Free The Cowboy Takes a Bride by Lori Wilde

to laugh or go insane.
    Clover refilled his mug, then reached over and touched Joe’s hand. “Lighten up on Mariah, Joe. It’s not healthy to hold on to bad feelings. Try to make her feel welcome.”
    “Hey, I promised to give her a ride back to the ranch after she turns in her rental car. That’s as neighborly as I’m gonna get.” Already he regretted making that promise. Why had he made that promise?
    “Try to see past Mariah’s defenses. Yes, she’s got big-city ways, but she could use a good friend.”
    “I’ll leave that to you, Clover,” he said, clinging to his resentment like a lifeline even though he really didn’t know why, other than being around her made him think of Becca and Dutch, and that made his heart hurt. Too much pain. He’d had enough of it to last a lifetime. “Dutch was my best friend in the world, and getting chummy with his estranged daughter feels too much like consorting with the enemy. I’m just biding my time until I can buy back my land and send her packing.”
    T he next morning, Joe followed Mariah into town. He barely spoke two words to her, just nodded and mumbled hello and then swung back into the cab of his pickup.
    Fine. That was fine with her. She had nothing to say to him either.
    She turned in the rental car. Joe led her to his pickup truck and opened up the passenger side door. Reluctantly, she climbed inside, not sure how to get out of this, equally unsure if she wanted to. Joe made her feel so mixed up inside on so many levels, she found it disconcerting. She found him disconcerting.
    Tilting her head, she watched him scoot around the front of the truck. He was a commanding figure. Lean, hard-packed muscles poured into a pair of cowboy-cut denim jeans; broad, razor-sharp shoulders moving beneath a blue, yoke-style Western shirt. Although he stood six feet tall, there was a wiry compactness about him that was common to the limber men who wrangled horses and cattle for a living. Dutch had been built the same way.
    “So,” she said after several minutes, unable to stand the silence any longer. “I’m really surprised to see Jubilee has a good-sized airport and so many motels and three car rental chains. What’s the draw? You’d think with Fort Worth being so close, everyone would just go there.”
    “We’re the cutting horse capital of the world,” he said.
    “Seriously? I thought that was just some exaggerated brag for the welcome sign.”
    “Nope, it’s true. People fly here from all corners of the world to trade, breed, and show cutting horses. Lots of celebrities own and train cutting horses—Christie Brinkley, Tanya Tucker, Linda Blair, Barry Corbin, just to name a few. It’s a big deal. Plus, we host the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association rodeo every July. Jubilee might be small, but we’re influential,” Joe said, the pride in his voice compelling.
    At last, she’d found something that got him talking. “Have you always lived in Jubilee?”
    “Born and raised.”
    That stopped the conversation, but luckily, they’d arrived at the law office of Art Bunting.
    Bunting turned out to be fiftyish and slightly paunchy, and like most everyone in Jubilee, he wore Wranglers and cowboy boots to work. He had thick black eyebrows that belied his gray hair, and a pencil-thin mustache too small for his beefy face.
    “I’m so sorry to hear about your father,” Bunting murmured to Mariah as he took her hand in both of his. “He’ll be sorely missed around here.”
    “Thank you,” Mariah said. It felt weird to realize there were people who missed Dutch more than she did.
    With a nod and a handshake to Joe as well, Bunting directed her to a chair. “Let’s get down to work.”
    She sat and Joe stood at the back of the room, leaning against the wall with one shoulder, his hands tucked behind him.
    Bunting took the chair opposite her, shuffled the papers on his desk, and cleared his throat. “I’m going to read to you what Dutch wrote. He was a