Chapter One

      “I blame you for this, Chance Lockhart!” Molly Griffith fumed the moment she came toe-to-toe with him just inside the open-air bucking-bull training facility of Bullhaven Ranch.

      Chance set down the saddle and blanket he’d been carrying. With a wicked grin, he pushed the brim of his hat back and paused to take her in. No doubt about it—the twenty-seven-year-old general contractor/interior designer was never lovelier than when she was in a temper. With her amber eyes blazing, her pretty face flushed with indignant color and her auburn curls wildly out of place, she looked as if she were ripe for taming.

      Luckily for both of them, he was too smart to succumb to the challenge.

      His gaze drifted over her, taking in her designer jeans and peacock-blue boots, before moving upward to the white silk shirt and soft suede blazer that cloaked her curvy frame.

      Damn, she was sexy, though. From the half-moon pendant that nestled in the hollow of her breasts to the voluptuous bounty of her bow-shaped lips.

      Exhaling slowly, he tamped down his desire and prompted in a lazy drawl, “Blame me for what?”

      Molly propped her hands on her hips. “For telling my son, Braden, he can have a live bull for Christmas!”

      Somehow Chance managed not to wince at the huffy accusation. He set down the saddle and narrowed his eyes instead. “That’s not exactly what I said.”

      Molly moved close enough he could inhale her flowery perfume, her breasts rising and falling with every deep, agitated breath. “Did you or did you not tell him that Santa could bring him a bull?”

      Chance shrugged, glad for the brisk November breeze blowing over them. Still holding Molly’s eyes, he rocked back on the heels of his worn