Read The Cowboy Takes a Bride for Free Online Page B

saw through it. So much for aspirin. No more tequila. Ever.
    He opened the door of his truck and swung to the ground, but just as he did, Mariah came tumbling from the cabin screaming at the top of her lungs.
    Immediately, Joe reacted. He ran toward her, grabbed her up in his arms.
    The second his hands touched her, he knew it was a mistake. The top of her sweet-smelling head grazed his shoulder and the earth shifted beneath his feet.
    “Whoa there,” he said, alarmed to hear his voice come out thready. He was speaking as much to himself as he was to her. “Whoa.”
    “Oh,” she exclaimed, and pulled back as if she just now realized whose arms she ran into. “Oh, it’s you .”
    She said “you” like it was a dirty word.
    He grinned, tipped his hat back on his head, slammed a firm grip on himself, and drawled, “Joe Daniels at your service, ma’am.”
    She pulled herself up to the full extent of her five-foot-nothing and flashed him a haughty expression. “Good to see you finally managed to find your pants.”
    “How long are you planning to keep throwing that in my face?”
    “Every time I see you.”
    “You’re relentless.”
    “You don’t like it? Don’t come around.”
    “This wasn’t voluntary.”
    “And yet, look, here you are.”
    Her smart brown eyes peered into him as if she knew every thought that passed through his head. The woman didn’t miss a trick. Smart-mouthed and sassy. Paradoxically, she was cute in the way of baby chicks. Innocent bit of fluff.
    He didn’t like baby chicks. They were too cute, fluffy, and you had to make them a pen so things wouldn’t eat them, and, well, they were just a pain in the ass.
    Her pink cherubic cheeks gave her an angelic appearance. Like those wide-eyed kids in the Christmas figurines his mother collected. Her complexion was the color of cream, with a slight dusting of freckles over the bridge of her nose. Cinnamon sprinkled on eggnog. Her lush lips were full, but not wide.
    Angels and baby chicks. Who needed that kind of hassle? Especially with the daughter of his best friend. A friend she’d treated like dirt.
    But what rattled him to the center of his soul was the aura of loneliness radiating off her in waves. She was as isolated as Joe.
    Startled by that realization, involuntarily he tightened his arms around her. “What’s wrong, what has you running and screaming from the cabin like demons are on your tail?”
    “Sn-sn-snake,” she stammered, and trembled. “There’s a rattlesnake in the cabin. I’m terrified of snakes.”
    But of course, snakes and baby chicks were sworn enemies. “In the bedroom?”
    “How did you know?”
    Joe laughed in relief.
    “You’re laughing at me.” She glowered and swatted at his chest, a soft, girlie blow. “Why are you laughing at me?”
    “The snake in the bedroom? That’s just Stuffy.”
    Mariah narrowed her eyes. “Who’s Stuffy?”
    She aroused something in him, something illogical, improbable, impossible; something beyond the sexual attraction that instantly hardened him below the waist. Briefly, he closed his eyes, swallowed hard, struggled to gain self-control.
    Frankly, his body’s reaction shocked him. He’d grown accustomed to feeling nothing. Here was living proof that his libido hadn’t died with Becca, and he wasn’t sure how he felt about that.
    Scratch that. He was sure. He didn’t like it at all and he didn’t like her. He wasn’t going to let some cute little thing unhinge him simply because he hadn’t had sex in two years.
    But that was easier said than done when her well-rounded breasts were smashed snugly against his chest. Get away from her. Move now.
    Joe stepped back and immediately felt better. “Stuffy is a taxidermied rattlesnake mounted on a shellacked tree stump. Dutch told me he won Stuffy as a trophy at his first amateur cutting exhibition.”
    “Oh yeah.” Mariah sounded dumbfounded. “I remember that snake now. Dutch used to keep it on the bureau in the