Free Forever Dreams (Montana Brides) by Leeanna Morgan Page B

giggled from the heavens. “Don’t be a spoilsport, Trent. Look around you…all stalls mucked out and clean. You couldn’t ask for two more dedicated employees. This is play time before I start dinner.”
    Trent glared at her. “Would you mind telling me what the hell you’re doing stuck halfway up a three story barn, throwing hay over my idiot brother’s head?”
    “It’s called having fun.” She caught her tiara as it slipped off her head. “You should try it some time.”  
    He could feel his temperature rising at the saucy grin on her face. “Come down here straight away. Your family won’t thank me if I send you home in a box.”
    Leaning over the edge of the hayloft, she yelled, “What was that? I didn’t quite catch it.”
    He moved further into the barn. “I said, come down…”  
    A pile of hay landed squarely on his head.  
    Jordan hooted with laughter and Gracie laughed so hard she fell backward into the loft. All Trent could see were her feet dangling in mid air. He shook his body like a wet dog, flicking hay everywhere. Great clumps fell from his head and he plucked rogue strands out of his mouth and from the front of his shirt. “Gracie Donnelly, you would have to be the most troublesome import Montana has ever seen.”
    Sticking her head over the side of the loft, she yelled, “Comes with being a kiwi. We breed them tough in New Zealand, not like you girls from Montana.”
    Trent and Jordan looked at each other and grinned.  
    “She’s all yours bro’,” Jordan said. “It’s because of you she’s here, so you should take some responsibility.”  
    Trent moved toward the ladder leaning against the back wall. He started climbing. “You made a critical error of judgment, Gracie.” He’d almost reached the hatch. “Always have an alternative escape route before you belittle a man’s ego.”
    She sat in the middle of the loft, grinning like a cat that had caught a tasty mouse.  
    “Before you come any closer, just remember whose cooking lasagna for dinner tonight. Any funny business and the cook goes on strike.”
    “Who do you think cooked before you arrived?”
    “You had leftovers from the night before when Adele cooked?” She asked hopefully.
    He shook his head, moving closer. “Nope.”
    Gracie wiggled backward. “Okay, hotshot. I take back my slander on your manly virtues. Let’s call it quits and go downstairs.”
    “Nope.”
    Her gaze darted around the loft. “Jordan…” she yelled. “Are you still here?”
    Silence.  
    Trent picked up two handfuls of hay and moved closer.  
    Pushing back as far as she could go, she scrunched her eyes tight. “Just watch the tiara.” She held her breath, waiting for the hay to strike.
    Trent gazed down at her upturned face. She looked like she was about to turn blue from oxygen deprivation. Something warm slipped along his veins and wedged in his heart. He dropped the hay and took another step forward.  
    “Come on, Trent. Just get it over with.”
    He knew this was a bad idea, knew it could be the beginning of the end of Gracie’s stay on the ranch. But fool that he was, his body decided to ignore what his brain told him was right. He knelt in front of her, planting an almost-not-there kiss on her lips, savoring the sweet touch of her mouth with something close to reverence.
    Gracie jerked backward, staring at him with eyes the color of a Montana sky before a rainstorm hit; deep, dark blue, swallowing everything in its path.
    It could have finished then. It should have finished then.  
    He should have told her how sorry he was, what a jerk he’d been. But instead of pulling away he ran his fingers along her jaw, brushing the edge of her lips with a hand that wasn’t quite steady. As the pad of his thumb brushed along her mouth, Gracie moved forward, leaning into his body and undoing the last of his good intentions.  
    He tilted her face toward his, teasing the corner of her mouth with his lips. Gracie’s hands