Page 5 of The Cowboy's Forbidden Bride

Wilder shouldn’t care at all what their baby sister was up to. Tonight or any other night.

And yet he couldn’t keep his gaze from following her as she moved deeper into the crowd, filled with men who had no scruples about checking her out.

Or any other scruples at all, for that matter.

He told himself it was nothing to him if she sidled up to a man who wasplainlysome kind of weekend warrior biker with a possible steroid issue. It wasn’t any of his business if the smile she gave the guy was not the least bit fake. It didn’t concern him when she put her hand on the brute’s arm, tilted her head back, and let all that copper-tinted dark hairdance—

Wilder was across the bar in about three seconds flat.

He had his hand wrapped around Cat Lisle’s upper arm—not a tactile sensation he needed to know about, it turned out, all soft and satiny and thatscentagain—and then had her out the door and away from this den of iniquity before Easy Rider knew what hit him.

And before he knew what possessedhim,too.

Cat jerked her arm as if to dislodge his grip, but Wilder didn’t let go.

“You can’t go aroundmanhandlingpeople out of bars!” she threw at him.

“I just did.”

Her mouth dropped open, even while those blue eyes of hers flashed fire. “What do you think you accomplished? I’m just going to turn around and walk right back inside.”

“No,” he said, low and sure. “You are not.”

The expression on her face… shifted. This time when she yanked her shoulder back, he let her have it. She took a step back, but she didn’t make a break for the door. She studied him instead. “What do you want, Wilder? Why do you care what I do?”

“If I had a little sister, I’d wantsomeoneto care what she was doing. Especially if it was this stupid.”

“You have little brothers and I’ve never seen the slightest indication that you care at all what they get up to,” she retorted.

“I care,” he countered, which was not entirely untrue. “But I also know they can handle themselves.”

“Because they’re men.”

“Because they’re all over six feet tall and know how to take a punch. And better yet, how to hold their own. They are not small, fragile girls who don’t understand danger when they’re standing knee-deep in it, ordering frilly little drinks.”

“It was a bourbon, not a Bellini, and it doesn’t matter anyway. There is absolutely no reason you should be talking to me, much less hauling me out of bars.” Cat shook her head at him as if he was a grave disappointment. Wilder had to chalk that up as a first. He never stuck around long enough to disappoint a woman. Cat was on an accelerated track. “I don’t think you’ve ever said three words to me in the whole of your life before tonight.”

There was no earthly reason he should have felt the need to defend himself. “I haven’t had occasion to say anything to you because you’re usually right where you belong. If I’d caught you making stupid decisions outside the General Store that you’re likely to regret for the rest of your life at any point, I would have done the exact same thing.”

She laughed at that, but it was an indignant sound. “You have got to be kidding me. You’re a Carey. I’m surprised you even know where the General Store is, since you’re all so allergic to the idea that your ancestor was bad at cards. And what makes you think you have the slightest idea what I might regret or not regret?” Cat had moved away from him when she’d taken that shoulder back, but now she moved toward him again, getting right up in his face. This really meant that she was right up on his chest, her head tilted back so she could look up at him, and he absolutely, positively did not feel anything rush through him like another hit of the whiskey he wasn’t drinking. “You don’t know anything about me. I’m surprised you even know my name.”

“Cat,” he drawled, making a meal of the name, though he did not choose to ask himself why he enjoyed it so much. “Cat for short. I’m not oblivious.”

The look she gave him indicated that she did not believe that for a minute. “A hundred years ago or so, two crotchety men who probably hadn’t bathed in their lifetimes played cards and got butt hurt about it. This somehow turned into a quote unquoteblood feudthat all of our unhinged relatives up and down the family tree have been entirely too interested in ever since.”

“Thank you, Cat. I’m aware of the history of Cowboy Point, the disgraceful behavior of Ebenezer Lisle, and the heroic efforts of Matthew Carey to soldier on despite his shocking betrayal.”

“That would be the same Matthew Carey who helped himself to the vast acreage that is now High Mountain Ranch, is that right? The very land you’ve all been working your whole life and that, last time I looked, was enough of a living to support generations of Careys?” She rolled her eyes heavenward as if asking for divine intervention outside of Marietta’s answer to the gateway to hell. “Anyway, the point is, you should be delighted that you think I’m getting myself in trouble. Maybe I’ll become the black sheep of the family. Then there’s one less Lisle for you to worry about.”

Wilder had neverworried abouta Lisle in his life, but here he was arguing with one on a public sidewalk. He couldn’t deny that the optics were not on his side. Then again, thisnobilitything was a new look for him, so no wonder it felt weird. Maybe if he made a habit out of saving women from their terrible choices, it would come a lot easier.

“But you’re not the black sheep of the family,” Wilder said with what he thought was tremendous patience. “Here are some other things you’re not. A big drinker. Or the kind of barfly who hangs out in the Wolf Den on a weekend night, looking for a one-night stand and a hangover.”

As someone who had watched her grow up into a perfectly nice girl, from a distance, he thought this argument was unassailable. So he didn’t understand it when she straightened, then lifted her chin into something defiant.

Like he wasfightingwith her.

“As a matter of fact, I’m looking to change all of those definitions,” she told him, and that blue gaze of hers was surprisingly direct.

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