Read Online The Genuine Lady (Heroines on Horseback) by Sydney Alexander - Free Book Online
Authors: Sydney Alexander
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she wasn’t through. “I cannot abide being spoken to as if I am a child. Pray do not lump me in with these hapless city folk, sir, and you may warn the rest of your country-men to do the same. I am every bit as able to make a living for myself out here as you.”
He sighed and agreed with her, again, but she had already somehow slowed her mule, imperceptibly, without hauling back on the reins like most women would have done, mashing the sides of the mule’s mouth with the steel bit, but with a gentle squeezing of the fingers, and in doing so let the ungainly animal slip his big nose behind his little roan’s striped red-and-white tail, and the conversation was at an end. Jared decided that silence was probably just as well; she was all keyed up about meeting her neighbors, that was all, and it had been kind of mean of him to pick a fight with her the way he had. Of course she didn’t want to look like a soft new arrival in front of everyone like that! Why had he reminded her of that? He was going to have to be more considerate. Women’s feelings were so easily hurt, and their pride was so easily wounded. It was nice, really, how men weren’t like that. You could say anything to another man and he’d just laugh it off.
In the meantime, they had another twenty minutes of riding, and he was regretful that she hadn’t ridden on ahead of him, so that he could watch the graceful sway of her body in that preposterous saddle.
***
She stalked away from him the moment her mule had been secured, leaving him fumbling to attach the reins to the hitching post as he stared after her departing back. He swallowed hard, foolishly mesmerized by the swinging of her hips, and swore as he dropped one of the split reins in the dust at his feet. The roan looked at him curiously, being accustomed to a certain level of professionalism in his handling, but Jared just shook his head and continued to watch the disdainful woman. Those extra folds and drapes of cloth resembled nothing so much as an angry mare switching her tail to display her simmering resentment. Jared had never been much good with mares, and he knew it. They were too quirky, too uppity, too quick to temper and hard to predict. Didn’t mean he didn’t want this one, though. He felt a stirring of lust just watching those swaying hindquarters. Sometimes you just have to have the toughest horse in the corral. Sometimes, nothing else will do.
“Mind your manners,” he instructed the roan as he finished tugging the knot tight. The horse ignored him and immediately reached out with yellow teeth for a hunk of wood from the post. Jared only sighed. No one listened to him these days. It was nearly enough to send a man on that cattle drive Matt had been yammering about.
He went through the little side-yard between the general store (MAYFIELD’S CENTRAL EMPORIUM AND HARDWARE, the gilt letters announced from the front windows) and the Mayfield’s tidy two-story house, the nicest in town after Miss Rose’s palatial manse, past the sour smelling patch of weeds next to the back door where Mrs. Mayfield emptied the dishpan three times a day, past the stable where the Mayfield Morgans grandly crunched at their hay, and reflected ruefully that he was in the wrong business. He had some money put away (he’d once had quite a lot) but leading cattle drives had never landed him the kind of wealth that the Mayfields were clearly enjoying, and farming a homestead hadn’t shown itself to be much of an improvement.
“Should’ve been a shopkeeper,” he muttered to the Mayfield Morgans as they poked their shapely heads over their stall doors and regarded him curiously through thick forelocks. But then again, he never was happy stuck indoors for a long while. Standing behind a shop counter day in and day out, rainy days and fine, would have been a kind of hell. Wintertime, now, that about drove him to distraction. The thought of wintering in Galveston revisited him then. But
He sighed and agreed with her, again, but she had already somehow slowed her mule, imperceptibly, without hauling back on the reins like most women would have done, mashing the sides of the mule’s mouth with the steel bit, but with a gentle squeezing of the fingers, and in doing so let the ungainly animal slip his big nose behind his little roan’s striped red-and-white tail, and the conversation was at an end. Jared decided that silence was probably just as well; she was all keyed up about meeting her neighbors, that was all, and it had been kind of mean of him to pick a fight with her the way he had. Of course she didn’t want to look like a soft new arrival in front of everyone like that! Why had he reminded her of that? He was going to have to be more considerate. Women’s feelings were so easily hurt, and their pride was so easily wounded. It was nice, really, how men weren’t like that. You could say anything to another man and he’d just laugh it off.
In the meantime, they had another twenty minutes of riding, and he was regretful that she hadn’t ridden on ahead of him, so that he could watch the graceful sway of her body in that preposterous saddle.
***
She stalked away from him the moment her mule had been secured, leaving him fumbling to attach the reins to the hitching post as he stared after her departing back. He swallowed hard, foolishly mesmerized by the swinging of her hips, and swore as he dropped one of the split reins in the dust at his feet. The roan looked at him curiously, being accustomed to a certain level of professionalism in his handling, but Jared just shook his head and continued to watch the disdainful woman. Those extra folds and drapes of cloth resembled nothing so much as an angry mare switching her tail to display her simmering resentment. Jared had never been much good with mares, and he knew it. They were too quirky, too uppity, too quick to temper and hard to predict. Didn’t mean he didn’t want this one, though. He felt a stirring of lust just watching those swaying hindquarters. Sometimes you just have to have the toughest horse in the corral. Sometimes, nothing else will do.
“Mind your manners,” he instructed the roan as he finished tugging the knot tight. The horse ignored him and immediately reached out with yellow teeth for a hunk of wood from the post. Jared only sighed. No one listened to him these days. It was nearly enough to send a man on that cattle drive Matt had been yammering about.
He went through the little side-yard between the general store (MAYFIELD’S CENTRAL EMPORIUM AND HARDWARE, the gilt letters announced from the front windows) and the Mayfield’s tidy two-story house, the nicest in town after Miss Rose’s palatial manse, past the sour smelling patch of weeds next to the back door where Mrs. Mayfield emptied the dishpan three times a day, past the stable where the Mayfield Morgans grandly crunched at their hay, and reflected ruefully that he was in the wrong business. He had some money put away (he’d once had quite a lot) but leading cattle drives had never landed him the kind of wealth that the Mayfields were clearly enjoying, and farming a homestead hadn’t shown itself to be much of an improvement.
“Should’ve been a shopkeeper,” he muttered to the Mayfield Morgans as they poked their shapely heads over their stall doors and regarded him curiously through thick forelocks. But then again, he never was happy stuck indoors for a long while. Standing behind a shop counter day in and day out, rainy days and fine, would have been a kind of hell. Wintertime, now, that about drove him to distraction. The thought of wintering in Galveston revisited him then. But
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