The Princess of Coldwater Flats Read Free

Sammy Jo was worried and frustrated. “Did Bev call you?”
    “Bev Hawkins?” Sammy Jo asked in surprise. Bev didn’t run in Sammy Jo’s circle. Bev was a few more important rungs up the Coldwater Flats society ladder—or at least that’s how she came off.
    “She wants to get Karen and Emmy riding lessons. I told her to call you.”
    “What kind of riding lessons?”
    “Trick-riding.”
    “Oh, Tess. I can’t teach kids tricks.”
    “Sure you can. You’re the Princess.”
    Tess grinned, and Sammy Jo managed to hold back the few choice words she desperately wanted to spit out. Her reputation as a rodeo trick-rider was more bother than help.
    “It’ll bring in a little income,” Tess added.
    Sammy Jo grimaced. “I gotta go.”
    “I’ll call you. Hey, there’s something else. Did you see that Mr. Cooper? Was he still here?”
    Sammy Jo shook her head. “There was a Mr. Ryan at Matt’s desk.”
    “Oh, that’s right. It’s Cooper Ryan! Man, is he something, huh?”
    “Tess,” Sammy Jo murmured impatiently.
    “He’s got lots of money and wants to spend it here.” Tess raised her eyebrows and looked at her friend as if Sammy Jo ought to start thinking how to avail herself of some of Mr. Cooper Ryan’s cold hard cash.
    Sammy Jo’s answer was a sharp grinding of gears as she wheeled from the lot. Through the back window, she saw Tess race back on her red heels to the interior of the bank.
    Sammy Jo smiled to herself. Tess had always meddled in Sammy Jo’s life. When they were kids, Tess had envied Sammy Jo’s slim shape and easy rapport with the boys their age. Rounder and shorter, the then Tess Dunsworth had been unfortunately tagged Big Tess by those same boys she’d so desperately wanted to impress. But as they grew up, Sammy Jo’s mercurial temper and tough ways had put off interested members of the opposite sex, and it was Tess who’d been chased and lusted after. Tess whose breasts had developed at an alarming rate until Sammy Jo had wanted to scream at the way the guys all howled and drooled over her. Tess who’d learned about sex and told Sammy Jo all the particulars.
    Sammy Jo grimaced. Thinking of those particulars was the reason she’d been hesitant with men. That, and the fact she believed men couldn’t be trusted to treat a woman fairly. Witness how her own father treated her.
    Shoving that thought aside, Sammy Jo skipped ahead to the next, most immediate crisis of the day, which in her case gave her a choice of three: the broken fence at the north end of the property; her favorite mare who was nine months pregnant and off her feed; or her new neighbor who didn’t seem to care a whit if his cattle roamed with hers because the damn things leaped fences as if they were half-deer.
    “Thanks, Dad, for making this all possible,” she muttered dryly, slamming her foot down on the accelerator.

    Cooper Ryan watched Sammy Jo Whalen’s blue pickup tear out of the parking lot and screech onto the street. An ironic smile touched his lips. Talk about stubborn, that woman gave new meaning to the phrase “hard to get along with.”
    Unfortunately, “that woman” was his neighbor. A neighbor he had a desperate need to stay on good terms with. Good terms because he intended to buy her out.
    Too bad his Limousin cattle had already created a problem. He was in the process of selling the whole damn lot: the previous owner of his property, who had revoltingly named the spread Serenity Ranch, had purchased the lean, nervous breed for reasons which escaped Cooper. He’d spent the last few months trying to keep them penned in, but they invariably jumped the fence that separated Serenity from the Triple R, and Cooper’s ranch foreman, Jack Babbitt, had received more than one blistering phone call from Sammy Jo Whalen.
    Profuse apologies weren’t enough, apparently. Jack had asked Cooper to leave it up to him, but Sammy Jo wasn’t easily appeased. Cooper had been meaning to meet with the woman