Rugged Hearts Read Free

to the tense way she licked her lower lip, her breath forming frosty puffs in the icy air. Despite finding this lovely pink package on his front porch on a cold winter’s night, Wyatt, too, was a bit wary. Very few folks ever paid a visit to the ranch, and even fewer women. However, if she was looking for someone, likely it was his younger brother. Of the three of them, it was Dalton who had a reputation with the ladies, and on occasion, their boyfriends didn’t appreciate it. Going on that assumption, he looked over her shoulder at her vehicle. It was clearly not for serious mountain driving in adverse weather, unless it happened to have a team of horses strapped to it. “Sorry, young lady. Dalton’s not home.”
    She blinked and gave him an odd look.
    “Excuse me?” She questioned his frank and admittedly unsocial behavior through chattering teeth. “I don’t know any Dalton, but I’d like to meet him if he happens to have a map.”
    The woman obviously had no fear of being out alone in this weather, nor did it seem she was afraid to knock on any door of any strange house out in the middle of nowhere.
    “Listen, I’m sorry to be a bother, but I want to make sure I’m on the right road. It seems maybe I might have missed my turnoff. Are you familiar with the town of End of the Line?” she asked, stomping the snow from her faux-fur fashion boots.
    The winding mountain road was dotted with an array of old mining towns with fewer than fifty or so residents and End of the Line happened to be one of the largest. “Sure, I know where it is.” Her cheeks and the tip of her nose were pink from the cold. She smiled and sniffled, and it pulled Wyatt from his reverie. “Pardon my manners. Why don’t you come inside and get out of the cold.” To her credit, he saw the hesitation in her eyes before she stepped around him and into the foyer. The scent of peppermint and winter air tickled his nose, and he noted sprigs of blond hair sticking out from beneath the furry rim of her hood. Sadie leaped up and placed her paws on the woman’s chest.
    “I’m sorry. She’s really quite friendly.”
    The woman pushed her face to Sadie’s and ruffled her fur. “She’s a sweetheart, she is,” the woman cooed, apparently forgetting he was standing there.
    Wyatt cleared his throat and reached out to move Sadie down, though it seemed the two females had become fast friends.
    “I went down to Big Timber for the day,” the woman began. “Then this snow started just out of the blue.” She waved her hands as she spoke.
    No gloves, just as he’d thought.
    “Between the dark and the snow, I’m not sure if I’d already passed by my turn to town. Thankfully, I saw your lights from the road and took a chance someone might be home.”
    “Isn’t it a bit risky for someone your age to be out alone on night like this?” He frowned as he shut the door. He leaned back against it and folded his arms over his chest in the same fatherly manner he’d seen Jed display a million times.
    Her gaze shot to his, and she pushed off her hood, raking her fingers through her hair, sending spiky, short-clipped platinum blond tresses in all directions. He wasn’t much for short hair on women and frankly preferred dark to light hair. But on her, it seemed to fit with her slight build and mesmerizing blue eyes, which, he noted, appeared a whole lot less innocent at the moment.
    She chuckled. “So what are you? Just some cowboy serial killer just chillin’ here by the fire and waiting for your next victim?”
    Put in those terms, it seemed like a pretty stupid concept.
    She fished in her jacket pocket, and as she retrieved a tissue, a little blue mitten fell out. “Hopefully that wasn’t the line you used to pick up your wife.”
    Wait a minute, do I look like a married man ?
    She bent over and so did he to retrieve the mitten.
    “Did I say I was married?”
    Maybe she was the one who was married. Then again, she looked very young. He scooped up