High-Riding Heroes Read Online Free Page B

her leg in the air, she studied her toe and watched bubbles slide slowly down her ankle.
    The door opened. She jerked her leg under the water, and even though she was well below the level of bubbles, she crossed her arms over her breasts.
    His robe was tossed over his shoulder and he was bare chested, his jeans slung low on his hips.
    “Can’t you read?” Victoria sputtered, pulling her eyes away from his wide shoulders and solid chest with hair that whirled to a V and dove near the snap of his jeans.
    “Both sides of the sign read OCCUPIED.I figured I’d take my chances.” She was flushed and up to her neck in flowery fragranced bubbles. Her hair was damp and curled in ringlets around her face. She looked sixteen years old and mad as a hornet.
    “Ohhh,” she groaned and looked away. Her heart was banging away at her rib cage and she felt like a silly teenager. “I don’t believe this. You could have called through the door.”
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    High-Riding Heroes
    “Could have,” he agreed as he leaned against the doorjamb and eyed her squarely.
    “Did you leave the upstairs roped off?” Victoria wanted to be sure that her new device to ward off tourists, when she wanted to be alone, was still intact.
    “Yep.”
    Gritting her teeth, she ordered, “Good. Now get out of here, Cooper. I’m going to be a while.”
    He closed the door. Then she saw him move to the chair by the vanity and sit down. Before she could let go with a stream of profanity, he grinned and held up a hand to silence her.
    “Buck warned me that you could be a little bit sassy. I can’t see a thing, so what’s the big deal? I wanted to talk to you and this is as good a time as any.
    Besides, you can’t toss your head and walk out on me.”
    “I could,” she parried.
    He laughed. “But you won’t.” He briefly wondered what had come over him. He didn’t usually act on impulse.
    She felt vulnerable and shy. Never in her life had a man shared her bathroom. It was a very warm, uncomfortable feeling. But not totally distasteful.
    Her thoughts were unsettling.
    His thick eyebrows, barely breaking over his nose, gave him the look of a desperado. His skin was weathered and tan between that set of long sideburns.
    Just the size of him, wide shoulders and long legs, dwarfed her even more.
    “There’s a lot to be done here. Why don’t you tell me what you want me to work on first?” He settled back in the chair.
    She tilted her chin. “I’m certainly not going to entertain you in my bathroom.
    Where I come from, a man wouldn’t think of…besides, ask Buck.”
    “I’m asking you,” he persisted, gently.

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    Joey Light
    “Why?” Because she really wanted to know the answer, she turned her direct glare on him.
    “So you’ll be a part of it. You and Buck are partners. He just doesn’t know how to handle it, so I figured I’d show him.”
    He seems awfully sure of himself, she thought. Almost smug. “You’ll make him mad,” she told him. No doubt in her mind.
    “No, I won’t. We go back a long way, remember?” 
He dropped his robe on the floor.
    She looked from the pile back to him. So maybe he slept nude also. She had brought her robe in, too, just to cover her till she got back to her room. Pushing the enthralling thought out of her mind, she ordered him, coldly, “I’d much rather discuss this someplace else and some other time. Now, please leave.”
    “You’ve already made that perfectly clear. I can wait. It’s you who’s going to get all pruned up. Not me.” He crossed one booted foot over his knee. He was enjoying this.
    She’d give him the information he wanted so he would leave. “The stagecoach robbery. The saloon brawl. The jailbreak. I missed the rodeo last month but I’m anxious to see the men pit their skill and stamina…and raw courage against the power of the animals. I don’t want it to look like a circus and I strongly suspect that’s precisely how