Kitabı oku: «The Maverick's Wedding Wager»

Chapter One

“You are late.”

“I know,” horse farrier Genevieve Lawrence said to her phone as she stepped on the gas. She hated to be late and yet, here she was, running behind again on the way to her next client. Spotting one of her favorite off-road shortcuts ahead, Genevieve downshifted her four-wheel-drive Chevy Colorado, jerked the steering wheel to take a hard right and then floored it once the hind end of her truck stopped fishtailing. Laughing as she sped over a large bump in the road that sent her truck airborne for a split second, Genevieve knew she was taking a risk using this dirt road. It had been a rainy late August in Montana and there would be mud hole mine traps everywhere. But she’d been off-road racing since she was a teenager and knew this road like the back of her hand. If she didn’t get stuck, she’d shave a good fifteen minutes off her time.

“What’s life without a little risk?” Genevieve gave a rebel yell, fighting the steering wheel to keep it straight when the back tires hit a slick pocket of mud that sent her sliding sideways.

“Now you are really late,” her phone gave her another verbal reminder.

“Nobody likes a know-it-all, Google!” Genevieve snapped as she went careening through a large puddle of standing water, splashing brown water onto her windshield and temporarily blinding her view.

Putting her wipers on high so she could see, she saw the end of the dirt road up ahead and, instead of slowing down, she floored it again. In Genevieve’s mind, this was the best part. This was the most dangerous, and therefore, the most exhilarating, part of this shortcut. If she got up enough speed and momentum, she would really catch some air off a large mound of dirt right before she had to make a sharp left onto the main road.

“Woo-hoo!” she shouted, loving that wonderful sinking feeling in her stomach that she always got when all four wheels left the road.

A loud honk of a horn brought her smashing back into reality and made her tighten her grip on the steering wheel. She had successfully navigated the sharp left turn onto the highway, but miscalculated how close the next vehicle was to her entry point and she ended up cutting them off—just a little.

“Sorry!” She waved her hand out of the window with another laugh. She had cut that one a bit too close for comfort. But in her mind, no harm, no foul. This was what living was all about! Taking risks for big payoffs.

By the time she pulled into the driveway to the Crawford’s cattle spread, the Ambling A, her heart was still pounding and her body was still crackling with adrenaline. She parked in front of the twenty-stall stable. When Maximilian Crawford, the patriarch of the Crawford family, purchased the ranch, the barn had been just a plain metal structure. Maximilian refurbished the barn, matching the exterior to the main house’s log cabin design, and now the once plain barn was an impressive showpiece by anyone’s standards. Everything about the updated stable wreaked of money—from the custom Ambling A windmill perched atop the cupola to the red brick rubber pavers in the long, wide aisle that provided a cushion for the horses’ legs and joints. The Crawford cowboys had already begun to fill that fine stable with some of the highest pedigreed Montana-bred quarter horses money could buy.

Working with those horses was an honor Genevieve never thought to have. In fact, she had been completely shocked when Knox Crawford, one of Maximilian’s six sons, had called to hire her as part of the Ambling A’s horse care team. From her experience, most ranchers still had a mindset that being a horse farrier was a job for menfolk. And that mindset went double for her father.

As she was shutting off her engine, Genevieve spotted Knox up in the hayloft above the barn. The two large doors to the hayloft were open and Knox was restacking bales of hay, presumably getting ready for another shipment. The moment she spotted Maximilian’s fifth-born son, she felt that same wonderful shot of adrenaline that she normally only experienced when she was bungee jumping from a bridge, off-road racing or winning a wager with some cowboy who thought that he couldn’t ever lose to a chick.

Knox Crawford was tall and lean with intense brown-black eyes; his body appeared to be carved out of granite from years in the saddle. When Genevieve saw Knox as he was now, shirt unbuttoned with the glistening sweat from his muscular chest making an eye-catching trail down to the waistband of his snug-fitting, faded jeans, it made her almost change her mind about leaving Rust Creek Falls for more open-minded pastures in California.

Almost.

* * *

Knox heard the crunching sound of tires on the gravel drive and that got his heart pumping just a little bit faster. He’d been checking his watch, anticipating pretty Genevieve Lawrence’s arrival. In fact, he’d found himself looking forward to seeing her all week. Knox hoisted one last bale of hay onto a tall stack nearby before he walked over to the wide opening of the hayloft to greet the horse farrier. Genevieve’s truck, white with a colorful horse mural painted on the side, was covered in brown mud. The petite blonde got out of the driver’s side door, looked up at him with an easy smile and waved.

“Sorry I’m late!” she called up to him and the sweetness in her voice rang some sort of bell in the deep recesses of his mind.

Ever since his father had tasked him with the job of finding a veterinarian and farrier for their horses, and Knox had stumbled upon Genevieve’s Healing Hooves website, something in his soul seemed to hone in on this woman like a heat-seeking missile aimed at its target. Surprisingly for him, it wasn’t the fact that she had long wavy, wheat-colored hair that framed her oval face in the most attractive way—even though he had always had a weakness for blondes. And it wasn’t those wide cornflower blue eyes and full lips that seemed to always be turned up into a smile when she looked at him. It was more than just her looks. She fascinated him; she made him laugh. In his mind, that was a mighty potent combination.

“Not a problem.” Knox took his cowboy hat off so he could wipe the sweat from his brow with his sleeve. “Did you get stuck in a mudhole?”

Genevieve had walked around to the back of her truck so she could get her tools as she always did. With a laugh and a cocky smile, she said, “I took a shortcut.”

“Must’ve been one heck of a shortcut.”

“It sure was,” she said with another laugh.

While the farrier buckled on her scarred-up leather chaps that covered the front part of her thighs and knees, Knox tugged his gloves off his hands with his teeth so he could button his shirt. He never took his eyes off Genevieve. She was the sexiest darn tomboy he had ever met. Whenever he saw her, it made him sorely regret that he was dedicated to sticking to his self-imposed dating moratorium. His father was paying big bucks to a matchmaker to marry off his sons and Knox had no intention of going along with the plan quietly. If he had to give up dating for a good, long while, then that’s what he was going to do—but he’d do it his way.

As she finished her task of putting on her chaps, she looked up to find him staring at her. There was no use trying to play it off—she had caught him dead to rights.

“How many do we have today?” Genevieve asked, all business. She was the one woman in his new hometown of Rust Creek Falls that he’d like to flirt a little with him, and yet she seemed to be the only one who didn’t. When she came out to the Ambling A, she was friendly but always professional and on task.

“Four,” he told her.

“You know,” she said, “we could get all of these horses on the same trimming schedule. It’d be easier on you.”

“Naw. Then I’d only get to see you once a month.” He said with a smile. “I’ll meet you down there.”

Genevieve had a routine and he knew it well. She had a policy that the owner, or an owner’s representative, had to be on site when she trimmed hooves, and from her very first visit back in June, Knox had been the one to greet her. There was something special about the time he spent with Genevieve while she worked; he could talk to her in a way he’d never been able to talk to another woman. In fact, he could talk to her like she was one of his brothers. She liked to do guy stuff and she wasn’t overly concerned with her nails and her hair and she was as pretty as they came without makeup. Perhaps the confident, no-nonsense way Genevieve comported herself was why he felt, for the first time in his life, like he had begun a genuine friendship with a woman. The fact that she was easy on the eyes was just a bonus.

Knox slipped the halter on his big dappled gray gelding, Big Blue, and led him down the wide aisle of the barn to the cross ties where Genevieve had set up her hoof stand.

“How’s Blue today?” The farrier ran her hand down the horse’s neck as she always did, checking out the horse’s body and stance before she moved to the hooves.

“No complaints.” He hooked the cross tie onto Blue’s halter to keep the horse standing in one place while Genevieve worked.

“He’s got a good weight on him.”

“He’s fit, that’s for sure.”

Genevieve finished her inspection, circling back to the horse’s left front hoof. Unlike any other farrier he had ever seen, she knelt down beside Blue’s front left leg, lifted it and let it rest on her thigh while she took one of her tools from a pocket of her chaps. On the first day she’d come out to the ranch he’d asked her about her unusual trimming posture—kneeling instead of standing, which was the standard because it was safer for the farrier. Genevieve’s answer had stuck with him—she had said that it was all about the comfort of the horse for her. Yes, it was more dangerous, but she trusted the horses and they trusted her. If she had to get out of the way, she knew how to do it. That night he had gone to his father, who was convinced that hiring a woman farrier was bad business, and told him that he had just met one of the most talented farriers he’d ever known. And to this day, he hadn’t changed his mind about Genevieve.

“How’s he looking?” Knox moved closer to Genevieve, liking the way she would flip her long, thick braid over her shoulder.

“He looks great.” She glanced up from her work to nod at him. “The walls of the hoof are strong, the frog has got good give, and it’s been so rainy and wet these last few weeks, I’ve been seeing a lot of thrush out there, but Blue’s don’t have any signs of that.”

“All good news then.”

“All good news.”

After that brief exchange, Knox leaned back against a nearby wall and watched Genevieve work. She was fast and efficient, another trait he appreciated about her. She didn’t smoke or spit tobacco, or take extended breaks in between horses to shoot the breeze about hunting or to recount worn-out rodeo stories like the past farriers he had hired. Genevieve kept her focus on the horse, even during the times when they had a conversation going.

“He’s ready to go back to his stall.” She unhooked Big Blue from the cross ties.

Knox had been so lost in thought that he hadn’t even noticed that she had finished. Those moments when he had been brooding about the conflict he was having with the father had raced by without him noticing.

“He’s already done?” He pushed away from the wall. “That was quick.”

“Quick and competent.” She handed him the lead rope with a smile. “Bring me my next victim, please.”

Knox led Big Blue back to his stall before he grabbed a dun mare with a black mane and tail and a tan body his father had just purchased for breeding.

“Who’s this beauty?” Genevieve’s face lit up at the sight of the new addition to the stable.

“Honey.”

Genevieve rubbed the mare between the eyes, and the mare, who had been head shy and skittish around most of the ranch hands at the Ambling A, lowered her head and nuzzled the farrier’s hand.

“And, you’re sweet like honey, aren’t you?”

After her standard body and leg check of the mare, Genevieve went to work. The first order of business was pulling the mare’s shoes; Genevieve had a reputation of being one of the best “barefoot” farriers and could often get a horse sound without shoes. Some horses required shoes, but it was best for the horse if they could have their hooves natural like God made them.

“Walk her forward for me so I can see her walk,” Genevieve instructed once she pulled the last shoe off the mare. “Let’s see how she does.”

After a couple of cautious steps where the mare was trying to get used to the odd sensation of walking without metal attached to her hooves, she began to walk naturally without any signs of lameness.

With a pleased smile, Genevieve waved her hand. “Bring her on back. She’s going to do just fine without shoes.”

It didn’t seem like any time at all that Genevieve handed the new mare off to him as she prepared for the third horse of the day. She was halfway done and he had wasted their time together lost in his own thoughts.

“I’m sorry I haven’t been much company today.” He didn’t know why he felt like he owed her some sort of explanation. Most visits they had a lot to say to each other. But today he couldn’t seem to get out of his own head.

Genevieve, in keeping with her easygoing manner, said, “Don’t worry about it. There’re plenty of days I don’t feel like talking, trust me.”

That was just the thing—he wanted to talk to somebody about his situation with his father. In fact, he felt like he needed to talk to somebody about it. It was eating him inside out keeping it all bottled up. Lately, he swung like an erratic pendulum from furious to just plain fed up and he was always thinking about a way to show his father, once and for all, that he couldn’t meddle in his life. He was a full-grown man and he was dog tired of his father thinking that he could control him like a puppet on a string.

Knox had chafed under his father’s rule for most of his life. Even as a kid he had wanted to set his own course, to make his own decisions. Max ruled the family with a proverbial iron fist—he was the boss and his word was first, last and final. There had been plenty of times when Knox thought to take a different path in life and leave the family business behind but one of his brothers would always reel him back in to the fold. In fact, his decision to move to Montana in the first place was touch and go. This move would have been the perfect excuse to start a new chapter in his life without having to always bend to his father’s will. Yet, here he was, in Montana, once again, doing it Maximilian’s way.

And, perhaps that would have been okay for him. The Ambling A had plenty of elbow room and he had his own cabin. The town of Rust Creek Falls was nice enough and the women sure were pretty. But, then his father dishonored him, and his brothers, by offering to pay a local matchmaker, Vivian Shuster, a million bucks to find brides for his sons. Knox felt humiliated and the wound was deeper because the source of that humiliation was his own father. More than any time in his life, Knox wanted to send his father a message: stop meddling in my life!

In no time at all, Genevieve was finished with the third horse and ready for the last one. Perhaps it was the fact that their visit was about to be over—or perhaps it was because he had grown so comfortable with this woman. Either way, when Knox placed the last horse in the cross ties for Genevieve, he broached a subject with her that he had sworn he’d never broach with anyone other than family.

“I suppose you’ve heard all about the million-dollar deal my dad made with Viv Shuster.” Knox had his arms crossed in front of his body and he watched Genevieve’s face carefully.

She was about to kneel down and begin working, but his words must have caught her off guard. Genevieve looked up at him with what could only be read as embarrassment—not for her, but for him. Of course the pretty farrier had heard all about the million-dollar deal Max had made to marry off his six sons. Of course she had.

* * *

Genevieve had hoped that the subject of the Viv Shuster deal would never come up between Knox and her. Everyone in Rust Creek Falls had heard about Maximilian’s quest to marry off his six eligible bachelor sons. It was the talk of the town! Most of the townsfolk were rooting for Viv so she could keep her sagging wedding business afloat. And there was a good chance Viv could pull it off. There were a lot of single women in town who wanted in on the Crawford action. Because Knox had become a friend of sorts, Genevieve never wanted to bring up what might be a sore subject for him. After all, she knew too well what it was like to have an overbearing father determined to control the lives of his adult children.

“I heard,” she said simply, not wanting to sugarcoat it. Knox didn’t seem like the type to want things sugarcoated for him. She took a moment to look directly into his intense, deep brown eyes so he would know that she was sincere when she said, “And I’m sorry.”

His heavy brown brows lifted slightly at her words. “Thank you.”

She nodded her head. Perhaps she was the first to say that to him. Instead of starting right away on the last horse, Genevieve opened up to Knox in a way she hadn’t before. “You know, I do understand how you feel. My dad’s been trying to marry me off for years. He thinks that my profession is unladylike.” She made quotation marks with her fingers when she said unladylike. “He thinks my expiration date for making babies is looming like an end-of-the-world scenario. As if that’s the only thing I’m good for.” She frowned at the thought. “I’ve gone out with every darn made-in-Montana cowboy within a fifty-mile radius—”

“You haven’t gone out with me,” the rancher interjected.

The way those words slipped past Knox’s lips, like a lover’s whisper full of promise of good things to come, made Genevieve’s stomach tighten in the most annoying way. She did not need to get involved with anyone in Rust Creek Falls. That was not the plan.

Wanting to laugh off the suggestion in his words, she smiled. “Well, that’s because you are a made-in-Texas cowboy. That doesn’t count.”

Knox took a step closer, his eyes pinned on her face in a way that had never happened before. This new line of conversation had seemed to open something up between them, and Genevieve wasn’t all too sure that she shouldn’t slam the lid shut real quick on what might turn out to be a giant Pandora’s box.

“Well,” the rancher said, his voice lowered in a way that sent a tingle right down her spine. “You know what people say about things from Texas—”

“I know, I know.” She cut him off playfully. “Everything is bigger in Texas.”

“Now, that’s a dirty mind at work.” Knox smiled at her, showing his straight white teeth. “I was going to say better but if you want to say bigger, then I’m not going to object.”

The banter seemed to break the odd tension between them and they both laughed. And that’s when she noticed that when Knox took a step toward her, she had mindlessly taken a step toward him. With a steadying hand on the neck of the horse patiently waiting in the cross ties, Genevieve said, still laughing, “Do you know that I even agreed to go out with your brother on a date, just to get my father off my back?”

In the rancher’s eyes, there was a fleeting emotion that Genevieve could identify only as jealousy. It was brief, but she saw it.

“Not that anything happened between us,” she was quick to add before she got to work on the final horse of the day. If she got lost in conversation with Knox, she would lose the time she had made up and then she would be late for her next client. “I knew that Logan had it bad for Sarah. As a matter of fact, I told him to quit being such a chicken on our date. It was just a one and done for me. I told Viv to take my name officially off the list and I told my dad I tried.”

“So... Logan wasn’t your type?”

Genevieve glanced up to see that same intense, focused, almost examining expression in Knox’s eyes.

“No,” she said with an easy laugh. “And obviously I wasn’t his! He’s married to Sarah and everyone in town knows how much he loves being a father to baby Sophia.”

Genevieve gently moved the horse’s hoof onto her stand so she could smooth out the rough edges left behind by her nippers. “My dad says I’m too picky, but is there really such a thing as being too picky when you’re looking for your soul mate? I mean, unless I meet that exact right guy, I’m not even all that sure that I want to get married and have kids. I have my business and my career to build. I’m happy. Why fix what ain’t broken, right? That’s why I’m living in the apartment above my parents’ garage—I’m saving money so I can move to California. There’s a lot of really exciting stuff happening with holistic approaches to horse care there and I want to be a part of it.”

“So, you’re not even planning on hanging around Rust Creek Falls?”

“Nope.”

“That might just be perfect, then.”

The cryptic tone Knox used to say those words made an alarm bell go off in her head, but she didn’t ask him about it. Some things, in her experience, were better left alone.

Genevieve finished her work and unhooked the last horse from the cross ties, hooked the lead rope to its halter and handed the horse off to Knox.

“You can tell your father that all the horses got a clean bill of health today. I can see these four again in four to six weeks.”

Knox nodded rather absentmindedly. He led the horse back to its stall, and then he headed back to her, covering the distance quickly with his long-legged stride. There was a new determination in the way he walked, and there was a glint of mischief in his dark brown eyes that caught her attention and made her feel a little queasy in her stomach, like she had just gotten a mild case of food poisoning.

Instead of handing her a check as was typical, Knox stood in front of her, his hat tilted back a bit so she could see his eyes, and asked her, “How would you like to get your dad off your back while you’re earning your way out of here?”

“How would I like that?” She shook her head with a laugh. “Are you kidding me? I’d love to get Lionel Lawrence off my back.”

“Then you and I are in the same boat. Because I would love to get Max off my back and out of my business.”

Genevieve heard, and understood, the frustration in Knox’s voice. Having an overbearing, meddling parent as an adult could strain even the most solid of parent-child relationships.

She shrugged. “I hear you, Knox, but so far, nothing I’ve tried has worked. If I could find a guy who would just be a no-strings-attached boyfriend for a while, that would placate dad for a while I think. But, all the guys around here want a commitment. Something weird in the water around these parts, I think.”

“I wasn’t really thinking about a boyfriend,” Knox said.

“Oh, no?” Her brow wrinkled curiously. “What were you thinking?”

Knox pinned her in place with those deep, dark eyes of his and his lips—very nice, firm, masculine lips—curled up into a little smirk. “I was thinking more along the lines of a husband.”