Free The Cowboy Wins a Bride (The Cowboys of Chance Creek) by Cora Seton

to make sure she looked neat and professional. A millionaire like Carl Whitfield was used to dealing with the best of the best.
    For the last two weeks she’d lived in the Big House on the ranch, spending most of her time at the huge table in the great room with Jamie’s blueprints scattered about her, along with fabric swatches, sell sheets and her own handwritten notes. She’d pecked away at her laptop, creating a 3-D rendering of her designs in a CAD program. It turned out Jamie had been planning for years for the day he bought land and began to build. The minute he signed the paperwork with Ethan, he got on the phone to the contractor he wished to use. Luckily, Tom Bends had a gap in his schedule he was all too happy to fill in this slow economy, and construction started right away. Jamie already had ideas for the flooring, and in many of the rooms wanted the huge log walls to remain visible, but he had left the kitchen appointments and many other details to her. Plus he had asked her to pick out most of the major furnishings.
    She’d done all this and more, and once she’d shown Jamie her results and he’d praised her to the skies, only asking for one or two minor changes, she’d polished her presentation and called Carl to ask for a meeting.
    Lacey Taylor was once Ethan's fiancée. She'd left him – thank God – after she'd discovered the extent of the ranch's debts. Claire didn't think she could have stood Lacey as a sister-in-law. Lacey latched on to Carl Whitfield, a millionaire and wanna-be rancher who'd managed to piss off almost everyone in Chance Creek. Things had settled down some, and Carl and Lacey intended to get married after Lacey finished her four months in a live-in counseling program in Bozeman. Apparently she had unresolved traumas from her childhood she wanted to work on before marrying Carl. Ethan had hinted something like that before the wedding, but who would have believed Lacey Taylor had grown up enough to make such an adult decision? Carl wanted to surprise her when she returned by having his mansion built and decorated. If she could score this contract, she’d be well on her way to establishing Cruz Designs as a company worthy of notice.
    She’d called every one of her old clients the day she’d left Ledstrom Designs, apprised them of the situation and told them that unfortunately she wouldn’t be able to work with them on any current project they had with Daniel's company. It killed her to give up all the work she’d done, but she knew many of the clients would seek her out in the future once they found Daniel wasn't as good a designer as she was.
    If she was honest, though, it was killing her to work inside while living on the ranch. She watched Jamie through the large floor-to-ceiling windows as he worked with the horses in the corrals. Ethan came and went, tending the cattle now that he and Autumn were home from their honeymoon. Autumn spent more time indoors, but even she worked in the kitchen garden.
    Claire was the only one chained to a desk in the beautiful summer weather. Once or twice she'd ridden out at night with Jamie to see the building site, but she put him off whenever she could. It was so hard to turn Storm around and come back inside afterward.
    Why was she torturing herself like this? Why not admit defeat and leave interior design to Daniel?
    Because she refused to be defeated by a man like that. Not a second time.
    She glanced at her reflection in the mirror again. Her suit was finely tailored, her hair brushed to a shine. Her makeup was understated but flattering. And Jamie's elegant ring set the whole outfit off.
    It glittered there as a constant reminder of what she really wanted. For Jamie to be the kind of man she needed him to be. A man who would stick by her through thick and thin. Now that their bet had kicked in and he wasn't touching her, she was more conscious of him than ever. Every time he came near her she held her breath, wanting him to take her