Read Online Heather Graham by Maverickand the Lady - Free Book Online

she led him through the barn to the tack room because his saddle was heavy and she didn’t want to walk with it any farther than she had to.
    Moments later she was trotting past the front pasture where the mares were running with their foals.
    “Where do you think they’ll be, Cheyenne?” she asked. His long ears pricked up, and she patted his rump. “By the stream? Sounds logical. Or how about the eastern sector, where the fences were down? Eastern sector, huh? Okay, we’ll try that first.”
    Martine gave the buckskin a free rein after they had curved around the pasture. The land here was flat with only a little scrub, and she could let him race his heart out with no worry about rocks or boulders against his hooves. And he wanted to run today, just as she did. His muscles bunched beneath her with tremendous power, and the air swept by her like a cool, sweet tempest.
    She leaned low to his neck and for a moment closed her eyes to feel the thunderous beat. She had almost lost everything. And suddenly she felt exhilarated and wonderful, knowing that she hadn’t.
    Near the hills she pulled in on their gait and began to scan the fences. At last she saw Kane. The bay he had ridden yesterday was roaming free, tugging at the patches of grass he could find. Kane had his shirtsleeves rolled up and was hammering in a fallen post. Martine wasn’t sure he saw her at first; she walked Cheyenne slowly to him, drawn by the play of his muscles, naked and flexed on his forearm, straining the fabric of his shirt at his shoulders. His hat was near him on the ground, and a thatch of his dark hair had fallen over his forehead. As she at last came before him, he shoved back his hair and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, then raised his hand in greeting since he was holding several nails in his mouth.
    “Want some help?” she asked, dismounting from Cheyenne. The amiable buckskin ambled off to search for scrub along with the bay.
    He lowered his head to spit the nails into his hand, then gazed at her again. “I think I can handle a post,” he said dryly. But a smile seemed to hover on his lips, as if he were glad she had come.
    “Where are the others?” Martine asked.
    “Rounding the cattle to the stream,” he replied. His gaze moved over her, taking in her wild, windswept hair, the way her worn and faded jeans hugged her hips, the way her shirt molded over her breasts.
    But it wasn’t a lascivious gaze, Martie thought, wondering why she wasn’t offended. It wasn’t lascivious, but it was very, very sexual. She wondered again just exactly what was wrong with her. His eyes upon her made her feel warm, as if heated nectar roamed through her veins.
    “Got a minute?” he asked, inclining his head toward the post. “Let me finish this up, and then I’ve got a few questions.”
    Martine shrugged. “I’m all yours,” she murmured. At his smile she realized what she had said, groaned inwardly, and wandered over to the horses. She heard the thud of the hammer and turned around, fascinated again by the simple physical action. A few moments later he had hammered in the last nail. He stooped for his hat and a piece of the broken fencing, then came over to her.
    “What’s the matter?” she asked, frowning.
    “Take a look at the wood,” he told her.
    She did so and saw nothing but the broken split. She looked into his eyes, mystified. “It’s broken,” she told him. “That’s why it needed to be fixed.”
    “I know it’s broken!” he exclaimed impatiently. “But look at the way it’s split—as if someone had deliberately pulled it out.”
    “Or,” Martine commented, determined not to be cowed by the man she had hired as foreman, “as if it had been shoved out. One of the steers might have done it.”
    He tossed the wood down with disgust and planted his hands on his hips. “How many times have you seen a domestic steer butt a fence post like that?”
    She shrugged. “It could have happened.”
    He threw