel myself drifting off, and while I still didn't know how much I trusted this man, I'd much rather be awake around him than asleep. Blearily, I reconsidered whether waving my big diamond ring under his nose was a good idea.
    "Yeah, I guess that's a deal," I said. "Where should I start?"
    "Start with the beginning, and just move forward until you get to now," Lance suggested. "It's not like we're going to run out of time - we've got all night, judging from how the storm's still raging."
    Sure enough, the lightning, thunder, and rain didn't show any sign of abating. I nodded, casting my mind back and trying to find a good place to start telling my tale.
    "Well, my full name's Jillian," I began. "Jillian Monteclaire. And this morning, I thought that today was going to be great..."

Chapter three
    "Oh, my dear, it's absolutely LOVELY to see you, just LOVELY! And that man of yours, too! I hear that you two are ENGAGED now, aren't you?"
    I beamed back at Mrs. Riviello, trying to match her incredible level of enthusiasm. The old woman might be small, wrinkled, and sprouting a full head of iron gray hair, but she still managed to sound as though she was overflowing with excitement whenever she opened her mouth.
    "I am engaged now, yes!" I replied, showing off the ring on my finger. "Marsden proposed two months ago - it was so beautiful! I'm already dreading all the wedding planning that's going to start up any day now."
    "Lovely, just lovely!" Mrs. Riviello trilled, clapping her little hands together as she peered down rather nearsightedly at the ring. "Dorothy, Helen, come and look at this ring! It's just AMAZING!"
    At her call, a couple other fellow gray-haired little old ladies of high society detached themselves from the crowd and ambled over. They all tugged at my hand to display the ring in front of their faces and added their own little pleased exclamations to the din.
    "It's gorgeous, dear!" Helen assured me, patting my hand in between her own. "And he only just recently proposed, did he? How did he do it?"
    I immediately felt myself pinned by three sharp-eyed little stares. I scrambled to respond to the question.
    "It was in his family's home," I told my trio of attentive listeners. "It's his grandmother's ring, you see. All of his relatives were there for their Fourth of July celebration, and after I said yes, all of the fireworks went off for me!"
    Dorothy clapped her hands together in delight. "Simply the most ROMANTIC thing I can imagine!" Mrs. Riviello called out, nodding. "That Marsden, he must have planned it out for months, entire MONTHS!"
    For just a second, the smile on my face felt forced, and I had to remind myself to nod to the little old ladies. Inside my head, I winced a little at the tiny little white lie, but I clamped down, refusing to let anyone else know how I truly felt inside my head.
    It wasn't Marsden's fault, of course. I knew that, had to remind myself of it every time I found myself doubting my decision. The man was under a lot of pressure at his law firm to pull off his current cases, and he was up for making partner. It wasn't his