Big Sky Rancher Read Online Free PDF Page A

grinned. “She would have been right on that account. Your bosom is beyond reproach.”
    â€œWell, thank you very much, Mr. O’Reilly,” she sputtered.
    â€œAs to the rest of you, I’ll warrant I could trace every rib if I were so inclined, and I’d be willing to bet you haven’t an extra pound of weight on your —” His pause was long, his words slow in coming. “On your sweet little behind,” he finished softly, as if the words held some special import.
    â€œPlease,” she whispered. “Don’t say things like that.”
    He frowned down at her, and then in a swift movement that caught her off guard, he tugged her off balance and held her in a tight grip. “You’d better get used to it, sweetheart,” he murmured. “I plan on saying a lot more such things in the future. You seem to forget that you are my wife. Maybe in name only for now, but legally, and that’s what really counts. We’re married, honey, like it or not.”
    â€œI don’t,” she said. “You weren’t what I expected at all. I thought I’d marry a gentleman, someone with class, the founder of a town, a man with dignity.”
    He hooted, his laughter rebounding from the walls. “You want a man with dignity? You wouldn’t know what to do with such a man. I could introduce you to the banker, Walter Powers. He’s dignified. But then, he’s also as ugly as the back end of a mule, so I can’t see where you’d be any better off with him than with me.”
    â€œWhat makes you think you’re so great to look at?” she asked, even as she considered the question to be most foolish. He was rough and uncouth, but with the dark hair and sparkling eyes and the smiles that caught her unaware, he was a handsome man. And the idiot knew it, she’d warrant.
    â€œI’ve been told I cut quite a figure,” he admitted. “Not that I care about what folks think of me.”
    â€œOnly the feminine part of the population.”
    â€œWell, there is that,” he conceded. And then he sobered. “I care mostly what you think of me, honey, and right now, I don’t think your opinion of me is very high.”
    â€œI won’t argue with that,” she agreed. “I’ve seen rats in the city with more to offer than the one I found here in Thunder Canyon.”
    â€œDid any of them offer to marry you?” he asked “I not only paid your way here, but I married you without any hesitation. What more could you ask?”
    â€œA little choice in the matter.”
    â€œYou made up your mind when you got on that train. Hell,even before that. When you accepted the money for your fare, you were committed to me.”
    â€œI didn’t know you then,” she said.
    â€œYou don’t know me now. But, you will, sweetheart. Sooner than you think.”
    â€œI’m not sleeping in the same bed with you,” she told him, anticipating his insistence on that issue. “You can stay right down here in the same bed you’ve been using and I’ll go upstairs and find somewhere else to put my pillow.”
    â€œWhat pillow?” He grinned. “I have custody of all the pillows in the house. Not to mention the sheets and feather ticks.”
    â€œYou’d deny me a bed to sleep in?”
    â€œNow,” he began, with a smile that threatened to become a full-blown chuckle, “you know better than that. I’ve got a nice, clean bed, soft as goose down, with clean sheets and nice, fluffy pillows. It’s right at the top of the stairs, just waiting for you to set your dainty little feet inside the bedroom door and take possession.”
    â€œI don’t think so.” It was as firm a refusal as she could muster. Arguing didn’t seem to be doing much good, so she clearly stated her case, denying his right to her presence in his bed.
    â€œShall we fight this out now or after