How to Lasso a Cowboy Read Free

that.
    â€œAnd I’m not negotiating.” Or explaining himself.
    Mortise stood, his tail wagging, all friendly-like. Harlan snapped his fingers to call the dog back, but it was too late—Mortise had already crossed to Sophie and pressed his body against her leg, his tail slapping against her legs, sending loose fur flying around them like dandelion fluff. Then Harlan realized why Mortise was being so friendly—
    The small white bag still dangled from Sophie Watson’s fingers. A temptation that had the dog sniffing the air and pressing closer.
    â€œAre they for rent?” she asked again, trying to sidestep the dog, but Mortise moved with her.
    â€œMortise—” Harlan warned, but it was too late. Before the warning left his throat, the retriever had reached up, snatched the bag out of Sophie’s hands and dashed off the porch.
    â€œWhat the heck?” Sophie wheeled around. “Your dog just stole my lunch!”
    Harlan glanced at Mortise lying under the shade of a palm tree and happily tearing into the paper wrapper. “That he did.”
    â€œAren’t you going to stop him?”
    Mortise raised his snout and chugged back a bite of the sandwich he’d unwrapped. At the same time, Tenon dropped to the ground beside him and began chomping on an unwrapped cookie. “I, uh, think it’s a little late for that.”
    Sophie Watson sputtered. She cursed. She sputtered some more. “Well, then you leave me no choice,” she said. She stripped off her sweater and tossed it to him. He caught it and stared at her. By removing the pale yellow sweater, she’d reduced herself to a clingy tank top in a matching fabric. He blinked and for a minute, lost his focus.
    It took him a full five seconds to realize she had stacked up two of his chairs and hoisted them over her head, the muscles in her biceps flexing with the effort. “I’m taking these chairs, as repayment for my missing lunch,” she said.
    â€œHey, you can’t—”
    â€œI can and I will. Just watch me.” Then she swung around, his chairs on her head, and strode off down his stairs.
    Harlan glanced at his dogs. “Why didn’t you stop her?”
    Mortise and Tenon looked up at him, then, Harlan swore, the dogs shrugged before going back to devouring Sophie Watson’s lunch between their paws.
    Well, hell. Harlan was definitely going to have to do something about that woman before she drove him completely over the edge.

CHAPTER TWO
    â€œN ICE chairs.” Lulu Saunders shot Sophie a grin, then plopped into one of the two Adirondack-style oak chairs that now sat on either side of a small brightly tiled table in front of the Cuppa Java Café. The handmade chairs were the perfect complement to the homey atmosphere of the coffee shop. She’d been looking for outdoor furniture for months, and when she spied these on Harlan Jones’s porch one afternoon, she’d stopped looking at any other types. They were perfect, and even better, made by a local resident.
    In a small town like Edgerton Shores, the more local the better. Sophie bought her coffee beans from a local vendor who roasted them on site, made her muffins with local ingredients, and catered to her clientele with drinks named after local celebrities. She’d hired Lulu, who came from a family that had lived in this town for as long as there’d been an Edgerton Shores, and who, with her outgoing, boisterous personality, was nearly a local legend. Sophie herself had lived here all her life, and wanted the coffee shop to feel as if it had been here forever, too.
    Which was why she’d tangled with that annoying Harlan Jones this morning. That man got on her nerves in the worst way. On top of that, he had the most incorrigible dogs in the world. And it seemed he was determined tomake her a laughingstock in her own town. But he made some seriously nice chairs.
    Sophie dropped into the opposite chair