shorter than I am,” she said, her voice indignant.
“Ride? You’re not riding. You’ve been on that horse forty-five minutes and you haven’t gone three feet without dropping the reins and grabbing the saddle horn. You have to be in control of an animal to ride.”
“If you could shorten the stirrups a bit more, I think I could do it.”
He sighed loudly and shook his head, then walked over and began shortening the stirrups for the fifth time. He helped her right herself in the saddle. “Your dang legs are too short,” he grumbled.
“They are not. I have great legs.” She stuck one out. It was bare between her white shorts and tennis shoes. Tan and sleek, it was also very nicely curved.
He looked away swiftly, unintentionally making a noise deep in his throat he prayed she couldn’t interpret. Turning his attention back to the stirrup, he took out his knife and began twisting another hole in the leather strap with the point of the blade.
“You shouldn’t have lied to me,” he muttered.
“Hayes, if you’d asked me at that moment if I knew how to wrestle an alligator, I would have said yes.”
He snorted. “Pity the poor alligator.”
She took off the cap he’d given her to keep the sun off her face and used it to slap him playfully on the head. “Be nice,” she warned, putting the cap back on, “or I might have to wrestle you.”
Bret went deathly still at the thought of that, her on top of him, pinning him to the ground, doing more than wrestling. Hell!
Shaking off the image before his body embarrassed him in front of the kids, he hurriedly completed the hole and adjusted both stirrups.
“Okay, this time if she trots and you don’t want her to, pull back on the reins—but gently. Make her obey you. And don’t yell like that again. You nearly busted my eardrum.”
The onlookers tittered.
“Sorry,” she said, exchanging a funny, Well, excuse me face with the children.
He walked out to the center of the corral. “All right, this is your last chance. Ride her this far so I’ll know you won’t kill yourself when we go out to the pasture.”
Whispering loudly, the children took bets on whether she’d make it.
“I say she drops the reins,” Tom predicted.
“Nah, she’ll fall off,” Adam said.
“Betcha she drops the reins and falls off,” Keith said.
The toddler, Henry, who thought she was purposely putting on a show, clapped his hands excitedly in anticipation of the next trick. “Faw,” he begged.
Morgan rolled her eyes. “Don’t you little maggots have homework or something?”
“It’s summer vacation,” Melissa said. “School won’t start till next week.”
“Chores?” Morgan asked.
“We did them when we got out of church,” LaKeisha told her.
“If I give you money, will you go away?”
They giggled. “No, ma’am,” answered Shondra. “We wanna stay here and watch you fall off.”
“Faw,” Henry squealed, clapping his hands more rapidly.
Bret interrupted by calling out, “Come on, Morgan, we don’t have all day to watch you make a fool of yourself.”
“Don’t rush me!”
“I should’ve known you couldn’t do it,” he said with a smirk. “You’re all bluff and no guts.”
“I might have to make you eat those words, Hayes.”
“Yeah? Well, you have to ride over here first,” he pointed out.
“Come on, Miss Kate,” Shondra yelled. “You can do it.” She started clapping and chanting, “Go…go…go…” The others quickly joined in.
She touched her heels to the horse’s sides and loosened the tension on the reins. The horse began to move. When it tried to break into a trot, she pulled back gently and it slowed to a walk. When she reached Bret, still mounted and still holding the reins, the children whooped their delight. Even those who’d bet against her clapped.
“Well, it’s about time,” he said. “At least you didn’t fall on your—” he remembered the kids were listening “—backside.”
“Gee, Hayes, watch out. All that lavish praise might go to my head.”
“You did okay.”
“Okay? Is that the best compliment you can come up with?” She looked to the children for help. “Was it just okay?” she asked them.
“You were super-endous,” one child yelled.
“Outta sight,” said another.
“See,” Morgan told him smugly. “I was superendous.”
Bret smiled. He couldn’t help himself. She was so damn outrageous at times.
She gasped. “Well, I’ll be… You actually have teeth!”
His brow wrinkled in confusion. “Wh-what?”
“You hardly ever smile. You always look like you’ve gotten a whiff of something foul. I was beginning to think your teeth were bad, or maybe you’d irritated the wrong person and he—or she—knocked them out.”
“I’ve occasionally had people threaten to knock them out, but I assure you they’re intact.” He gave her his best fake smile.
“Oh, very nice. Perfect, as a matter of fact.”
“Thanks. My stepfather would be overjoyed to hear you say that, considering how much work he did on them.”
“Oh, that’s right, he’s a dentist, isn’t he?”
“Uh, yeah. Retired now.” He cleared his throat with nervousness. That was a stupid mistake. “You have a nice smile, too.”
She cocked her head and grinned. “Why, thank you.”
The children giggled and made smooching sounds.
“All right, cut it out,” he warned them good-naturedly. He steered the conversation toward a more comfortable topic, patting the horse and telling Kate they’d ride out so he could show her the rest of the ranch.
“Am I ready for that?” she asked.
“Yeah, but listen to what I tell you and do exactly as I say. Exactly. No goofing off for the kids.”
“Okay. You’re
