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as if she read those magazines. Well, she had read the covers, and she did admit that sometimes when she found herself standing in line she’d scanned them, looking specifically for his name.
    â€œYou read stories in the tabloids about me?”
    She spun toward him. “Why would you say that? You were at the top of your game when you were riding. You were written up in more than just the gossip rags.” Drat. She’d just admitted how much she had followed the cowboy.
    â€œYou didn’t exactly strike me as the type to read that trash.” He strode out of the barn and she followed him. His sarcasm and stiff posture told her that he was really angry. Tacy suddenly had the overwhelming need to justify herself. “I didn’t read them. I did read an article about you in the Horseman, though,” she said. “I really and truly never flipped through those other magazines. I’m a grocery store headline reader, that’s all.”
    He stopped between the barn and the corral. “Most of that stuff wasn’t true. It’s pure fantasy.”
    â€œHowever, inquiring minds sometimes can’t help reading them.” Her comment made him scowl. “Sorry, I was just teasing,” she said.
    His gaze looked tortured as he lifted his rope from the fence and tightened the coil. She almost let it go. Almost. There was something about the way he looked standing there tense as a fence post and as hard as a block of ice.
    Don’t butt in, the voice in her head hollered. But she forged ahead. “So you’re going to enlighten me about the truth, right?” The soft snorting of the horses that were moving about on the other side of the fence sounded loud in the tense silence as he lifted his gaze to hers.
    â€œNo, I’m not. As soon as I hit the circuit again, nosy reporters will try to expose my life like an open book, and I don’t know what kind of lies and twists will be attached. I’d rather not think about all that now.” His tone softened a bit and his accusing gaze gave way to one that almost begged her to understand.
    Tacy’s curiosity skyrocketed, but she only gave a light nod. After all, it was his business. Still, when Brent spun on his heel and strode into the horse pen, she couldn’t take her eyes off him. What had happened to him?
    Tacy stood there for the longest time as Brent worked the rope. His back and shoulders barely moved as the rope twirled above his head. With a quick flick, he let the loop fly toward the group of horses, and there was no mistaking which horse he had in his sights. Nor was there a question in her mind about whether the loop would land easily around the horse’s neck.
    Brent Stockwell was poetry in motion. Cowboy poetry. And as the horse he chose reared, hooves pawing the air, head twisting from side to side, Brent took up the slack on the rope and walked calmly toward the uncertain animal, reeling it in with no fear.
    As he talked gently to the horse, Tacy watched theanimal fall under his influence. Tacy was afraid she was doing exactly the same thing. Only she wasn’t going to let herself back down and give up her dream. Oh, no, she was going to break horses, with or without his help.
    She’d be lying to herself if she said she wasn’t intrigued by Brent. She was…but that didn’t matter. Her main goal was to figure out how to get Brent to teach her to do what he just did. Before she could tame horses, she was going to have to tame the man!

Chapter Four
    O n his third morning in Mule Hollow, Brent hopped in his truck at twenty to six and headed to Sam’s for an early-morning breakfast. He glanced at Pace’s house as he passed it, and couldn’t help but think of the feisty redhead probably still sleeping inside.
    He had not planned on Tacy when he’d agreed to take this job. The fact that she knew about him—or thought she did—bothered him. It wasn’t as if he was