most women, she’d be outta here when the going got tough—and he’d make sure it did. If Little Miss Schoolmarm thought she’d taken a cushy job and latched onto a prosperous rancher as an added bonus then she better think again. He already had one ex-wife’s memory to remind him that women weren’t worth the trouble. He’d also had enough rodeo groupies hovering around him to know females were only interested in what a cowboy had in his wallet—and his blue jeans.
Yes indeedy, Laura Seymour would be as good as gone after Wade made things difficult for her. He’d give her two days. Three days tops. She’d pack her bags and hightail it into Hoot’s Roost to rent an apartment.
“Okay, fine,” Wade agreed begrudgingly. “She can stay…for a while.”
“Great!” Vance and Quint chorused.
Quint spun on his boot heels and headed for the front door. “I’ll bring in Laura’s luggage.”
“And I’ll help,” Vance insisted then shot Wade a mischievous grin. “We’ll put her stuff in the bedroom next door to yours so you can call for help…if you need some in the middle of the night.”
Need some in the middle of the night? Wade clenched his one good hand into a fist as his cousins swaggered off, cackling like a couple of hens. “Ornery cusses,” he muttered at his cousins’ departing backs. He was in the middle of a full-blown crisis and they were busting a gut laughing—at his expense. They didn’t have a clue how he’d felt when Bobbie Lynn betrayed him, rejected him, deceived him and ran off with her new lover. If that wasn’t enough to sour a man on women then Wade didn’t know what was.
These days, Wade rebelled and withdrew the instant he felt a serious attraction to a woman. And he’d damn sure felt the hum and sizzle of physical awareness the instant Laura Seymour entered the room and stood there in the shaft of sunlight that spotlighted every appealing feature of her face and emphasized the voluptuous curves on her body.
Ms. Temptation had definitely arrived on the scene and Wade wanted her gone—ASAP. He’d built a six-strand barbed wire fence around his heart after Bobbie Lynn hurt and mortified him. Wade wasn’t going through that again—ever. He mistrusted the female gender, lost all respect for women and he wanted nothing to do with them, aside from the occasional gratification of sexual needs. And since he was in no condition to satisfy basic lust he didn’t want to share his space with Laura Seymour, goddess extraordinaire.
He’d manage to take care of himself—somehow. He didn’t want Laura laundering, handling his underwear and attacking his pet dust bunnies that hid under his furniture. What he wanted was to get her out of his house—pronto.
LAURA SEYMOUR DRAPED her arms over the top rail of the pipe-and-cable corral and battled her irritation with Wade Ryder while she stared at the cattle grazing on the rolling Oklahoma hills. This ranch was so peaceful and serene that she momentarily forgot about her less than pleasant introduction to Wade. If not for that rude, unsociable cowboy-in-a-cast, this temp job would’ve been absolutely perfect for her.
She muttered under her breath, remembering the menacing expression on Wade’s handsome face the moment she walked through his front door. The look he directed at her implied that he’d like to book her on a one-way express flight to a place where the hottest of climates prevailed.
She tried to tell herself that the hostility and resentment radiating from Wade Ryder wasn’t a personal affront. His pain and frustration, caused by incapacity and injury, must’ve given rise to his black mood, she diagnosed. She’d never caused such an adverse reaction to anyone—that she could recall, leastwise.
When he’d dismissed her so rudely she’d been tempted to lash out at him, but she’d been trying to make a good first impression. Apparently she hadn’t. Wade had looked and behaved as if he disliked her on sight. Ironically he’d had the opposite effect on her. In addition, she’d been distracted by the astonishing family resemblance between the three men who looked more like brothers than first cousins.
According to Quint Ryder there was another first cousin named Gage who was out of the country on business and rented his ranch to them during his absence. She wondered if Gage was as ruggedly handsome as his other cousins. Probably.
Laura had never been in a room with so many strikingly attractive men—excluding her four older brothers. While her brothers were the collective picture of suave sophistication and refined good looks, the Ryder cousins were the personification of tall, dark and devilishly handsome. Yet, it was Wade Ryder, looking rumpled, surly and vulnerable, who’d drawn her curiosity and interest. She couldn’t recall feeling such an immediate attraction to a man before. Something about him simply called out to her on a basic level.
Not that her attraction to him mattered, Laura reminded herself sensibly. Attracted or not, she was here to fill a temporary position that would enable her to make a down payment on the quaint little farmhouse she’d seen for sale when she drove into Hoot Owl’s Roost—or Hoot’s Roost as the locals referred to the rural community. She’d fallen in love with the house immediately and she intended to accumulate the money to make the farm her own—by her own means, without the unwanted assistance of her overprotective brothers who’d probably find all sorts of fault with the house.
Moving to Oklahoma was a declaration of independence from her well-meaning but smothering brothers. Laura wanted to prove to herself, and to her brothers, that she could manage her life and make sensible decisions without her brothers’ constant input. That was another reason why this summer job and this situation with Wade was so important to Laura. She could reassure her brothers that she could handle herself around a man without falling head over heels for the first one she met—one who hadn’t been screened and checked out by her brothers.
“Laura?”
She glanced over her shoulder to see Quint and Vance sauntering downhill, looking more devastatingly handsome than any two men had a right to, smiling the kind of smiles that made females from eight to eighty sigh in appreciation. All that glossy raven hair and those swarthy physiques wrapped in chambray, denim and leather were impossible to ignore. But in Laura’s opinion, Wade Ryder was the biggest, baddest, most dangerous heartthrob of all. And why? Because she detected a hint of vulnerability and defensiveness about him that she identified with. Because he was far from perfect and she’d spent too much time around her all-too-perfect brothers who put Mary Poppins to shame.
“The job’s yours,” Quint announced. “We put your luggage in a spare bedroom. We’ll be around at the end of the week to check on Wade and see how you’re managing with him.”
Laura smiled gratefully. “I’m sure he’ll appreciate your company. I’ll see that his household runs smoothly while he recuperates.”
Vance grinned slyly. “You might offer Wade a massage every now and then,” he suggested. “He’s sore and achy after my bull steamrollered over him.”
“Plus, Wade’s home could use a cheery touch,” Quint inserted with a smile. “You know, a few bouquets of wildflowers, all the windows flung open wide to allow plenty of light and fresh air, that sort of thing.”
“And change things around a bit,” Vance added. “The place has looked the same way for years. New furniture arrangements might perk him up a little.”
Laura frowned when the Ryder cousins exchanged amused glances. “Sure. No problem. I can handle that.”
“Well, then, we’ll get to work and leave you and Wade to get acquainted.” Quint touched the brim of his hat and nodded politely. “See
