High-Riding Heroes Read Online Free Page A

enjoying watching it spew forth. Old Buck was used to having his way, but this woman may just be the one to hold out against him. It might be very interesting to stick around and see how this battle of the wills turns out.
    Returning to his room, he kicked the door closed behind him. He walked across the worn floorboards to test the bed. Too soft, he moaned and dropped back on the quilt, tipping his hat over his face. He was tired. He could sleep for an hour or so before touring the town and making himself more familiar with the setup.

    The interviews, later that night, hadn’t taken long. Victoria hired two women and one man; the others didn’t seem serious enough to qualify. Now, she was dirty and tired and wanted nothing but to sit in a nice hot bubble bath.
    Victoria penned the word OCCUPIEDon one side of a piece of cardboard and UNOCCUPIED on the other side and hung the sign from a string around the doorknob of the bathroom. Once inside, she began to rearrange things. Her towels on one side, his on the other. Her toiletries on one half of the ancient pink-marbled vanity and his on the other. After plugging the drain and pouring five 22
    www.samhainpublishing.com

    High-Riding Heroes
    capsful of bubble bath into the old chipped, claw-footed porcelain tub, she turned on the water and stripped.
    She had managed to stay out of Wes and Buck’s way the rest of the day. Wes had thrown up his hand a couple of times in passing. Buck’s Cheshire cat smile hadn’t gone unnoticed. She’d also made an appointment with the Dallas banker for later that week. After seeing to a few other important items on her list, she had gone riding and was pleased she was becoming more and more comfortable sitting Western than she had ever been riding English. Even Tonka, her gelding that she couldn’t bring herself to leave behind in Virginia, seemed to enjoy the freedom. Funny, she thought, as she looked around the bathroom to make sure everything was in order, that it should feel so natural to ride Western.
    Now was the time for her. A very long, languid, luxurious hot bath and bubbles. Lots of them. In this room, she couldn’t hear the sounds of the tourists milling through her town.
    It enhanced the feeling that this really was the Wild West and she actually was a woman of the late eighteen hundreds. It was heaven. Climbing in the tub, she slid down till her chin touched the fluffy, fragrant bubbles. She moaned her delight.
    When she closed her eyes, Victoria was a little surprised that Wes Cooper’s face appeared in her mind’s eye. But then, why should she be so surprised? Men in the West were different. And he was even more diverse than that. He was a classic. He seemed just like the brave and courageous cowboys she had watched on television and in the movies, only there was a real naturalness about him.
    Genuine. She had never been close to anyone quite like him.
    There was one thing she noticed about all Western men. More flesh was exposed. In her world in the East, a man wore a three-piece business suit or a

    www.samhainpublishing.com
    23

    Joey Light
    shirt and jeans or a jogging outfit. On occasion she would see athletic shorts in public, but in general she had never seen so much male body as she did here.
    Shirts were sometimes worn buttoned only at the jeans line. Sleeves were rolled up or nonexistent, only frayed around the shoulders where they had been ripped off for convenience. Men thought nothing of leaving their chests and backs bare or exposing that area between a T-shirt and jeans when they bent over. Victoria had grown used to seeing more than usual of the male body, but now Wes Cooper was here. She wasn’t sure she wanted to see more of that man’s body. He had had his long striped sleeves rolled up to expose thick, muscled forearms. And hands. Big, sure, competent hands with blunt, squared fingers.
    She had wondered what they would feel like entwined with her own. Nonsense.
    She cleared her mind of him. Raising