The Cowboy Takes a Bride by Lori Wilde Read Free Book Online

bedroom. He was so proud of Stuffy. My mom hated it and she kept throwing clothes over the atrocious thing to hide it.”
    “Ah, sentimental memories.”
    “Are you making fun of me?”
    “Never.” He put on a serious face.
    “That damn snake really scared me.” Her smart brown eyes flashed with spunk. Her scent—a combination of flowers and cookies—clung to him.
    Before he’d married Becca, he’d been something of a scoundrel. He’d be the first to admit it. He’d been one helluva bull rider and that wasn’t all ego talking. Eight solid seconds on the backs of critters named Terminator and Satan’s Son and Buzz Saw earned a man his pick of buckle bunnies. He made enough money on the PRCA to purchase Green Ridge Ranch after a knee injury had knocked him out of the bullpen. But he hadn’t minded. He had his day in the sun. He’d married Becca and he’d been faithful, and once he lost her, he lost all interest in sex.
    Until now.
    And he hated himself for it. Hated her.
    “What are you doing here? Don’t you have a bottle of tequila to kill or something?” she snapped.
    “I’m not a drunk,” he said lightly, suddenly wanting her to know that he didn’t make a habit out of getting blitzed and falling into horse troughs. Why did he give a good damn what she thought of him?
    Last night had been a rare lapse. He was over it now. Well, except for the pounding headache.
    Mariah reached up to touch her neck in a self-conscious gesture. He tracked her movements, and that’s when he saw that a couple of buttons on her sweater were undone, giving him a helluva glimpse at a pink lace bra.
    Ah, hell. He did not want to stare but he couldn’t look away.
    “Stop ogling my breast.”
    “Yes, ma’am.” His gaze stayed glued to her chest.
    “Yo, buddy.” Mariah snapped her fingers near her face. “Eyes up here.”
    “Kind of hard to do,” he said. “When you’re flaunting it.”
    “What?” She glanced down, her mouth formed an alarmed, silent O, then she instantly started buttoning up. “The buttons must have come undone while I tried to take a nap in the backseat.”
    Joe shifted his attention toward the white sedan, relieved to have something else to look at. “You slept in your car?”
    “It’s a long drive from Chicago.”
    “Why didn’t you get a motel room?”
    “I couldn’t afford a rental car and a motel room. And since I couldn’t drive a hotel room, the vehicle won out.”
    She had a fine sense of the absurd. Unexpected.
    “You’re broke?”
    “In a word, yes.”
    “Dutch told me you were a wedding planner. What happened with that?”
    “Dutch talked about me to you?” Her suspicious eyes instantly softened and her voice sounded hopeful. In that moment, she looked so starkly vulnerable it hurt Joe’s head.
    “Every day,” he admitted, wanting for some perverse reason to hurt her.
    Her teeth sank into her bottom lip and her eyes clouded.
    “How come you never came to see him?” Joe murmured, knowing how much it had hurt Dutch to have so little contact with his only child. He never talked about his regret, but it was in his voice every time he spoke Mariah’s name.
    She tossed her head, struggled to control the tiny quiver in her chin. “That was his choice, not mine. He’s the one who left me and my mother for horses.”
    Joe rubbed a hand over the nape of his neck, ashamed of his cruel impulse. Ila was right. He didn’t know Mariah’s side of the story. “I’m sorry about your father’s passing.”
    “I should be giving you condolences since you knew him so much better than I did,” she said.
    “You’re jealous?”
    “That my own father preferred the company of strangers and horses to mine? Why would you think I’m jealous? ‘Resentful’ just might be the word you’re looking for.”
    Ouch. He was strolling in a field strewn with land mines of emotions between Mariah and her father. One wrong move and he’d blow himself up.
    She crossed her arms over her