Free Destiny's Embrace by Beverly Jenkins

She assumed her callused hands didn’t jibe with his view of whoever he thought her to be, but she let him think what he wanted because she doubted he’d believe the truth, even if she hit him over the head with it.
    He unrolled a length of the gauze, wound it around her cut palms and tied the ends closed. “Now, stop hauling stuff outside until you heal.”
    “No. You hired me to do a job, bandaged hands or not.”
    “I don’t know how things are done in Philadelphia, but here, we don’t work our women until their hands bleed.”
    “These little cuts aren’t going to make me bleed to death, Mr. Yates. Surely the women here are made of sterner stuff than that.”
    Logan wondered if she’d ever met an argument she didn’t like. The sassy firecracker mouth probably drove her late husband to drink, and it made him wonder if she brought that fire to the marriage bed. He glanced Eli’s way and found his partner smiling as if he’d read Logan’s mind. “Go back in the house and wait for me. We’ll ride over and have dinner with my stepmother in a few minutes.”
    “Do women usually ask ‘how high’ whenever you say ‘jump,’ Mr. Yates?”
    He closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath. When he opened them, she was standing there blazing in all her golden, cat-eyed glory. Having had just about enough of her for the moment, he placed his hands on her waist and slowly lifted her up to eye level. “You ever use that mouth for something besides sassing?”
    Then he kissed her, and apparently caught her so off guard, that for just the briefest of moments, she softened, and he tasted the sweetness of her lips. Then her mouth clamped shut like a sprung bear trap, and she went stiff as a board. Thinking he’d bested her, he set her down on her feet. He was feeling pretty superior until she dragged her bandaged hand across her lips like she’d just been kissed by a goat and kicked him hard in his bad knee. Pain spread up his leg and he howled, “Shit!” The explosion of agony had him cursing a blue streak while hopping around like a peg-legged sailor doing a jig.
    Eli and the men laughed so hard they almost fell down. She, on the other hand, looking angry enough to spit, spun around and stormed back the way she’d come.
    Logan was still cursing, and Eli and the hands were still laughing when she disappeared inside the house.
    Mariah was furious. The urge to pace back and forth was thwarted by all the remaining clutter, so she stood there in the middle of the parlor and fumed. How dare he! She wanted to march back outside and kick him again. What an insufferable, arrogant, pigheaded excuse for a man! Any woman in her right mind would throw the job in his face like wet wash and tell him to find someone else, but again, she’d not give him the satisfaction. If he fired her fine, but for now, she was staying, and if she had to kick him from California to Hades and back again to make that plain, she would.
    When she looked up, Eli was standing in the doorway. The grin on his face didn’t help her temper. “What?” she demanded.
    “Came to help you clear out the parlor. If you got the guts to kick Logan, no telling what you’ll do to the rest of us, so thought we’d come give you a hand.”
    Only then did she see the other men standing behind him. They looked equal parts amused and afraid.
    “Thank you,” she whispered. She was so grateful, tears stung her eyes. Blinking them back she asked, “And Mr. Yates?”
    “Rode off to see Old Man Crane to buy lumber for the new bunkhouse.”
    And suddenly, sunshine filled Mariah’s world. She’d won the first round. She was certain there’d be more battles to come because she and Yates got along like two wet cats in a bag, but she savored her victory and put the ranch hands to work.

Chapter
6
    A testy
Logan gritted his teeth against the angry throb in his knee as he dismounted and
made his way into the office of the lumber mill.
    “Why you limping, Logan?” Old Man