had he wanted to do? Take her under his wing?
That was when he thought she was a teenager. Now he would have preferred taking her in his arms.
Rising, he offered her a hand up from the ground. She stared at his open palm for a moment, then reached up to clasp his hand. Hers was small, lightly callused and warm. He drew her up, feeling strangely awkward around her. The woman was a spitfire.
She drew her hand back from his, scooped up her Western hat from the dirt and began to slap it against her jean-clad long legs, dust rising as she studied him as if she didn’t quite trust him. She didn’t trust him?
“Look, I feel like we got off on the wrong foot,” Jud said as she shoved the cowboy hat down on her blond head again. “How can I make it up to you?”
She grinned. “Oh, you’ve more than made it up to me, Mr. Corbett.” She whistled for her horse and the mare came trotting over. As she swung up into the saddle, she said, “Thanks for the tip.”
He couldn’t help smiling at the sarcasm lacing her tone and wished he wasn’t so damned intrigued by her. She was cocky and self-assured and wasn’t in the least impressed with him. It left him feeling a little off balance since he’d always thought he had a way with women.
She reined her horse around to leave.
“Wait. Would you like to have breakfast?”
She drew her horse up and glanced back at him. “Breakfast?”
He realized belatedly how she’d taken the invitation. Since he was tied up for dinner tonight, his first thought had been breakfast.
“I already have plans for dinner tonight, but I was thinking—”
“I can well imagine what you were thinking.” She spurred her horse and left him standing in the dust.
He watched her ride away, trying to remember the last time he’d been turned down so completely. It wasn’t until she’d dropped over the horizon that he realized he didn’t even know her name.
FAITH FELT LIGHT-HEADED. She couldn’t wipe the grin off her face or banish the excitement that rippled through her as she rode her horse back to her family ranch house.
Jud Corbett. The most notorious stuntman in Hollywood. There wasn’t a stunt he couldn’t do on a horse. And he had seen her ride!
She chuckled to herself at the memory of his expression when she’d winked at him. She hadn’t been able to help herself. She’d wanted to show off. She was lucky she hadn’t broken her fool neck doing it, though.
Her heart had been pounding in her chest when she opened her eyes fully and had seen him in the flesh. The Hollywood movie and stuntman magazines hadn’t done Jud Corbett justice. The man, who’d made a name for himself not only for his stunts, but also as a ladies’ man, was gorgeous.
He’d taken her breath away more than her pratfall. She knew about the film being shot down in the Breaks since her sister McKenna was providing some of the horses.
But Faith had never dreamt she’d get the chance to meet Jud Corbett—let alone be asked to breakfast, even though she knew what that meant, given his reputation.
What had he been doing on that old road, anyway? No one used it. Or at least she’d thought that was true. Wait a minute. That road led to the Trails West Ranch property, and hadn’t she heard that someone named Grayson Corbett had bought it?
Corbett. Of course. She’d just never put two and two together. Jud must be one of Grayson Corbett’s five sons she’d been hearing about. Which meant Jud was on his way to the ranch when he’d seen her.
Her grin spread wider. She still couldn’t believe it. She’d fooled the legendary Jud Corbett with one of her tricks.
As she neared the house, she tried to compose herself. Her older sister Eve’s pickup was parked out front. Faith would have loved to burst into the house and tell Eve all about her afternoon. But this didn’t seem the time to reveal her trick-riding secret. Eve worried about her enough as it was, and Eve had her own concerns right now.
Faith knew not wanting to worry her family wasn’t the only reason she’d kept her secret. It was hers, all hers. Growing up, she was always lumped with her sisters as one of the wild Bailey girls. Eve and McKenna had been stubborn, independent and outspoken.
Faith herself had been all of those and then some, but she’d thought her trick riding as a girl had made her the true daring one.
And now Jud Corbett, of all people, knew.
She tried to assure herself that he wouldn’t tell anyone. Who could he tell? He probably didn’t even know who she was—or care. Faith tried to relax as she took care of her horse, then walked up to the house, only a little sore from her stunts.
“Everything all right?” Eve asked from the front porch.
Faith hadn’t seen her sister sitting on the swing in the shade. Eve lived with her husband, Sheriff Carter Jackson, down the road, but she spent a lot of time in the family ranch house when Faith was home, acting as surrogate mother since their mother had remarried and moved to Florida.
“I didn’t see you there,” Faith said as she mounted the steps.
Eve was studying her. “You look flushed. Are you feeling all right?”
“Great.” It was true. “I wish you wouldn’t worry about me, though.” Also true, but she hadn’t meant the words to come out so sharply. At twenty-six, she was too old to be mothered by her thirty-three-year-old big sister. But mostly, she didn’t like worrying Eve.
Eve’s silence surprised her—as well as what she saw her sister holding on her lap.
“Is that your baby quilt?” Faith asked, frowning. “Does this mean…?”
Eve shook her head. “I’m not ready to have a baby yet.”
“Well, you’re the only one in the county,” Faith said, dropping onto the swing beside her. “Have you heard if Laci and Laney had their babies yet?”
Eve shook her head, fingering the quilt on her lap. “I was just thinking about my biological mother and the night she gave birth to me and Bridger.”
Faith had hoped that once Eve was married to the only man she’d ever loved, she might not need to keep up her search. Eve and her twin brother, Bridger, had only been reunited a year ago, brought together by the mutual need to find the woman who’d given them up.
“We know her name,” Eve said, surprising Faith. “It’s Constance Small.”
“You found her?” Faith asked, shocked.
“Not yet. All we have so far is a name and a little information. She was seventeen, possibly a runaway. She disappeared right after she gave birth to us.”
“I’m sorry.” Faith, like her sisters, was also adopted, but she had no desire to know her birth mother or the circumstances. She couldn’t understand Eve’s need. Clearly, it could lead to disappointment—if not
