Mocha Latte (Silk Stocking Inn #3) Read Online Free PDF Page A

reached the two round pens in front of the barn. The soft snorts of horses, who were happily grazing on dinner, rolled out from the building. The warm earthy scent that followed made me grin with anticipation. I was transported back in time again.
    I stepped inside the well-lit barn and walked right up to the first stall. A thick, stout draft horse with a feathery white mane looked up from his dinner. Concluding that I hadn’t brought anything better than his mound of hay, he dropped his muzzle back into his feeder.
    I turned and saw a wheelbarrow standing in the breezeway, sitting right outside of the end stall. I combed my fingers through my shoulder length hair and headed toward it with the tender nerves of a girl working up the courage to talk to the boy she’d been crushing on.
    Jackson stepped out of the stall just as I reached it. I ran smack into his hard chest. I bounced back with a gasp.
    “Sorry. Bad timing,” I said, taking another step back.
    “And here I was thinking just the opposite.” His green eyes flickered under the barn lights. He’d left his hat off for mucking. As hot as he looked with the black hat, my heart was racing just fine looking at him without it.
    “If you get me a fork and a wheelbarrow, I can shovel some manure for you. Used to be pretty good at it,” I boasted and then realized how silly it sounded. “Real poop, I mean. Not bull shit. I’m actually really bad at that. Lying, that is.”
    He lifted his arm and leaned it up against the stall door. “I see you decided against the skirt. But the jeans work too.” He lowered the tip of the fork to the ground with his other arm. “This is the last stall.”
    “I guess I wasn’t much help then. Sorry about that. I sort of got lost in a plate of fried chicken. Almost brought tears to my eyes, it was so good.”
    He laughed as he turned and lifted the wheelbarrow. “Yep, Coco’s food will do that to ya.”
    I followed him out into the summery night. We walked across the yard to the manure pile, and he dumped the barrow.
    “It sure is nice out here.” The only lights on the horizon were the tiny twinkling porch lights, front and back, on the inn. The old house looked taller and more majestic from a distance, as if it had stood proudly in the same spot for a century. Which, no doubt, it had.
    “Want to take a ride?”
    I looked at him. His sleeves were rolled up, exposing strong forearms. I hadn’t seen a pair of arms, muscular and powerful from hard work, in a long time. Something about his caused a flutter in my belly.
    “At night? It’s been awhile since I’ve ridden.”
    “Like riding a bicycle.” He shrugged and turned the wheelbarrow around. “The way you went at that cupcake, just took you as a woman with a bit of spunk.” He rolled the barrow back toward the barn. I stomped after him.
    “I’ve got spunk. Damn it. You know what? Let’s ride. Saddle me your fiercest stallion, and I’ll show you spunk.”
    He stopped without warning. I ran into his back and bounced back, just as I’d done in the barn. He turned around with a laugh. “Looks like you need a new set of brakes, Spunky. I’ll saddle a horse for you.” His dark brow arched. “You sure you want a stallion?”
    “Well, maybe one of your bomb-proof geldings for this first initiation back in the saddle.”
    “Right. We’ll save Thunderstorm for your second ride.”
    His long legs made his stride impossibly fast to keep up with, but I managed to hurry along next to him to avoid any more collisions. Not that I minded it. If I was going to crash into something, a hunky cowboy built like a brick wall was a good choice.
    “Do you really have a stallion named Thunderstorm?” I asked as we reached the barn.
    “Don’t even have a stallion. I’d just as soon have a fire breathing dragon inside one of those stalls.”
    The down-home way he spoke put a smile on my face. “My grandpa used to say ‘if you’re not breeding mares then keeping a stallion is