Western Man Read Free Page A

still drinks the same glass of milk, but the ice will make it cold.” Taking two cubes from the tray, he walked to the table and dropped them in Tony’s glass. “You see?’ An eyebrow quirked in Sharon’s direction.
    “I hope you’re right.” For some reason, she was still skeptical of his solution.
    “Of course I’m right,” Ridge said as Tony reached eagerly for the glass.
    Instead of drinking the milk, Tony tried to scoop out the ice cubes, and Sharon understood why she had instinctively doubted the wisdom of Ridge’s solution.
    “No, Tony, don’t play with the ice cubes,” she admonished and pulled his stubby fingers out of the glass to dry them with a kitchen towel. She slid a dry glance at Ridge. “Terrific idea.”
    “Drink your milk and see if the ice made it cold.” Ridge changed chairs, sitting in the one next to Tony offering him the glass again. “Once you drink all your milk, then you can have the ice cubes.” With seeming obedience, Tony took a drink of his milk and Ridge shot a complacent glance at Sharon. “You just have to know how to handle children.”
    “And you’re an expert, of course,” she mocked. “How many children did you say you had?”
    “None . . . that I know about,” he qualified his answer with a roguish twinkle glittering in his eyes.
    It wasn’t as if half the women in the county wouldn’t have been willing to bear his child, Sharon thought. She turned away quickly to the oven tocheck on the cookies before her gaze lingered on the raw strength and maturity etched in his roughly hewn features. It was much too easy to love him—and much too hard to stop.
    The cookies were close enough to being done, so she removed the pan from the oven with the aid of a protective potholder and carried it to the counter. She concentrated on lifting them one by one from the sheet pan with the metal spatula so she could block out the physical impact of his presence.
    “Scott mentioned you were planning on cutting back on the number of shows you’re attending this year,” he remarked.
    “I think so,” she admitted. “It’s getting too expensive to haul horses to some of the distant shows. I thought I’d concentrate on the major shows in the immediate area. I can’t quit the show ring altogether or I’ll lose the chance of getting new horses to train.” She was well aware that competing in stock and western pleasure classes brought her to the attention of owners willing to pay to have their horses trained by a professional. Her reputation as a trainer was growing—and she had a roomful of trophies and ribbons to prove it.
    As she turned to carry the empty cookie sheet to the table, she saw Tony slyly dipping his hand into the milk glass. “Tony—”
    At her sharply reprimanding tone, he jerked his hand out of the glass. The suddenness of his action tipped the glass over, spilling the milk—right into Ridge’s lap.
    “Now look what you’ve done, Tony.” But she couldn’t keep the smile out of her voice as she deposited the cookie sheet on the table and reached for the towel. Her hazel eyes were dancing with laughter when she met Ridge’s glance. “Was the milk cold?” she murmured innocently.
    The anger went out of his expression as quickly as it had come in. “You know damned well it was,” he muttered with a half smile and took the towel she offered to blot up the excess wetness.
    “The ice cubes were your idea.” Sharon took delight in reminding him of the fact.
    “Maybe father doesn’t always know best,” Ridge conceded with a rueful look and stood up to wipe at the front of his jeans where the wet blotch spread onto his thigh. “There’s one consolation. Milk is probably the cleanest thing that’s touched these jeans lately.”
    The faded material was dusty and dirt-stained, but Sharon was more conscious of the way the work-worn fabric snugly shaped itself to his hips and thighs like a second skin. It turned her thoughts in a direction that had no