The Bridal Path: Sara Read Online Free PDF Page A

said. “You have a problem with that?”
    She shifted uneasily from foot to foot. “Well, actually, I had another date in mind.”
    “When would that be?”
    “A few weeks. A couple of months, maybe.”
    Jake walked back to her. “What’s wrong, sweetheart? Getting cold feet?”
    “No,” she snapped back at once, but she avoided looking directly at him. “It’s just that I’ll need a little practice.”
    The admission came as no surprise to Jake, but it clearly cost her to make it.
    “Gee, I thought you were ready to take me on now, get this settled once and for all.” He cupped her chin and looked directly into her eyes. “You’ve broken a horse, haven’t you, Sara?”
    “Of course. You taught me how.”
    “Is that what made you think you could win a bet like this?” he asked. “Because if that’s it, let me tell you, you don’t know the half of it. You’re going to spend more time on your butt in the dirt than you ever imagined possible. If you’re damned lucky, you won’t get trampled in the process.”
    He forced himself to gentle his angry tone. “There’s no shame in taking a good, hard look at reality and deciding maybe this is a bad idea.”
    “I don’t have a choice,” she said with an air of weary resignation. “There is no other way. You’ve made that clear.”
    Jake almost felt sorry for her, but not sorry enough to tell her father that their deal for the ranch was off. Oh, he could walk away from Sara’s challenge, just flat out refuse to play the game she’d devised, but everyone deserved a fighting chance to achieve a dream, didn’t they? She needed to know she’d done everything she could if she was going to move on with her life once the ranch was his and his alone.
    At least he wouldn’t hold her to marriage, when she lost. Suggesting it truly had been a bit of lunacy on his part. Agreeing to it had only shown the depths of her desperation. They were as ill-suited as any two people on the face of the earth could be. There was no point in making two people miserable until the end of time, just because he’d lost his head for a minute.
    Now was not the time to get into it, though. Maybe just thinking about being saddled with him for a lifetime would keep her on that bronco long enough to make a respectable showing. After all, her pride was at stake here, too, right along with her future.
    “See Zeke Laramie,” he said grudgingly. “Nobody knows more about rodeo around here than he does.”
    Her despondent mood instantly lifted. She gave him a saucy grin. “Giving helpful hints to the enemy, Jake? I’m surprised at you.”
    “I was just thinking maybe he can keep you from getting yourself killed.”
    What he didn’t know was who was going to protect him from getting killed when Trent Wilde found out what his daughter and Jake were up to.
    * * *
    Instead of going to see Zeke Laramie, which was where she intended to go when she left the house, Sara found herself heading into downtown Riverton. A half hour later she was on Dani’s doorstep.
    Her older sister had a soothing way about her and, Lord knew, Sara needed comfort, maybe a little grounding in reality. Of all the muddles she had gotten herself into in her life, this one had to be the worst.
    Not that she could tell Dani about it. She couldn’t tell a soul what she had in mind. If her father got wind of the bet she’d made with Jake, he’d probably lock her away in some institution until she was ancient. Unlike any attempt she might make to have her father declared incompetent, his try would be successful. She’d given him all the ammunition he would need to convince any judge in the state that she was mentally off kilter. As far as Jake’s proposal, she was still wrestling with that one. He’d probably just hoped to scare her off, which proved he didn’t know her at all.
    She found her sister in the kitchen as expected, a dusting of flour on the tip of her nose, her dark hair mussed, her hands covered with