Read Online Big Sky Wedding by Linda Lael Miller - Free Book Online Page B

people, well-grounded country folks—not pearly teethed movie stars living out some weird fantasy of getting back to the land and all that other sentimental hogwash.
    By the time she, Snidely and Slim emerged into the large clearing where the house, barn and corral stood, Brylee had worked up a powerful huff.
    The illustrious Mr. Sutton was outside, shirtless, evidently repairing the corral fence. His jeans rode low on his lean hips, and his chest and back were muscular, probably honed by hours in some swanky gym. Seeing Brylee and the two dogs coming out of the trees, he paused, hammer in hand, a row of nails between his lips, and watched as they approached.
    “Is this your dog?” Brylee demanded furiously, when she’d come within a dozen feet of the man and then suddenly stopped in her tracks. It was as though some kind of barrier or force field had slammed down between them.
    “Yep,” Zane said, after taking the nails out of his mouth and dropping them into the pocket of his beat-up jeans. They certainly didn’t fit his image, those jeans—was he trying to look as if he belonged in Montana? “He’s mine, all right.”
    Brylee sputtered for a few inglorious seconds. “Did it ever occur to you to feed him once in a while?”
    Zane opened his mouth, closed it again. His grin was so insolent, and so damned sexy, that she would have slapped it right off his face, if her personal principles allowed—which, of course, they didn’t.
    A boy came out of the house just then, also shirtless, and sprinted toward them. “Slim!” he called jubilantly. “I wondered where you’d wandered off to.”
    Zane flicked a glance at the gangly child, a preteen actually, on the verge of a rapid growth spurt. “Brylee Parrish,” he said quietly, “meet my kid brother, Nash.”
    Nash looked so pleased to make her acquaintance that what remained of Brylee’s animal rights lecture died in her throat.
    “Hello, Nash,” she said, after swallowing.
    The boy turned shy, blushing extravagantly. “Hello,” he murmured.
    Zane seemed to find the exchange mildly amusing. “Take old Slim into the house,” he told Nash quietly, “and see if you can get him to chow down on some kibble.”
    Nash hesitated, glanced at Brylee again, from under the thickest eyelashes she’d ever seen on any guy—except maybe Zane himself—and whistled low to summon the dog.
    The two of them vanished inside, Nash reluctantly, Slim going with the flow.
    “He’s a stray,” Zane said presently. “I haven’t had him long enough to fatten him up.”
    Brylee was flummoxed. She’d steamed over here on a mission of justice and mercy, and now, suddenly, she was becalmed, a ship with no wind in its sails.
    “The boy or the dog?” she asked.
    Zane’s smile was affable, with a twinkle to it. “Both, I guess,” he said.
    By then, Brylee felt like a complete fool. She’d assumed the worst—movie stars, that disruptive, now-you-see-them, now-you-don’t class of people, rarely proved her first impression of them wrong. This one had, though, and the realization left her tongue-tied and embarrassed, wishing she hadn’t come on like the storied gangbusters, full of accusations and spitting fire.
    “Oh,” she said.
    Zane’s smile eased off into a sexy grin. “Is that all you have to say?” he asked, obviously enjoying her discomfort. “‘Oh’?”
    Heat burned her cheeks, and she knew her eyes were flashing again. “If you’re waiting for an apology,” she said, “don’t hold your breath.”
    Zane leaned in a little—she hadn’t realized how close together they were standing, though one of them must have moved—and she felt his substance, his energy, in every cell and nerve, like some kind of biochemical riot. “Now why would I expect an apology?” he drawled, though he seemed more amused than angry. “Just because you rolled onto my land like an armored tank and flat-out accused me of animal cruelty?”
    Brylee blinked. Swallowed. “The