Read Online Joshua and the Cowgirl by Sherryl Woods - Free Book Online Page B

her attempts to warn him off, she’d only succeeded in making him want her more. Whatever happened between now and morning, he could not sit by and watch her crawl into that lonely single bed. It would be such a terrible waste. It would also be sheer torture.
    He picked up the deck of cards and shuffled. Suddenly he was propelled back thirty years, to the endless days when he’d been confined to bed with nothing more than a game of solitaire between him and awful, mind-numbing boredom. With a glint in his eyes, he dealt the cards.
    “Five card stud,” he announced tersely.
    “Joshua, I’m exhausted.”
    He glanced significantly across the room. Her gaze followed his, saw the now-controversial bed and returned to the cards before her. Picking them up, she glanced over them, chose two decisively and dropped them on the table.
    His eyebrows rose. “Just two?”
    “Two,” she confirmed, her expression grim.
    They played until the cabin began to fill with the first muted light of dawn. Garrett yawned, glanced at the score sheet she’d insisted on keeping and announced, “You owe me four thousand, seven hundred and twenty-six dollars.” She squinted at the paper. “And thirty-two cents.”
    “You cheat.”
    A smile teased at the corners of her mouth. “Joshua, you do not tell a cowboy he’s cheating at cards unless you have proof or a gun.”
    “Then it’s a good thing you’re a girl, isn’t it?”
    She frowned at once. “A
cowgirl
,” she corrected. “And I may not have a shotgun with me, but I would hate to have to tell Mrs. Mac that you’re the kind of man who welshes on his debts. She has a shotgun.”
    “By her bed. Yes, I know. She told me. You realize, of course, that I wouldn’t be a bit of use to her if she shot me.”
    “Her aim’s pretty good. You’d still be able to add and subtract.”
    “I’m not so sure that’s all she has in mind for me.”
    “Meaning?”
    “I think she has plans for the two of us.”
    Pink stole into Garrett’s cheeks. “I can’t imagine what gave you that idea, but you’re absolutely wrong.”
    “I don’t think so. She’ll probably be waiting for us with that shotgun, but not for the reason you think. She’ll probably insist on my marrying you now that I’ve besmirched your honor by spending an entire night alone with you in this cabin.”
    “I’m sure you’ll be the first to correct her impression.”
    He grinned. “I don’t know. My masculine pride’s at stake here, too.”
    She tossed her cards on the table and stood up. “Go to hell,” she said with feeling.
    He got slowly to his feet and leaned across the table until he was within mere inches of her delectable mouth. “But this is so much more fun,” he said, his gaze locked on her lips. His breath snagged. “Damn it, I want you, Garrett,” he said, his voice a mixture of regret and yearning.
    “It’s not me you want,” she said, but she didn’t back away.
    He was touched by the haunted look in her eyes. He told himself that she needed proof, longed for it, but would never in a thousand years admit it.
    “It is you I want,” he said emphatically. Cupping her chin in his hand, he proved it by touching his lips to hers. “So soft,” he murmured. “So sweet.”
    Her mouth trembled and her eyes suddenly lit with a flare of pure longing. In one swift move he shoved the table aside and drew her to him, claiming her mouth with a hunger that raged through him like wildfire. All the fears of the previous night fueled him with desperation. He could have lost her, lost himself without ever knowing the sweetness of her, without ever savoring the way she was melting in his arms.
    By the time his fingers looped under the hem of the flannel shirt, she had abandoned herself to the feelings she’d kept banked through the night. Shyness and self-denial seemed to vanish on a wave of passion that took them both by surprise with its primitive force of raw need.
    “Hurry,” she told him when his