His Tempting Bride (The Brides of Paradise Ranch - Spicy Version Book 5) Read Free Page A

you get to the town hall, then turn right on Elizabeth Street. It’s only about a hundred or so feet over. White-painted porch and a big sign. You can’t miss it,” he grumbled.
    “Thanks.” Miriam tilted her chin up, looking like she might cry.
    Dammit.
    “You’ll have to see yourself over there,” Cody went on, reaching deep to recover the anger he thought he should have in the situation. “I’m going for a drink.”
    He twisted away from the platform and started marching toward Main Street.
    “There’s a saloon?” the Mexican called after him, adjusting a guitar case over his shoulder and jogging to catch up.
    “Yeah, the Silver Dollar.”
    The Mexican slapped a hand on his back as though they’d been friends for ages. “I’ll join you.”
    “Sure,” Cody grumbled. Might as well have a drink with a stranger, he thought, twisting to glance over his shoulder. Miriam stood watching him, the man with the moustache saying something to her with a grin. Cody had a feeling his life had just taken a turn for the decidedly interesting.

Chapter Two
     
    Miriam Long was a no-good, heartless, back-stabbing, little flirt. She’d made a deal with him, then she’d turned around and weaseled out on it. She’d gotten his hopes up, then turned around and left him in the lurch.
    Cody kept telling himself that for the next twenty-four hours in an attempt to stop thinking about the encounter—and the flirting—at the train station. He grumbled as he ran through every possible argument he could come up with against the blond beauty who should have been his bride. A bitter wind blew outside, across the ranch, so he sat near a fire in the stable, oiling the ranch’s saddles and eating his heart out. How any woman could treat him so cruelly, then turn around and bat her eyelashes and flaunt her first-class wares at him was a mystery.
    Of course, he kept trying to conveniently forget that he’d done pretty much the same thing to Wendy as Miriam had done to him. And that he’d been more than willing to flirt his heart out with Miriam before he knew who she was. It was the principle of the whole thing that bothered him. How could a woman who was so…womanly leave him upside down without a second thought?
    “I can hear you grumbling all the way on the other side of the stable.” Luke Chance strode in from the yard where he’d been exercising the horses. In spite of the cold day, his face was pink with exertion, and he flapped the front of his coat to cool off. “What’s eating you?”
    It was probably best if he let the whole thing go. Luke was a married man, after all. His wife, Eden, had known Miriam back at Hurst Home before coming west as a mail-order bride herself. She’d laughed and declared she had to visit Miriam right away when he’d told her in passing last night about the incident at the station. If Cody opened his mouth, the odds of Luke making fun of him were pretty high.
    He couldn’t stop himself.
    “What is it about women that makes them think they can be so sweet and saucy one minute, then turn into a heartbreaking shrew the next?” he asked with more ire than he’d intended.
    Sure enough, Luke paused, shifted his weight to one hip, crossed his arms, and shook his head. “Yeah, Eden told me your bride is back in town. She’s gonna go over to the hotel to say hello this morning.”
    Cody scowled, dipped the rag he was working with deep into the linseed oil, then attacked the saddle with a vengeance. “Miriam just showed up, dressed like a fashion plate, too pretty for her own good. What does she want from me anyhow?”
    The rumbling sound that came from Luke was a little too close to a laugh for Cody’s comfort. “Did you ask her what she wanted?”
    Cody clenched his jaw. “She asked me to direct her to the hotel.”
    “But did you ask her why she came back to Haskell?”
    Cody’s shoulders bunched as he rubbed the saddle hard enough to gouge a hole. “There were a mess of folks with her.