Cinderella and the Playboy / The Texan's Happily-Ever-After

Author:Lois Faye Dyer [Dyer, Lois Faye/Smith, Karen Rose]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4089-0210-3
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2010-11-11T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Three

“You are wrong!” Roy yelled. “Wrong, wrong, wrong.”

“I am not,” Joey yelled back.

“Boys,” came a stern voice.

Raina had parked beside Shep’s ranchhouse and, hearing voices at the barn, headed to it. She walked toward the corral, guessing the boys were outside the stall doors. At the fence, she stopped.

Shep had crouched down in front of Roy. His voice wasn’t stern now, as he said, “It’s still early. Not even lunchtime.”

“But she said she’d be here this morning.”

Raina had gotten tied up at the hospital and intended to phone on her way to the ranch, but her cell phone had lost its charge.

“Hey, everybody,” she called, cheerily now, letting them know she was there. “Am I too late for chores?”

“Dr. Gibson!” Roy cheered, brushing away his tears. “You came.” He turned to his brother. “I told you so. I told you she’d keep her promise.”

Shep slowly rose from his crouched position. Without any accusation, he said, “The boys were a little worried you’d forgotten.”

Opening the corral gate, she stepped inside the working area for the horses. “I’m sorry I’m late. I got tied up at the hospital.” She lifted her duffel bag. “I brought old clothes and riding boots.”

“You can change at the house or in the tack room,” Shep informed her.

“The tack room is fine.”

“She’s a girl,” Joey said with disgust. “She thinks about clothes and getting them dirty.”

Raina could see Shep was trying hard to suppress a laugh. He knocked his Stetson higher on his head with his forefinger. “Listen, Joey, part of a woman’s job is to think about clothes. You ought to do it once in a while.”

As Joey crinkled his nose, Raina laughed and headed for the tack room. A few minutes later, she returned in her old jeans and short-sleeved blouse, her dad’s navy paisley kerchief tied around her neck. “Just tell me what you want me to do.”

“We saved mucking out the stalls,” Roy told her.

“I’m thrilled about that,” she responded with a straight face.

He took a good look at her and smiled. “You’re teasin’.”

She ruffled his hair. “Yes, I am. I guess no one really likes mucking out stalls, but it has to be done.”

“You’re really going to do it?” Joey asked.

“I did it before, when I was about your age. My uncle had a ranch and a couple of horses.”

“In Sagebrush?” Shep asked.

“Yep. On the east side of town. When hard times set in and he had to sell it, a developer bought it. There’s a whole bunch of houses there now, where his ranch used to be.”

Her gaze met Shep’s and one of those trembles danced through her body again. It was like a preliminary tremor to an earthquake. She told herself she was being foolish. She was just off balance, being out of her comfort zone, being with Shep and his boys again.

“We’ll get the shovels,” Joey told Raina as he and Roy headed into the barn.

After they were out of earshot, Shep asked her, “Did you have second thoughts?” His blue eyes demanded a straight answer, not a polite excuse.

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