Free Fool for Love (Montana Romance) by Merry Farmer Page A

pants before sending another disc swishing across the boards.  It came to rest neatly in a section marked with a seven.
    “Ho, ho!” he exclaimed, throwing his arms wide in victory.
    A coil of panic punctured Eric’s good mood at the prospect of losing.  His grin dropped.
    A moment later his panic was banished by Amelia’s delighted laugh.  Instead of moping he smirked and said, “Why, I do believe that is what my mother used to refer to as a braggadocio.”
    “It’s a competition, dear.”  Amelia touched his arm.  “A little swagger is appropriate.  You can’t be as serious about a game as you are about business.”
    The tickle of the idea that she was up to something flared louder.
    “All right then.”  He strode to change places with Ben, moving one of his blue discs to line up a shot.  “Ben, you’d better watch out.  My wife’s just given me permission to be boastful.”
    He took a breath and lined up his shot, praying that he wouldn’t make a fool of himself this time.  With less power than he’d used before, he shoved his disc across the board.  To his utter amazement, it glided neatly into the top of the triangle.  He reacted with a disbelieving laugh and a woot that drew attention from the rest of the players on the deck.
    “How do you like that for skill and precision?” he taunted Ben.
    “Admirable, sir.  Admirable.  But let’s see if your luck can hold.  Watching these other games it looks like I have the option of knocking your piece out of that place.”
    Ben swaggered his way to the foot of the board and lined up his final disc.
    “Do you conduct your business with as much ruthlessness, Mr. Chase?” Amelia asked, sending Eric a mischievous look as he came to stand by her side once more.
    “Always, madam,” Ben replied with a smile before setting up his shot.  “Business is a game that’s played for keeps.”
    “You got that right,” Eric added with a wry laugh.
    “Oh?”  Amelia batted her pretty little eyelashes at him.  She was fishing for sure, like a wildcat in a riverbed.
    “Yeah,” he went on.  “You got lives on the line when you’re running a business, people that depend on you.  Every ranch hand and cowboy that works for me’s got a family that needs food on the table and clothes on their backs.  That’s why I gotta take extra care of everything we do and raise the finest cattle.”
    Eric’s insides wobbled.  He hadn’t thought about the men who worked for him.  If he failed to make a deal with a supplier to keep them going from year to year he’d have to sell and Curtis would cut back.  All those men would be out of work, men he was responsible for.  And here he was bandying around words like discs flying across the boards.
    “It’s your turn, Eric,” Ben bumped him out of his thoughts.
    “What?  Oh.”
    He walked to the end of the board, relieved that Ben hadn’t knocked his disc out of the ten spot.  He had scored an eight, however.  Without bravado this time, Eric lined up and took a shot.  His disc went sailing well right of the triangle.
    “Hell.”
    “What now, fair lady?” Ben asked Amelia.
    “Now you switch sides and keep going from this end.”  Amelia moved to the other side of the deck where blue and red discs were scattered around the triangle.  “Tell me again, Eric, dear, what is it that makes the cattle you raise different from any others?” she asked, smooth as silk.  “I’m determined to understand the ranching business as masterfully as Eric does, Mr. Chase,” she added as Eric and Ben followed her to the other end of the deck.
    “Seems your wife is driving at something,” Ben muttered to Eric with a twinkle in his eye as they walked.
    “Seems that way, doesn’t it,” he replied with an equally entertained twitch of his lips.  They reached the other side of the board and Eric answered, “I raise Aberdeen Angus cattle.”
    “Really?” Ben asked, and if Eric wasn’t mistaken he was