The Cowboy Who Broke the Mold Read Online Free PDF Page B

run away, her body seemed pow- erless to obey.
    “Think you can manage that?” he asked, pulling the rope into a small noose.
    Was he crazy? How could he expect her to pay at- tention when her heart was racing a hundred miles a minute and her thoughts were concentrated on the mus- cles corded along his forearms? Such strong arms, she thought absently, were made to make a woman feel pro- tected and cherished.
    Say something, her mind urged. But she was unable to fill her lungs with enough air to expel a single syl- lable. What was it about this man’s touch that instantly turned her brains to pudding?
    Staring down at their joined hands, she asked at last, “Would you mind showing me one more time?” Try as she might, Carrie was unable to make her voice reg- ister louder than a whisper.
    “Not at all.”
    Giving in to the urge, Judson bent so that his mouth was next to her ear. Whether he personally liked her or not, there was no denying that Carrie Raben felt damned good in his arms. Her waist was so incredibly small he wondered if it were possible to span its circumference with his two hands. He had little doubt that if the severe winter and isolation of the outback didn’t get lovely Ms. Raben, some rich, lonely rancher would. Just off the top of his head, he could think of at least a dozen eligible fellows who would give their left arm for the chance of snapping up such a sweet, cultured morsel. Knowing how fast word traveled in Harmony, he figured therewould be a line of beaus outside her trailer door before his dust had had a chance to settle.
    For some reason that he couldn’t quite put his finger on, Judson found the thought strangely unsettling. He told himself it was just because that could leave his children without a teacher right in the middle of the year when it would be next to impossible to find a replace- ment. Still, when Carrie raised her lowered eyelashes to meet his searching look, Judson knew for certain that it was he, not the children of Harmony, who was in trou- ble.
    Suddenly he couldn’t remember what had prompted him to even consider pulling this sweet, young thing’s leg. The naiveté shimmering in those wide green, eyes resurrected in him a streak of chivalry that he thought had died long ago at the end of a whip.
    Carrie’s hair felt soft against his cheek, her subtle fragrance bewitched him, and a perfectly graphic sen- sual image flitted across his mind as he trailed the rope across her pale, slim wrists. Repeating his instructions, he couldn’t help but wonder just exactly what kind of a trap it was that he was setting.
    Carrie suspected that her heartbeat galloping at break- neck speed was a dead giveaway to the fact that she was a woman without a man in her life. Glad that he was unable to witness the crimson flush of her face, she tried her damnedest to block out the effect that Judson’s closeness was having upon her. When at last she was able to master the process of setting a snare herself, she stepped and surveyed her handiwork.
    “Simple task for an ex-Girl Scout!” she quipped, self-consciously making light of her racing pulse.
    Leaning against the side of the old schoolhouse, Judsondecreed with a definite sparkle in his eye, “Who’da thought a greenhorn could set such a fine jackalope snare?”
    Confused by a sudden rush of pleasure at the com- pliment, Carrie was startled by how warmly his words filled the hollow inside her. Perhaps she had been wrong about this man after all. Perhaps her first impression of him had been too hastily formed. Perhaps it was only the rigors of hard living that made him seem so distant and solitary. Perhaps she needed to have her head ex- amined.
    Feeling the need to put some distance between them, Carrie said with newfound assurance, “I’ll set a couple out a ways.”
    Picking up a length of rope, she stepped off into the high grass surrounding the playground. She had gone less than ten paces when a pair of brawny arms grabbed her