The Rogue Read Free Page A

few friends, so the job suited her.
    Diana had no interest in the housekeepers. Her life centered around the Major. The housekeepers were faceless souls who worked for him. She had never formed an attachment to any of them. There was only her father. What interested him interested her. At the present, he had shown an uncommon interest in the new ranch hand. And Diana did not like it.
    Over the next few weeks, her first impression of Holt Mallory didn’t change. He was polite to her. He treated her with the respect due a boss’s daughter, yet never with the indulgent affection the other ranch hands expressed. To the others, she might be the darling, the pet of the ranch, but not to him.
    As for Guy, he had virtually become her shadow, whether Diana liked it or not. Most of the time she didn’t, although there were moments when his almost worshipful attitude soothed her ego.
    This was not one of those moments. As she walked swiftly to the stud pens with Guy trailing at her heels, she fervently wished he would get lost—permanently.
    “Can’t I ride with you, please?” He repeated the request she had turned down seconds ago. “I’m getting good. You said so.”
    “No! I’m going to exercise the stallions.” Something she did regularly in the arena, a safe distance from the broodmares and potential trouble. “I’ve told you and told you that you can’t ride your mare with me when I’m on one of the studs.”
    “Why not?”
    Diana flashed him an irritated look. “Hasn’t your father told you anything about the birds and the bees?”
    Guy blushed furiously and fell silent, but he never left her side. At the pen, he peered through the rails as Diana climbed over the top, a bridle draped over her shoulder. The bay stallion danced to her, knowing the routine and eager to stretch his legs.
    “If you want to make yourself useful, Guy”—there was a faintly acid ring to her voice as she slipped the bit into the stallion’s mouth—“go get the saddle out of the tack room for me while I work Shetan on the lounge line.”
    “Okay.” He darted off, eager to do her bidding.
    When he returned, it was without the saddle and not alone. Diana glanced around to see Holt Mallory walking behind his white-faced son. She flicked him a dismissing look and turned to Guy.
    “I thought I told you to bring the saddle.”
    “I—“
    “What do you think you are doing, Miss Somers?”
    There was something in the quiet way he put the question that set her teeth on edge. She stopped the circling bay cantering around her on the lounge line and faced him. She was every inch the boss’s daughter looking at a mere hired hand.
    “I don’t see that it’s any of your business.”
    “Guy tells me you are planning to ride that stallion.”
    “I am.”
    “Does the Major know?”
    “Of course, he knows,” Diana retorted indignantly.
    “He must be out of his mind to let a slip of a girl like you—”
    He never had a chance to complete the sentence, as Diana broke in angrily: “I am a better rider than practically everyone on this ranch, maybe in the county.”
    “That isn’t saying much.” He opened the corral gate and stepped through, latching it behind him. “Hand me an end of the lounge line.”
    “Why?” She eyed him warily.
    “Call it a test,” he answered. Diana sensed a challenge and couldn’t refuse. She handed the end to him and he stepped back. Less than three feet separated them. “Hold on,” Holt instructed. “Don’t let me pull it out of your hands.”
    Wrapping the long leather lead around his hand, he gave a steady pull. Diana dug her heels into the ground and resisted, successfully. A sudden, hard yank sent her stumbling forward into his chest. His hands closed around her shoulders to steady her, his superior strength jolting her like a cattle prod. Diana jerked away.
    “That was a dirty trick,” she accused. “It doesn’t prove anything.”
    “Doesn’t it?” His mouth quirked in a taunting,