McKettrick's Luck by Linda Lael Miller Read Free Book Online Page B

“that I never got around to riding to the hounds or playing polo.”
    Jesse laughed. Then he put a hand under her backside and hoisted her unceremoniously onto the horse in one smooth but startlingly powerful motion.
    She landed with a thump that echoed from her tailbone to the top of her spine.
    â€œYou can let go of the horn,” he said. “Pardner will stand there like a monument in the park until I get on Minotaur and take off.”
    Cheyenne released her two-handed death grip, finger by finger. “You won’t make him run?”
    Jesse laid a worn leather strap in her left palm, closed her hand around it, then ducked under Pardner’s head to do the same on the other side. “Hold the reins loosely,” he instructed, “like this. He’ll stop at a light tug, so don’t yank. That’ll hurt him.”
    Cheyenne nodded nervously. The creature probably weighed as much as a Volkswagen, and if either of them got hurt, odds on, it would be her. Just the same, she didn’t want to cause him any pain.
    She was in good shape, but the insides of her thighs were already beginning to ache. She wondered if it would be ethical to put a gallon or two of Ben-Gay on her expense account so she could dip herself in the stuff when she got home.
    â€œYou’re okay?” Jesse asked after a few beats.
    She bit down hard on her lower lip and nodded once, briskly.
    He smiled, laid a hand lightly to her thigh, and turned to mount his horse with the easy grace of a movie cowboy. If Nigel had been there, armed with his seemingly endless supply of clichés, he probably would have remarked that Jesse McKettrick looked as though he’d been born on horseback, or that he and the animal might have been a single entity.
    Jesse nudged his horse’s sides with the heels of his boots, and it began to walk away.
    â€œNo spurs?” Cheyenne asked, drawing on celluloid references, which constituted the extent of her knowledge of cowboys. It was an inane conversation, but Pardner was moving, and she had to talk to keep herself calm.
    Jesse frowned as though she’d suggested stabbing the poor critter with a pitchfork. “No spurs on the Triple M,” he said. “Ever.”
    Cheyenne clutched the reins, her hands sweating, and waited for her heart to squirm back down out of her throat and resume its normal beat. The ride wasn’t so bad, really—just a sort of rolling jostle.
    As long as an impromptu Kentucky Derby didn’t break out, she might just survive this episode. Anyway, it was a refreshing change from shuffling paperwork, juggling calls from Nigel and constantly meeting with prospective investors.
    Reaching a pasture gate, Jesse leaned from the saddle of his gelding to free the latch. The fences, Cheyenne noted, now that she wasn’t hyperventilating anymore, were split-rail as far as she could see. The wood was weathered, possibly as old as the historic schoolhouse Jesse had promised to show her when they got back, and yet the poles stood straight.
    Just as there were no spurs on the Triple M, she concluded, there appeared to be no barbed wire, either. Considering the size of the spread—the local joke was that the place was measured in counties rather than acres—that was no small feat.
    Cheyenne rode through the gate, waited while Jesse shut it again.
    â€œI don’t see any barbwire,” she said.
    â€œYou won’t,” Jesse answered, adjusting his hat so the brim came down low over his eyes. “There isn’t any. Horses manage to tear themselves up enough as it is, without rusty spikes ripping into their hide.”
    In spite of all he was putting her through, before he’d even agree to look at the blueprints for Nigel’s development, Jesse rose a little in Cheyenne’s estimation. Spurs were cruel, and so was barbed wire. He clearly disapproved of both, and Cheyenne had to give him points for compassion.
    Jesse had never