Free Renegade Father by RaeAnne Thayne

children’s.
    Ah, the joys of matrimony.
    She blew out a breath and forced herself to turn back to the job at hand. “Okay, that one’s done. Ninety-nine more.”
    â€œHave you given any more thought to hiring me to take over for Joe?” Luke asked suddenly.
    At the completely unexpected question, she fumbled with the hypodermic and would have dropped it into the mud they’d churned up through the snow if her instincts hadn’t kicked in at the last minute. She ended up catching it in midair.
    â€œWhat… What did you say?”
    â€œYou know. What we talked about the other night. About hiring me to be foreman after Joe leaves.”
    Dumbfounded, for a moment she could do nothingbut stare at him. She thought she had made it abundantly clear he wasn’t even in the running for the foreman position. Good grief. Did he need to be knocked over the head with it?
    She sat back on her heels, fumbling for words just like she had just fumbled the syringe. “Luke, I told you I wanted someone with a little more experience,” she finally said. “I’m sorry, but I’m not going to change my mind about it.”
    He didn’t seem at all fazed by her answer, just gave her a smile brimming with cockiness. “You will. Just wait.”
    The complete conviction in his voice astounded her but before she could answer, the muffled thud of horse hooves on snow sounded in the clear, cold air.
    Joe rode across the pasture toward them on Quixote, his big bay gelding. He wore jeans, a lined denim jacket, his customary black Stetson and leather gloves—the standard winter attire of all the cowboys who worked the Double C. Manny and Luke deviated only in the color of their hats.
    But somehow Joe made the clothes look far different than either of the other men. He seemed so perfectly right on the back of the muscular horse—so wholly, ruggedly male—that her stomach quivered in reaction.
    He always made her feel completely feminine by comparison, even when she was grubbing around in the snow and the mud in her ratty old ranch coat and beat-up ropers.
    Joe was the kind of man who turned heads wherever he went, just by his sheer physical presence. He always had been. Even as a boy he had been strikingly beautiful, and all the girls at school used to have crushes on him. Joe ignored all of them except for Annie, whichdidn’t exactly win her points with the other girls. Not that she cared much. She hadn’t had much patience for other girls her age.
    If anything, age and life had only improved Joe’s looks, had hardened his sculpted features to masculine perfection. With that exotic copper skin, his piercing dark eyes and that full, sensuous mouth—not to mention the air of barely leashed danger surrounding him in an almost visible aura—it was no wonder women still acted like fluttery idiots around him.
    Including her.
    Annie jolted back to earth and to the calf bawling in the pen in front of her, suddenly remembering the bet.
    â€œYour team can’t be done yet!” she exclaimed. “No way!”
    Joe’s grin nearly stopped her heart. “Scared, are you?”
    She took a deep, fortifying breath, relieved to find her blood still pumping, her lungs still working. “Not at all. We’re gonna kick your butts. Aren’t we, boys?”
    â€œHell, yeah.” Luke’s chest puffed with bravado and Manny’s grin flashed in his dark face.
    â€œRight into next week, boss,” he said.
    Joe rested both hands on the saddle horn as Quixote stamped a few times in the snow and puffed out a cloudy breath, eager for action.
    Like most modern ranches, the Double C had a couple of snowmobiles and two four-wheelers but she and Joe both preferred to do things the time-honored way whenever possible. A snowmobile could never take the place of a good cutting horse, and Qui was one of the best she’d ever seen.
    She gave the big bay a pat, then