Free River's Edge (Unlikely Gentlemen, Book 1) by Gem Sivad

night and pulled his hat over his eyes. That was when the thought that had been lurking behind everything else, popped to the forefront of his mind. Miss Prescott called a sprocket a sprocket.
    Sleep eluded him as images of River on her knees filled his mind. He replayed the incident. She licked her lips; his cock jumped. She peered up at him from big green eyes and he could almost smell the scent of lilacs. Her head bent and she looked at his groin. Edge groaned. That sweet little thing knew exactly what she was doing.

 
     
    CHAPTER SEVEN
    Welcome gifts…
     
    “Seems like a nice enough fellow. What do you think of him?”
    His question made River smile. Amos had been ready to share opinions as soon as Edge left. Apparently, having dinner with the cold-blooded killer had dispelled her foreman’s animus toward their new neighbor.
    “I think I’d like to have seen that ostrich race.” She’d grinned at their guest’s stories so much, her face ached. “What a picture it would make.”
    “Maybe he can describe it to you slower, so you can draw it,” Amos suggested.
    River shrugged off the idea. She needed a live subject to sketch. And it wasn’t an ostrich she had in mind.
    After Amos left, she returned to the kitchen, puttering with this and that because her fingers were too swollen to grasp a pencil, and she couldn’t relax. After she’d done the dishes, scrubbed the counters, and made a batch of bread, she sat at the table and drank a cup of tea.
    Talking to Edge Grayson had been exhilarating. He’d listened as if what she said interested him, and then turned around and made her laugh at his own tales of wicked places and dangerous men. It had been a wonderful tonic for her bruised spirit. But in the silence of the empty room, after Edge was gone, she faced reality.
    She’d had plenty of time on the horribly slow ride home, to contemplate Emmett’s threat. Her bruised and aching hand reminded her of her horrified response, and her use of Edge Grayson as a shield. Yesterday, he’d protected her from Emmett Price, and today, he’d fixed her bicycle.
    “I still didn’t tell him thank you.” When she spoke the words aloud, the oversight seemed unforgivable. She patted the mounds of dough into loaves. She’d have to give it away or risk hurting Sarah’s feelings since there wasn’t enough to send to the bunkhouse to feed ten hands. It came to her what to do with them when she pulled the hot loaves from the oven.
    I’ll wrap them up, and as soon as it’s light outside, ride them over to Mr. Grayson. I’ve not given him a welcome gift yet. And we have things to discuss. The day had been one of a kind and she didn’t want it to end. After she finished her work in the account books, she wrapped a blanket around her shoulders and curled up in the big chair in the front room. Staring out the window at the night, she stored the colors away in her mind, watching as the sky changed from cerulean blue to lavender.
    As soon as the dawning light brightened enough to show her way, River fashioned a carrier by tying her satchel and a bread basket behind her seat. Her Rover worked fine and she pedaled away from her house, out of the ranch yard following the path toward the river.
    Instead of stopping at the top of the bluff, she dismounted and wheeled her ride down the slope to the willow. The heavy bicycle more than once almost got away from her. The water was too deep to push the vehicle through.
    “Fiddlesticks,” she muttered. Not one to let circumstance get in the way, she walked up stream to a fallen tree bridging the two sides and wheeled the bicycle across the log before she could lose her nerve. After that, she was back in motion following the trail leading to the Grayson ranch buildings.
    It wasn’t until she slid quietly to a stop in front of the derelict building that she began to doubt her impulse. She approached the porch, debating whether the steps were safe to tread when a voice halted her in her