Wrangling the Redhead Read Free Page A

his hat. He was pretty sure his scowl would have intimidated Wyatt Earp himself. He meant it to make this woman quake in her very expensive boots.
    “Hi,” she said, her smile coming easily—and fading just as quickly when it wasn’t returned.
    “What exactly did you think you were doing?” he demanded, scowl firmly in place.
    Whatever uncertainty she momentarily had been feeling vanished. Wade could practically see her temper stirring to life, turning her eyes to the color of a turbulent sea.
    She met his gaze without flinching. “What did it look like, cowboy?”
    The only way to deal with a woman who had more sass than sense was to lay it all on the line in plain English. “It looked an awful lot like you were trying to get yourself killed and ruin a fine stallion in the process,” he said with barely contained fury. “The next time you decide you want to have a chat with thestock around here, get permission. This isn’t a damn riding stable, and these horses aren’t pets.”
    If his goal had been to intimidate her, he’d failed miserably. He saw that in a heartbeat. In fact, she took a deliberate step toward him, then another, until she was standing toe-to-toe, hands on hips, her flowery scent coming off of her in tantalizing waves. She seemed oblivious to the fact that she was barely chin-high to him. Wade swallowed hard and had to force himself not to back off. No pint-sized squirt was going to turn the tables on him, especially not when they both knew he was right.
    “Now you listen to me,” she said, poking a perfectly manicured finger into his chest. “I was in that corral because Grady and Karen asked me to take a look at Midnight. Last I heard, this was their ranch. Is that permission good enough for you, cowboy?”
    Wade regarded her skeptically. “They asked you to go in there with that stallion? Into the corral with him? Why would they do a thing like that?”
    “Maybe because I’ve known my way around horses since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. Maybe because—unlike some people—I don’t try to bully them into things they’re not ready to try. Maybe because gaining the trust of a horse that’s been mistreated the way this one has been is something the wrangler they hired doesn’t know diddly about.” She smiled, the effect dazzling despite the phony sentiment behind it. “That would be you, I assume.”
    To Wade’s everlasting regret, it was. But he was not about to get into a name-calling game with this little slip of a female. He did intend to have a long talk with Grady Blackhawk about just exactly who was in chargeof the horses at this ranch. Last he’d heard, that was the job he’d been hired to do.
    He leveled a look straight into those devastating blue-green eyes of hers. “Until Grady tells me otherwise, nobody goes near Midnight unless I say so. If I catch you in there again, you won’t be happy about the way I get you out.”
    “Is that so?” she said, obviously unimpressed.
    Wade slammed his hat back on his head and glowered. “Try me.”
    He wasn’t entirely sure, but as she whirled around and walked away it almost sounded as if she murmured something along the lines of “Maybe I will.”
    Maybe he was crazy, maybe he was overly optimistic, but he had a feeling that she was no longer talking exclusively about continuing their test of wills over the horse. In fact, he got the distinct impression that she had something else altogether in mind. And his body responded with a slam of lust so powerful he knew he’d be a long time getting to sleep that night.
     
    Lauren made it back to the ranch house with her spine rigid and her shoulders straight, but she was seething inside. Of all the unmitigated nerve! That man had made it sound as if she was some sort of incompetent tenderfoot. She slammed the back door behind her, went to the sink and splashed a handful of cold water on her flaming face. She jerked up when she heard a chuckle.
    “I see you’ve met Wade