Honeymoon With the Rancher

“Why did you?” She hobbled along, looking up at him from beneath her campero, the hat resting crookedly atop her head.

“I…”

“You’re going to put that wall around yourself again, aren’t you? Fine. I get it. You are allowed to ask questions. I’m not. Loud and clear, Tomas.”

“Dios, your tongue is sharp!” He bristled beside her. “You might have been killed, do you understand? What if Neva had gone down? What if she’d rolled on you?”

He turned on her, anger darkening his face now. “I should have stayed with you. You might have broken your neck.”

“Oh, what would you care? You’ll be glad to be rid of me, admit it!” she shot back. She instantly felt bad for saying it. “Tomas, I’m…”

But he never gave her a chance.

“¡Maldita idiota! I cannot figure you out. You panic at the sight of a spider, but when the danger is real…”

“Perhaps you should have thought of that before giving me a skittish horse that runs at the least little thing!”

“I gave you the calmest horse in the stable!” They were standing in the middle of the yard now, shouting.

“Do you treat all your clients this way?” She scoffed, her voice ripe with derision. Her blood was up now and it felt marvelous! All the righteous anger she’d channeled into cancelling the wedding and reorganizing her life came bubbling to the surface. “Oh wait…I’m the only one. Remind me why that is again?”

“¡Cállate!” He shouted. “Enough!”

And then he gripped her arms in his strong hands and kissed her.

The pain in her hip disappeared as his lips covered hers. Passion, a passion she hadn’t known she even possessed, exploded within her and she reached out to hang on to his shirt. He braced his feet, forming a solid wall for her to lean against, and in return she twined her arms around his ribs and over his shoulder blades, craving the feel of his body against hers.

This was what had been missing, she realized with a shock. Pure, unadulterated physi

cality. The kind of force that rushed in like a hurricane and frightened the hell out of her.

She shuddered and the fingers gripping her arms eased. His mouth gentled over hers until his lips played, teased, seduced.

It made her want to weep. How was it that even in anger this stranger seemed to know exactly what she needed? How did he know that she needed gentleness?

“Are you still angry at me?” she whispered as their lips parted. She couldn’t make herself meet his gaze; instead she stared at his mouth as though she hadn’t seen it before. Full lips, crisp in their perfection, soft when they needed to be soft, firm when they needed to be commanding…

“Yes,” he admitted, letting out a ragged breath. “Are you still angry at me?”

“No.”

“Why?”

She sighed. “Because I’m tired of being angry.”

“I shouldn’t have shouted. You scared me, Sophia.”

“I scared myself.”

She risked a look up at him then. His eyes were dark with concern again and she marveled at it—why should he care about her? Who was she to him? But she wasn’t about to argue. At the moment, sad as it was, he was all she had.

He turned from her and they began walking towards the house again. Sophia’s legs felt like jelly after the kiss, but she forced one foot ahead of the other.

“Why didn’t you say anything earlier when I mentioned going riding?”

“I didn’t want you to know.” She raised her chin. “After the way I showed up yesterday, and then my overreaction this morning…I didn’t want you to think I was some vapid female who couldn’t handle as much as a broken nail. I didn’t expect to be racing across the pampas, either.”

She wouldn’t look at him, but to her right, she heard a soft chuckle. “You are very stubborn, Sophia Hollingsworth.”