Page 10 of Cowboy Stole My Heart
He listened to her sigh and then looked in, curious about what she was doing. He watched as she brushed her horsedown, using a soft body brush over the mare’s sleek dark coat, bending low to follow the grooves of her legs. Sam followed her movements then glanced up, noticed the soft curve of her butt in her skin-tight breeches.
“So what’s our plan with the stallion today?” Mia asked, and Sam stepped back, folding his arms and leaning against the outside wall.
“Well,myplan is to not have a plan,” he said. “I feel my way as I go, and I have no idea how long it’ll take to crack this one.”
Mia had let herself out of the stable, and she looked distracted, her eyebrows drawn together as she stared past him.
“What’s that noise?”
He listened to the howling before grinning. “Oh, that’s my dog. Blue,” he said. “I’d say he’s not so happy that I left him in the truck.”
“You were worried I wouldn’t let you have your dog out? On a ranch?” she laughed. “Funny, you don’t strike me as the type to ask first.”
“What does that mean?” he asked, arms folded as he watched her.
“It means that you’re probably used to doing what you like and asking questionsafter.”
“You’re now an expert in human behavior?” he asked, trying not to laugh at her.
“Hey, sometimes it’s easy to see faults from standing down here than up there,” she said, repeating his own words back to him and putting the brush in her hand back in the box before walking off.
He’d give her that one. She was fiery all right, and he was starting to think the job here might be more interesting than he’d thought.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“To get your poor dog out of there before he dies from lack of oxygen.”
Sam didn’t bother to tell her that he’d left both windows down for air to get through, because he was fairly certain she was trying to rub him up the wrong way just for the hell of it. And she was doing a damn fine job of it, only he was also certain that she’d have no idea how much he was enjoying it. It’d been a long time since anyone had been outright rude to him or spoken their mind. It was one of the things that frustrated him the most right now about his career. He didn’t want to be surrounded byyespeople so often, people who liked to stroke egos and make others feel more important than they were. He liked real, and he liked sassy, and there was one particular little cowgirl who was trying very hard to get on his nerves, and was doing the exact opposite right now.
He glared at his dog when he saw him leaning into Mia, gazing up at her as if she was the love of his life. She was making such a fuss of him the dog was as good as mesmerized. Sam whistled and saw Blue’s ears prick, but he didn’t move, loving the attention too much to bother listening to his master.
“Damn traitor,” Sam muttered, half laughing and deciding to head down to the stallion on his own.
He had to admit, being petted by Mia wouldn’t exactly be torture, but he still expected more loyalty from the dog. He’d rescued him from the side of the road, chained up, skinny as a bag of bones and with the biggest brown eyes Sam had ever seen. He’d been working a new job and driven past the dog maybe half a dozen times, and on the day he finished up on the ranch, a two-hour drive from his home, he’d pulled over, broken the malnourished dog free,and taken him with him. And the pooch had been by his side almost every day since.
A wet nose touched his hand and Sam looked down, wanting to growl at the dog for his disloyalty but giving him a pat on the head instead. He had his tongue lolling out, big grin on his face like he was the happiest damn dog in the world.
“Hey, wait up!” Mia called out.
“Not my fault you’re too slow to keep up,” he shot back.
“Oh, I’m sorry, I was only trying to rescueyourdog!”
Sam chuckled. “And I’m here to do a job. Keep up if you can.”
He strode ahead, not slowing for her, and when he stopped outside the stallion’s pasture he turned and noticed Mia, red-faced and breathing hard from running after him. He smiled when she blew a stray piece of hair from her face, the escaped tendrils wisping around her cheeks.
“What are you going to do first?” Mia asked.
“First?” Sam repeated, elbows to the timber, leaning low and meeting her gaze when he looked sideways at her. “Firstyou’re going to tell me what the hell happened to this stallion, and how in god’s name you ended up with him.”
