was no fool. He had to know that getting all his sons to settle down in Montana probably wasn’t going to happen, no matter what kind of carrot he dangled in front of them. But it was some carrot.
Grayson’s first wife, the boys’ mother, had written five letters, one to each son, before she died. The letters, only recently found, were to be read on each son’s wedding day. Her dying wish in a letter to Grayson was that the boys would marry by the age of thirty-five—and all marry a Montana cowgirl.
It was hard to go against the dying wishes of his mother, even a mother Jud, the youngest, couldn’t remember, since she’d died not long after he and his twin brother, Dalton, were born. Being a Corbett demanded that he go along with the marriage pact the five brothers had made—and eventually live up to the deal.
The problem was that he’d never met anyone he wanted to date more than a few times, let alone marry.
But then most of the women he knew were like Chantal, he thought, as beside him she pretended to pout.
“You’re going to hate yourself in the morning for leaving me behind,” she cooed.
Jud nodded ruefully. “Ain’t that the truth.”
“Your loss,” she said, and turned in a huff to storm off, again putting a whole lot of movement into those hips of hers.
Jud smiled as he headed for his pickup. He had a weakness for beautiful women and a whole lot of oats left to sow, but his real-life exploits could never live up to those that showed up in the movie magazines about him.
When he thought about it, what woman in her right mind would want to marry a man who did dangerous stunts for living? And he had no intention of quitting until he was too old to climb into the saddle, he thought, as he headed for the ranch.
FAITH BAILEY RODE her horse to the spot where she always went when she wanted to make sure no one saw what she was up to. She’d been coming here since she was a girl. It was far enough from the ranch house and yet not too far away should she need help.
As she got ready, she recalled too vividly the time she’d taken a tumble and broken her arm.
“Were you thrown from your horse?” her mother had demanded when she returned to the house holding her arm after one of her “rides.”
Not exactly. “All of a sudden I was on the ground,” Faith had said, determined not to lie—but at the same time, not about to tell the whole truth, which she’d feared would get her banned from horseback riding altogether.
She’d kept the truth from even her two older sisters, Eve and McKenna. They couldn’t have kept her secret, afraid she’d break her fool neck and they’d get blamed for it.
Now with her mother remarried and living in Florida, Faith still didn’t like to upset her family. They’d all been through enough without that. So she kept her trick riding to herself. It was her little secret—just like her heart’s desire.
Faith had taken more precautions after the broken arm incident, and while she’d gotten hurt occasionally as she’d grown older, she’d also kept that to herself.
She made a few runs along a flat spot at the far end of a pasture before she got her horse up to a gallop and slipped her boots from the stirrups to climb up onto the back of the horse behind the saddle.
It was a balancing act. Standing, she galloped across the flat area of pasture, feeling the wind in her face and the exhilaration. She always started with this trick, then moved on to the harder ones.
Her mind was on the task at hand. Over the galloping of her horse, the pounding of her heart and the rush of adrenaline racing through her veins, Faith didn’t hear the sound of the vehicle come up the dirt road and stop.
JUD CORBETT BLINKED, telling himself he wasn’t seeing a woman standing on the back of a horse galloping across the landscape.
He’d stopped his pickup and now watched with growing fascination. The young woman seemed oblivious to everything but the stunt, her head high, long blond hair blowing back, the sun firing it to spun gold.
She still hadn’t seen him and didn’t seem to notice as he climbed out of his truck and walked over to lean against the jackleg fence to watch her go from one trick to another with both proficiency and confidence.
He’d seen his share of stuntmen and women do the same tricks. But this young woman had a style and grace and determination that mesmerized him.
She reminded him of himself. He’d started on the road to his career as a kid doing every horseback trick he could think of on his family’s ranch in Texas. He’d hit the dirt more times than he wanted to remember and had the healed broken bones to prove it.
The young woman pulled off a difficult trick with effortless efficiency, but as she slowed her horse, he could see that she still wasn’t quite happy with it and intended to try the stunt again.
“Hey,” he called to her as he leaned on the fence.
Her head came up, and, although he couldn’t see her face in the shadow of her Western hat brim, he saw that he’d startled her. She’d thought she was all alone.
“Didn’t mean to scare you,” he said, shoving back his hat and smiling over at her. “On that last trick, try staying a little farther forward next time. It will help with your balance. I’m Jud Corbett, by the way.” No reaction. “The stuntman?”
She cocked her head at him and he thought as she spurred her horse that she intended to ride over to the fence to talk to him.
Instead, she turned her horse and took off at a gallop down the fence line. He knew what she planned to do the moment she reined in. She shoved down her Western straw hat and came racing back toward him.
This time the trick was flawless—right up until the end. He saw her shoot him a satisfied look an instant before she lost her balance. She tumbled from the horse, hitting the dirt in a cloud of dust.
Chapter Two
Jud scrambled over the fence and ran to the young woman lying on the ground, wishing he’d just kept his big mouth shut and left her alone.
She lay flat on her back in the dirt, her long, blond hair over her face.
“Are you all right?” he cried as he dropped to his knees next to her. She didn’t answer, but he could see the rise and fall of her chest and knew she was still breathing.
Quickly, he brushed her hair back from her face to reveal a pair of beautiful blue eyes—and drew back in surprise as one of those eyes winked at him and a smile curled the bow-shaped lips.
From a distance, he’d taken her for a teenager. Even up close she had that look: blond, blue-eyed, freckled. Now, though, he saw that she was closer to his own age.
His heart kicked up a beat, but no longer from fear for her safety. “You did that on purpose!”
She chuckled and shoved herself up on her elbows to grin at him. “You think?”
He wanted to throttle her, but her grin was contagious. “Okay, maybe I deserved it.”
“You
