Montana Legend (Harlequin Historical, No. 624) Read Online Free PDF Page A

cold. Sure hits the spot. Like what I’ve done to your garden?”
    â€œIt’s wonderful. I can’t begin to tell you the time and the blisters you have saved me.” She took the empty cup, the glass warm against her fingertips from the breadth of his hand. “I suppose you’ll want to wait for my uncle after this.”
    â€œIf you think I plowed your garden to get on your uncle’s good side, then you’d be wrong.” He scanned the fields, the wind tousling his dark hair, looking pirate-tough and lawman-strong. “It seemed the right thing to do is all.”
    â€œSo the truth is out. You’re an honest-to-goodness gentleman.” Sarah’s heart fluttered. She couldn’t help the pull of warmth and attraction deep in her stomach. “I didn’t know they still existed.”
    â€œI guess there’s a few of us good guys still roamingthe earth.” He winked, and the fine smile lines around his eyes crinkled handsomely. Taking a step back and away from her, he tipped his hat so he could scan the sky. “The sun is nearly straight up. I’d best be on my way. I have business in town.”
    â€œMy uncle and his family should be returning soon. Would you like to stay for the noon meal?”
    â€œNothing against you, Sarah, but your uncle and I are not going to be friendly, be it over a dinner table or not.” He gathered the reins and his mare sidestepped and turned neatly, hauling the disengaged plow to the barn.
    Every step he took was a powerful one. The way he walked sure could affect a woman. The straight line of his shoulders and the breadth of his back, his lean hips and long trim legs. He had just enough muscle to make a woman feel tingly all the way to her toes. And yet not too brawny so there was an inborn grace to him, like a cougar prowling his territory.
    Sarah dragged in a deep breath, but it didn’t chase away the flutter of attraction in her chest or drain the heat from her face. Besides, Gage Gatlin didn’t have the look of a courting man. He was friendly and polite, that was true enough, but he didn’t catch her gaze and hold it with interest like others had done—before they’d met Ella.
    And it wasn’t as if she would attract any man’s attention dressed in her work clothes. This morning battling the chickens and finding their feathers snagged in her braid. And now in the often-patched dress she wore only for messy work, a man would have to have extremely poor eyesight to find her the least bit attractive.
    Looking down, Sarah brushed a streak on the frontof her skirt. She sat on the steps, working at the dirt stain on her dress. It was vanity, and she knew it, but she couldn’t help the embarrassment heating her face.
    Twice now Gage Gatlin had seen her at practically her worst. Goodness, there was more dirt on the other side of her skirt. She looked as if she’d been rolling in the garden patch instead of hoeing it.
    Land sakes, she did have bigger problems to face than how she looked to a complete stranger. And that it mattered just a little—all right, maybe a whole lot—bothered her. She was a country girl and always would be.
    Anyone could see by simply looking that Gage Gatlin was a man of means. Not that he wore a coat and tie like the men in town with fine jobs and hired servants in their large brick homes, but Sarah could see it all the same. It was in the steel of his spine and the controlled confidence that shone in him like a winter sun.
    Ready to go, Gage Gatlin returned, mounted on his fine mare. “I’ll see you around, ma’am.”
    â€œGood luck with my uncle.”
    He tipped his hat like a man out of a legend. Her heart flip-flopped once—just a little bit—as she watched him ride away. All myth and dream, disappearing into the vast prairie.
    And he was far too fine for her.
    Sarah looked after him, although there was nothing but brown prairie and