Read Online Bridled: Bitter Creek Doms #1 by Erika Masten - Free Book Online Page B

Jobs had been scarce
in town, and most families couldn’t afford to send their kids to
college down on the valley floor. Earl Peterson’s family being an
exception, of course. About a quarter of the boys and a handful of
the girls from Zach’s graduating class had gone military, mostly
Marines and Navy. A few more the next year. With my senior class of
seventy students, it was almost half, including Quinn.
    Figuring out that night behind the
lifeguard tower had meant nothing to him broke my heart. He could
have at least told me he was leaving.
    In the end, few of Bitter Creek’s
wayward sons came home. Some went career military. Others settled
in the big cities they’d discovered in their travels. A lot of the
rest of us went elsewhere, as well, for work or to see what we
could see. Lots of debris piled up around here from all the broken
hearts. When I moved home from Los Angeles three months ago, I
hadn’t expected to find either Zach Garwood or Quinn Blakely back
in town, with about a half dozen more prodigal sons.
    It probably isn’t a good thing that I
can feel my grip tightening again on the shovel handle as Quinn
stalks toward me. Temper, Melanie, temper.
    “ Mel,” Quinn huffs at me,
sensual lips pressed into a thin line, eyes narrowed and brow
lowered as he advances. I can’t help thinking how good he looks in
the dark red shirt he’s wearing, which only makes me see more red,
as the saying goes. Honestly, I’m surprised to hear him call me
Mel. Everyone did back in high school, but I doubted he’d remember
that.
    “ What are you thinking? Put
down that shovel right now,” Quinn orders. I’ve seen him around
town a few times in the months I’ve been back and even waved, but
these are the first words he’s spoken to me in eight years. His
voice has a little more Texas in it than most, warm and deep, and
it pisses me off how much I still like that.
    I roll my eyes. “Oh, please. Don’t
worry. It’s not loaded. I only use it for fixing irrigation lines
my bastard neighbor keeps breaking so I can’t water the pasture for
my horses.” I flash an overly sweet smile. “Is that what you’re
here to talk to me about?”
    This actually makes Zach laugh, though
it earns him a sidelong glare from Quinn. The blond deputy ignores
his partner and keeps smiling at me. “Fixing irrigation lines? Is
that what you were doing when you swung the shovel at Earl
Peterson’s foreman an hour ago?” Zach asks.
    “ It is.” I square my body
with Garwood’s and meet his gaze with a challenging stare. Oddly,
my heart beats double time, and a gush of juices from my wet pussy
seeps all at once into my cotton panties. Not the best idea, I
guess, to argue with a gorgeous deputy with this much adrenaline
winding me up. I’ve always heard there is a connection between
adrenaline and anger and violence and sex.
    Quinn finally comes to a halt directly
in front of me, near enough that he looms over me with every inch
of that 6’4” body of his, blocking my view of Zach and insisting on
my attention. “You keep trespassing on Peterson’s property and
swinging shovels at people and you’re going to get yourself
hurt.”
    I bite the inside of my cheeks,
feeling the heat of blinding indignation rushing up to burn and
color my cheeks. “Is that a threat, deputy?”
    This question makes Quinn rear back a
bit, grasping the front of his cowboy hat and blinking his pretty
eyes rapidly at me a few times. “What?” he asks, with pronounced
offense in his tone. “No.”
    Off to one side and leaning into view,
Zach snickers, bringing out faint dimples, and shakes his blond
head. “He means Earl’s foreman has eight inches and a hundred
pounds on you, sunshine. I’d still put my money on you, but I’m not
known for my betting instinct.”
    I grimace to keep myself from smiling
at that remark. “You guys ever going to do anything about Peterson
knocking down my fences to let my horses out or those irrigation
lines he’s