The Rancher's Bride Read Free Page A

male gender. To think that this man had considered her and her family’s grief before himself was hard for Rose to digest.
    “I must tell you…at the present, there’s no way we could find the money to pay you back. Even if we sold the last head of cattle we had, we couldn’t come up with what our father borrowed from you.”
    She was telling the truth. Harlan could see that plainly. He could also see that Rose Murdock was not a frivolous woman. She was plainspoken and no-nonsense. What surprised him about her admission was that the Bar M could be that drained of funds.
    Harlan had lived here for seven years. His neighbors to the west owned the largest ranch in the county, perhaps one of the largest in the whole state of New Mexico. They raised good cattle and even better horses. They had plenty of rich grazing land along the Hondo river and severalskilled cowboys to take care of it all. But what she’d just said about repaying the loan and the fact that she’d been line riding herself told Harlan things had changed drastically on the Bar M.
    The whole idea was hard for Harlan to absorb, but not nearly as hard, he figured, as it was for Rose Murdock. “I’m not worried about you paying me back right now.”
    Nerves clenched her stomach like a vice. “You should be.”
    “I need water more than I need money.”
    He took off his battered straw hat and ran a hand through his hair. It was the color of sable and just as shiny. Worn a bit longer than the current fashion, the dark strands fell haphazardly across his forehead and curled around his ears and neck. The front of his shirt was soiled and a large patch of sweat had soaked through the gray material in the middle of his chest. Rose thought he looked a bit like she’d imagined the cowhands did who worked this land when it was still a wild, dangerous territory. Rough, tough and just a little reckless.
    “I can’t understand you,” she said. “You have the power right there—” she pointed at the piece of paper “—to take the Bar M. It could legally be yours now if you wanted to push the issue.”
    He frowned at her. “I don’t want to take your home away from you.”
    Suddenly it was all too much for Rose. Pressing the heel of her hand against her forehead, she closed her eyes and let out a long, weary sigh.
    “I came over here,” she said, “to ask you about a simple cut in the fence. Instead, I learn that the Bar M owes you several thousand dollars!” Opening her eyes, she turned her gaze to his face. “You could have at least warned us about this!”
    She sounded both accusing and defeated. Harlan wantedto comfort her somehow but realized there wasn’t much he could do. He couldn’t tell her to simply forget the loan, that he would dissolve her father’s debt. The money had been a big part of Harlan’s savings. He’d worked, scrimped and sacrificed for years to obtain that much money. He couldn’t afford to give it away, no matter how bad he felt for this woman.
    Draining half his tea, he ran his hand through his hair again, then got to his feet and moved to the other side of the room. He’d never had a woman in his kitchen before. His wife had died before he and Emily had moved to New Mexico. The sight of Rose Murdock sitting at the table with her hat hanging against her back, her light red hair curling wildly about her face and her small breasts jutting against her denim shirt was more than a little distracting for him.
    “I’m sure this was the last thing you expected or wanted to hear,” he said, moving over to the sink filled with dirty dishes. “And I wish like hell your father had never borrowed the money in the first place.”
    “But he did,” Rose said quietly. She looked over at him as he turned on the tap and squirted soap over the mound of plates and glasses. “How soon will you need a payment?”
    “It isn’t necessary to discuss the money part of it now. I’d rather talk about water.”
    This man literally had the