Read Online Dancing in the Moonlight by RaeAnne Thayne - Free Book Online Page B

do the dirty work.”
    “I don’t ever waltz,” he protested, then grinned. “I prefer to sashay.”
    She did smile at that and he couldn’t help feeling he’d just won a major victory. Their gazes held for a long moment and then her smile slid off her face as if she just realized it was there.
    She jerked her gaze away and drank the last of her cola, her expression suddenly fierce. “Okay, party time’s over. If I’ve only got a day to make use of your puny muscles, I don’t want to waste it sitting around shooting the breeze.”
    He almost told her she could make use of his punymuscles—or anything else of his that might interest her—any time she wanted, she only had to say the word.
    But while he wasn’t exactly the lazy wimp she seemed to enjoy taunting him about, he wasn’t an idiot, either, so he decided to keep the thought to himself.
     
    By the time they finished checking and repairing every fenceline on the Rancho de la Luna and headed back for the house, he was beginning to question either his intelligence or his sanity.
    Why was he torturing himself like this? Maggie hadn’t let up all afternoon about not wanting or needing his help. If anything, she seemed to ride him even harder as the afternoon wore on.
    He had to wonder if she was trying to see just how far she had to push to drive him away.
    If she were any other woman—and if not for those lines of pain around her mouth or the stiff way she sat in the saddle—he would have acknowledged defeat hours ago and let her run him off.
    But he hadn’t been about to leave her to all this work by herself. What she needed was a rest. The quicker they finished up and put the horses away, the quicker she could put her leg up.
    She didn’t seem to want to talk, and he didn’t push her, as the horses made their way along the creek back to the house, the afternoon sun warm on their shoulders and the water churning beside them.
    At the barn he slid down quickly from his horse and looped the reins around the fence, then crossed to the mounting block so he could help her off the horse.
    She’d been stubborn about it all day but he could tell climbing down from the horse was a movement that bothered her. He’d insisted on helping her mount and dismount throughout the day, if only for the chance to touch her, and he intended to this time but she glared at him.
    “Go away, Dalton,” she snapped when he approached. “That’s why we have a mounting block here, so you can stop babysitting me.”
    He just smiled blandly and stood beside the wooden block, just in case she needed him.
    She seemed determined not to, though her teeth clamped together and she couldn’t hide a wince as she swung her prosthetic over the saddle and slid down.
    Before Maggie was completely ready to take her own weight, the mare shifted, just enough to leave her off balance. She stumbled on the block, but before she could fall, he leaped up and caught her, absorbing her weight, and she steadied herself against his chest.
    All day she had tried to act tough as rawhide as she rode alongside him, but now she felt small and fragile in his arms.
    He reacted like any other normal, red-blooded man who suddenly found his arms wrapped around the beautiful woman who had been his secret fantasy for years—the same woman who had tormented him all day just by her presence.
    He kissed her.
    She made a small gasping sound of surprise when his mouth drifted across hers, and then she seemed to freeze in his arms.
    He could feel the soft sough of her breath in his mouth, feel the tremble of her fingers against his chest, and wondered if she could hear his heart hammering against his ribs.
    That smart mouth of hers was surprisingly soft, like apple blossoms, and she tasted like cola and spearmint gum.
    He might have expected her to shove him off the mounting block or give him a judo chop to the head. When she didn’t, when her lips seemed to soften in welcome, he took that as enough encouragement to