Free The Reluctant Texas Rancher (Harlequin American Romance) by Cathy Gillen Thacker Page A

grew shuttered. “There is nothing funny to me about this situation.”
    “You’re right about that.” Liz pushed her chair back and vaulted to her feet. She picked up the pages, shoving them into a file. “I should have known this would happen.” She shook her head in anger. “You blindsided me before, breaking up with me when I least expected it. And now you have disrespected me again with your silence.”
    How the heck was she supposed to come back from that?
    He rose, too, his expression sober. “This isn’t a personal affront to you, Liz,” he insisted in a low, sexy voice.
    “The heck it isn’t!” She rounded the desk and shoved the file into his hands.
    “I made it clear to you when I first took your case. I can represent flawed clients, because everyone is entitled to a defense. But I won’t represent clients who don’t tell me the whole truth.”
    “You’re firing me as a client?” The look on his face spoke volumes about what he thought of that.
    “And as a ranch hand.” Liz jerked her chin toward the door. “Good luck and Godspeed at finding your own way home.” She paused to slay him with her eyes. “Because you and I, Travis?” she finished very softly. “We’re done.”
    L IZ FIGURED T RAVIS WOULD have his belongings out of the homestead and off the Four Winds by the following morning, if not sooner.
    Instead, she came down to breakfast Monday morning to find him sitting at the kitchen table, holding court over a sumptuous spread of eggs, bacon, sausage, hash brown potatoes, fruit and homemade biscuits with Faye Elizabeth’s famous honey butter.
    Noting that his appetite hadn’t abated in the slightest, Liz skittered to a halt. “What are you doing here?”
    Travis met her gaze, his eyes dark and heated.
    The Cartwright women all looked at her as if she’d lost her mind. “He works here,” Tillie reminded her.
    Liz closed her eyes. When she opened them again, Travis was still looking at her. Daring her to say just about anything.
    Liz frowned and turned to the ladies. “I fired him.”
    Reba shrugged. “Actually, you can only do that if you’ve taken over the reins of the Four Winds. And you haven’t, so it’s up to us. And we all want him to stay.”
    Muttering under her breath, Liz stomped over to the drying rack next to the sink, and rummaged around for her thermal coffee mug. All too aware of everyone’s eyes on her, she moved to the coffeemaker and filled the mug two-thirds full.
    Tillie handed her the toasted-coconut flavored creamer from the fridge, and gently brought her up to speed. “Travis told us he’d hired you to handle a legal problem for him, the two of you disagreed about how to proceed, and you quit. And then fired him. But—” Tillie patted Liz’s arm “—we disagree with that.”
    Reba moved to Liz’s other side. “We need his help. And Travis wants to stay. So…”
    “…as long as the two of you are no longer attracted to each other in that way,” Faye Elizabeth said, “it makes sense for him to continue to work here.”
    Liz snapped the lid on her mug and set it on the counter with a thud. “Seriously.” She marched over to Travis and stood facing him, hands on her hips. “Seriously?” she all but shouted, expecting him to stand and square off with her like a man.
    Instead, he pushed his chair back from the table and made himself even more comfortable. Crinkles appeared at the corners of his gray eyes. “Just because you reneged on your half of our bargain doesn’t mean I’m going to renege on mine.”
    It was all Liz could do not to grab him by the shirt and haul him to his feet.
    Hanging on to her considerable temper by a thread, she said through gritted teeth, “I’d like a word with you, Travis Anderson.” Before anyone else in the room could say anything, she snapped, “Alone!”
    Tillie moved to Travis’s side and patted him on the shoulder. “Better do as she says, dear,” she encouraged kindly. “Our darling Liz