Lucky in Love by Joann Ross

Author:Joann Ross
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2018-06-08T12:36:25+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

BY THE END of her first full day on the Double Ought, Jude was definitely wishing that horses came with instrument panels, so she could monitor the odometer to see how far she’d ridden. She’d never realized exactly how wide and open the western rangeland was until Lucky O’Neill had apparently decided to drag her all over every damn inch of it.

Determined to pass whatever macho tests he’d apparently decided were necessary to pay her back for the way she’d disrupted his life, she managed, somehow, to stick by him like the strips of bright yellow flypaper she’d seen in the barn.

She had to admit that the Wyoming high country scenery was spectacular. But as she dragged her aching body out of Kate’s cotton-candy-striped pink sheets on the second day of the roundup, the suspicious New Yorker in her continued to suspect that the man was trying to run her off by making life as miserable as possible.

After a quick shower, she dressed in Lucky’s mother’s working clothes; although Kate had sent her clothes as instructed, the casual outfits that had been so right for the city were obviously unsuitable for such difficult physical work.

Not wanting Lucky to gain the upper hand by leaving without her, she rushed downstairs to the kitchen and chugged down some of the black sludge Buck called coffee, even as she considered it’d probably be more efficient just to inject the caffeine straight into her veins. After forcing down the breakfast she’d discovered yesterday that she did, indeed, need, she climbed into the truck for the ride back up to the pastures. It would be another long grueling day watching a bunch of men in cowboy hats round up some bulls who were equally determined to range free.

On the first day, Jude had been a white knuckle rider.

“You know,” Lucky had drawled as he’d observed her literally hanging on to the high western saddle horn, “you don’t have to choke that poor horn to death. Why don’t you loosen up and let it breathe a mite?”

That was easy for him to say, she’d thought as the docile mare had picked her way around granite boulders, deftly climbing up the steep mountainside. But this morning, her nervousness eased enough to allow her to enjoy the spectacular sight of the colorful mix of riders and what Zach told her were Angus, black baldie and red Herefords spread out over the meadows and canyons. The scene was made complete with the mountains and expansive blue sky as a backdrop.

Jude quickly discovered that despite what Zach had told her about a cow’s lack of intelligence, every so often a bull would figure out why all these men on horseback had gathered in his pasture and would take off for the north forty before the crew could get him into the trailer.

Such behavior was always met by cursing and other outward signs of masculine frustration, but Jude couldn’t help noticing that the tougher things got, the calmer Lucky became.

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