The Girl with the Golden Spurs. Ann Major
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that was unbearably exciting.
She tilted her head a little to better study the mystery of Cole Knight, not that she could see much more than the sensual line of his mouth and his hard jawline. Still, he had a nice, kissable mouth. The mere thought of her lips against his caused a violent shiver to dart through her stomach.
How could she be attracted to him?
She wasn’t. It was just that she’d nearly died. Cole had saved her. Maybe it was only natural to feel some temporary affectionate bond with a man who saved your life even if he was your natural born enemy.
Cole bent his head and stared down at her lips with the same scary, burning intensity she remembered from the thicket, only now, her heart skittered faster.
The wind was warm on her face, but his stillness and watchful silence as he held her caused butterflies to dance in her stomach. Her heart was beating so fast it felt like it might burst. She’d never come close to such a wild dark thrill as Cole Knight, never dreamed of it even.
Until this moment, in his arms, she’d been a child. Even before he lowered his face to hers, she lifted her lips and parted them, half-hoping he would be as bad as people said and steal a kiss from her.
Instead his mouth grazed her cheek so softly she could barely feel his breath. Still his gentle kiss left her aching. Without thinking, she wistfully traced a fingertip across her mouth. His eyes watched her, and maybe they dared her. Before she even knew what she was doing, her fingertip left her lips and traced the shape of his.
His mouth was hard and warm. Just touching him there had her body thrumming and sent heat through her like a lush wild wave. Her other hand inched up his wide chest and flexed around his neck. Then with an unfathomable yearning that bordered on pain, she pushed her innocent body into his, until her breasts were flat against his hard chest.
“Oh, God.” He groaned, sucking her fingertip inside his lips for a moment before his black head dipped closer to hers. “You smell sweeter than the sweetest rose.”
She stood on her tiptoes, hoping, aching for more.
It was worth nearly getting killed on a horse—well worth it—to be here like this with him.
The moment went on and on, endlessly. Just when he might have kissed her, a horse with Lizzy’s daddy on its back thundered out of the brush. When a swarm of her relatives followed, shouting and cursing, Cole pushed her away from him.
Caesar pulled his stallion up in front of her, his face purple as dust whirled around them.
“Lizzy, what in the hell are you doing?” Caesar’s horse thrashed closer. “Get away from that devil, girl!”
Uncle B.B.’ s handsome face was as stern as her father’s. Even Aunt Nanette and her sons, Bobby Joe and Sam, who were Lizzy’s age, looked grim and unforgiving.
Lizzy lifted her chin and stepped in front of Cole to shield him from her family. Not that Cole was the type to cower behind a woman even for a second. He seized Lizzy’s hand firmly in his and swung her along beside him.
Oh, how she liked his doing that. Standing beside him gave her a new confidence, and she squared her shoulders. To her surprise, her voice was quiet and level, a woman’s voice. “Daddy…he saved my…”
Her father’s bushy, amber eyebrows snapped together as he stared at her fingers knotted in Cole’s. His lips thinned as he hunched forward in his saddle.
Lizzy recognized the signs his temper was on the rise and, removing her hand from Cole’s, nervously rubbed her bare arms, which were sunburned and bloody with scratches. Tatters of her blouse fluttered against her exposed rib cage.
“Daddy, he didn’t hurt me. He didn’t tear my blouse. Mother—he saved my life.”
As if mortified by Lizzy’s conduct, Joanne looked away.
Caesar’s blazing eyes remained fixed on Cole. “You, boy! Yes, Knight, I’m talking to you! You get the hell off my land!”
“You stole this land, Kemble. You and yours. You drove my brother away! But you can’t bully me.”
“You stay away from my daughter!”
Cole smiled lazily. “Well, I’d say that’s more her choice than yours, wouldn’t you?”
Cole’s gaze softened as he regarded her, and Lizzy felt herself melting like hard chocolate on a hot stove.
“Of all the impudent—” To his men Caesar roared, “Boys, throw this damn trespasser off my land!”
“My land!” Cole snapped.
When Kinky Hernandez, Daddy’s loyal foreman, along with half a dozen vaqueros, materialized out of the thicket, Cole’s expression darkened. His low voice was hoarse, almost a growl, as he reached out and squeezed Lizzy’s hand one last time. “Maybe you’re not calling all the shots anymore, old man.”
“He’s right, Daddy! Leave him alone! I’m all grown up! You can’t tell him or me what—”
“Get on your horse, boy—”
Cole whistled, and his big horse trotted up to him like a trick horse in a rodeo. Before he swung his long leg over his saddle, Cole glanced down at Lizzy with another hot look and a smile that cut off her breath and filled her with unbearable joy.
He tipped his hat to her. “See ya ’round, little girl,” he said in that gentle tone that mocked her father and made butterflies fly in her stomach.
“See ya,” she whispered, bringing her fingertips to her lips, unable to say more, not even goodbye.
Dismounting, her mother slipped up beside her. “If you’re smart, you’ll forget you ever met that no-good scoundrel,” she said. “No telling what he would have done to you if we hadn’t—”
He would have kissed me…maybe. The thought made Lizzy ache.
“He’s the son of thieves and ingrates—troublemakers and gamblers, the whole lot,” her father asserted. “I ran his no-good brother off a few years back when he threatened to sue me, and I’ll do the same to this one—if you don’t leave him the hell alone.” He drew in a savage breath at Lizzy’s dazed expression. “Take her back to the house, Joanne. Talk some sense into her.”
Lizzy barely heard them. She was too busy watching Cole ride away, too busy wondering if she’d ever see him again.
Even when her mother took her by the arm, she turned her head, still watching the spot where she’d glimpsed the last of his broad shoulders.
“Forget him, girl. He’s a Knight and you’re a Kemble. He doesn’t want you. He wants our land. And he’ll do anything—he’ll use you in any way—to get it. He wants the ranch—not you!”
Oh, if only, if only she’d listened.
BOOK ONE
Smart Cowboy Saying:
Letting a cat out of the bag is a lot easier than putting it back.
—Anonymous
One
Eleven years later
South Texas
The Golden Spurs Ranch
Pawing and snorting, hooves clattering on concrete, Domino exploded out of the barn as if a dozen of Satan’s meanest horse flies had flown up straight from hell and stung him on his powerful rump.
“Whoa, boy! What’s lit into you?”
It was late April. The last of the wildflowers sweetened the warm air that smelled of grass, cattle and horse.
Caesar Kemble leaned back in the saddle and pulled in on the leather reins. “You’re mighty