Andi stepped forward and smiled. “Yes, we are.”
The man placed his briefcase at the end of the counter and sprung the latch. “Then I have an offer I think you might like.”
“What kind of offer?” Rachel asked, anticipation lighting her faintly freckled face.
The man handed them each a set of papers a half-inch thick. “An offer to buy Creative Cupcakes.”
An Excerpt from
RODEO QUEEN
by T. J. Kline
Sydney Thomas wants nothing more than to train rodeo horses and hopes becoming a rodeo queen will help her make the contacts she seeks. She is thrilled when Mike Findley hires her for her dream job as a horse trainer . . . until she meets Scott Chandler, the other half of Findley Brothers stock contractors. He’s arrogant, judgmental, and, unfortunately, unbelievably sexy.
Scott gave her a rakish, lopsided grin. “Oh, that’s right. You can outride me.” His brow arched as he articulated her words back to her. “Any day of the week.”
It took everything in her to try to ignore how good looking this infuriating man was. He towered over her—well over six feet tall—and the black cowboy hat that topped a mop of dark brown hair, barely curling at his collar, gave him a devilish appearance. With sensuous lips and a square jaw, his deeply tanned face reflected raw male sexuality. She wasn’t sure if he was actually as muscular as his broad shoulders seemed to indicate due to his unruly western shirt, but his jeans left no imagining necessary when it came to his sculpted thighs. And his jet black eyes almost unnerved her. Those eyes were so dark that Sydney felt she would drown if she continued to meet his gaze.
So much for ignoring his good looks, she chided herself. “Give me a chance out there today to prove it.”
“I don’t see why she can’t run them, Scott.” Jake must have decided that it was time to break up the showdown with his two cents. “She is certainly experienced enough, more than most of the girls you let run flags.”
Scott glared at Jake before turning back to Sydney. She caught Jake’s conspiratorial wink and decided that she liked this old cowboy. Scott would be hard pressed to find a reason to deny her request now that Jake had sold him out.
“Fine, you can do both. But, if anything goes wrong, if a steer so much as takes too long in the arena, you’re finished. Got it, Miss Thomas?” The warning note in his voice was unmistakable.
Sydney flashed a dazzling smile. “Call me Sydney, and it’s no problem.” She clutched her shoulder. “Unless I’m unable to hold the flags because someone ran me into a fencepost.”
His look told her he didn’t appreciate her sense of humor. “I mean it. Rodeo starts at 10 sharp. Be down here at 9:30, ready to go.”
As the sassy cowgirl walked away, Scott shook his head. “What in the world possessed you to open your mouth, Jake?”
“Aw, Scott, she’ll do fine. Besides, you did run her down with Wiley at the gate. You kinda owed her one.”
Scott watched Sydney head for the gate, taking in her small waist, the spread of her hips in her red pants, and her lean, denim-encased legs. That woman was all curves, moving with the grace of a jungle cat. With her full, pouting lips and those golden eyes, it certainly wouldn’t be painful to look at her all day. “I guess.”
Scott mounted Wiley and headed to change into his clean shirt and show chaps but couldn’t seem to shake the image of Sydney Thomas from his mind. He knew that she’d been attracted to him—he’d seen it in her blush—but he’d had enough run-ins with ostentatious rodeo queens over the years, including his ex-fiancée, to know that they simply wanted to tame a cowboy. It was doubtful that this one was any different, although she did have a much shorter temper than most. He chuckled as he recalled how the gold in her eyes seemed to spark when she was irritated. He wondered if her eyes flamed up whenever she was passionate. Scott shook his head to clear it of visions of the sexy spitfire. No time for that. He had a rodeo to get started.
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Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Excerpt from Four Weddings and a Fireman copyright © 2013 by Jennifer Bernard.
Excerpt from Once Upon a Highland Summer copyright © 2013 by Lecia Cotton Cornwall.
Excerpt from Hard Target copyright © 2013 by Kay Thomas.
Excerpt from The Wedding Date copyright © 2013 by Lisa Connelly.
Excerpt from Torn copyright © 2013 by Karen Erickson.
Excerpt from The Cupcake Diaries: Spoonful of Christmas copyright © 2013 by Darlene Panzera.
Excerpt from Rodeo Queen copyright © 2013 by Tina Klinesmith.
DESPERATELY SEEKING FIREMAN. Copyright © 2014 by Jennifer Bernard. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition JANUARY 2014 ISBN: 9780062329561
Print Edition ISBN: 9780062329578
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