Hearts Are Wild Read Online Free

commented, his tone more than a little suggestive.
    “You are too much,” she shot back at his double entendre.
    “I’m a man and you’re a gorgeous woman. You can’t blame me for tryin’,” came his unrepentant reply.
    “I imagine it’d be so easy to fall under your spell.” She gave a soft laugh at how much this man’s attention boosted her ego.
    The truth was this vacation was also about getting away. Her confidence had really taken a beating with Jeremy’s rejection. When her boyfriend told her his career came first, she knew he wasn’t the man for her. No man would say something so heartless to a woman, especially a woman he was sleeping with.
    At least she didn’t think so. Maybe that was her problem. Did she expect men to fit some ideal mold and they just never seemed to measure up?
    “Won’t know just how easy until you try…” Mace countered, his teasing suggestion drawing her out of her reverie.
    Laughing and shaking her head at how skilled this man was at turning even the most mundane conversations into a flirtation, she parried, “I’m here for two weeks, Mace. The words ‘take it slow’ come to mind.”

Chapter Two
     
    “Sure you don’t want me to help you with that?” Mace drawled from his leaning position against the stable door.
    Sabrina tossed her long dark braid over her shoulder and blew her wispy bangs away from her eyes as she looked at him.
    “I know exactly what you want to help me with, Mace Tanner, and the only one getting a rubdown is Lightning,” she quipped, turning back to the horse as she unbuckled the saddle.
    “I’m good with my hands. How long you gonna keep me at bay, darlin’?” he cajoled.
    “’Til the cows come home,” she teased.
    After several seconds of total silence, the sound of a cowbell ringing and fake mooing coming from the stall doorway had her laughing out loud while she pulled the saddle off the horse and put it away. “Go back to work, Mace. I’ll join you for dinner later.”
    “You know you’re breakin’ my heart, don’t ya?” he asked, sounding wounded.
    Sabrina cut her gaze back to him to see a cowbell hanging from his neck as he put his hands over his heart, the expression on his face as if he were in real pain.
    “The only thing I’m breaking is your string of successful seductions.”
    Elise’s laughter floated from behind Mace before she appeared beside him. Looping her arm around his, she tugged on her brother-in-law’s arm. “She’s got ya there. Come on, Mace. You’ve played constant host since Bri arrived. Let’s give Bri a few moments alone.” She looked at her friend and finished with a laugh, “Even if she wants to spend them working.”
    “I find grooming a horse relaxing somehow, strange as that sounds,” Sabrina said as Elise pulled Mace away. “See you guys in a half hour,” she called after them.
    Turning back to Lightning, Sabrina looked around for the grooming brush until she spotted it up on a wood shelf on the wall. Standing on tiptoe, which probably gave an additional three inches to her five-foot five height, she tried to reach the horse brush that some too-tall moron had put on a high shelf. Didn’t they realize not everyone in this world was over six feet tall?
    She lowered her arm and looked around the horse’s stall. Nope. No stepstool in sight, darn it. Sighing, she stood on her toes again, straining her calf muscles as her fingers brushed the bristles and pushed the brush back away from the edge of the shelf.
    Lightning neighed behind her, apparently impatient for her to get on with the grooming. After being on the ranch for over a week, Sabrina still hadn’t gotten up the nerve to ride a horse by herself, but she’d asked Elise to show her how to groom one and found she really enjoyed the task.
    Eventually she’d work her way up to riding on a horse on her own, but in the meantime, she convinced Elise to let her give Lightning a good rubdown when her friend arrived back from a ride