She swallows audibly, her chest dipping.
After the briefest of hesitations, her expression turns defiant and she ducks past me into my house.
Unbelievable.
Is this really happening?
I should hogtie her, throw her face down over my horse and deliver her back to daddy’s doorstep, so he can see what a reckless idiot he raised.
So do it, then.
Do it.
I will. As soon as I satisfy my curiosity. I want to make deadly sure her father didn’t put her up to this. I want to know…what all that breathtaking audacity looks like up close. I’m just going to give myself a few minutes to acquaint myself with the girlI’ve been reluctantly marveling at through my binoculars for six months. Then I’ll send her packing.
I slam the door behind me on my way into the house. “There is no point in having this discussion,” I say, stomping after her. She’s already halfway to my study, which is located at the back of the house. Of course, she waltzes right in without waiting for permission. “My answer is no,” I growl, entering the dark room behind her.
I freeze when she turns around and looks up, up, up at me, shaking her dark hair back. Totally unfazed by a man twice her size. Twice her age, too, if my aim is right.
Dear sweet lord, she isutterly stunning,though.Again, I shouldn’t be noticing.
But there’s unpolished natural beauty here. Character. Determination.
And after another one of those courageous gulps, she strips off her T-shirt, tossing it on my desk, leaving herself bare breasted in front of me. “Don’t you want to see what I’m offering before you say no?”
three
Billie
Knox is staringat my breasts and breathing fast.
Is that a good sign?
This is the moment of truth, I suppose. When I find out if I’m hot or not.
Gosh, I didn’t expect him to be so young.
Not young like me, but young for a rich man. A big-time landowner, at that.
I expected someone older than my father, but Knox Morgan can’t be older than thirty-five. He’s beat up and rugged, like a man who’s been battle tested. He’s lived among violence. Witnessed it. Been part of it, more often than not. His features are harsh and strained, like he’s been living in bitterness a long time. But that’s not to say there isn’t something…decidedly attractive about him. He towers over me, for one. He’s not a bullshit artist, like all the ranch hands, speaking in innuendo and bragging.
Knox is a straight shooter who would, apparently, straight shoot me.
That’s why I figured I better get my shirt off, fast.
It seems to cost him a tremendous effort to stop looking at my breasts, but his irritated dark green eyes drag back upward to my face. “Put your shirt back on,” he rasps.
Shoot.
I’m not hot.
I should have known the ranch hands were full of baloney.
My pride was inherited from my father, though, so I don’t retreat right away. “If you don’t like my tits,” I say, shrugging, “I can just turn around while we do it.”
His eyebrows slowly knit together. “What?”
I look down at my apparently pathetic chest. “I mean, I reckoned my boobs were pretty sweet, but what do I know? I’ve only ever seen mine and my mamas.”
