The Cowboy’s Bride Collection: 9 Historical Romances Form on Old West Ranches

by Susan Page Davis, Vickie McDonough, Susanne Dietze, Nancy J. Farrier, Miralee Ferrell, Darlene Franklin, Davalynn Spencer, Becca Whitham

  Jonah’s London accent ripped through the dry air.

  “Good work, Sam.”

  Yes. She hated him.

  “I noticed a few spots we could reinforce on the fence, but all in all, I’m quite pleased.”

  Quite pleased? Jonah Sparks was bent on making her position as foreman of the Desert Pony Ranch miserable and unsuccessful. She boiled. No. No. She fumed. Or maybe it was both.

  CJ blew strands of hair off her cheek as she marched toward them. She took a deep breath to steady her emotions. Jonah Sparks wouldn’t know a strong fence from a weak fence. Didn’t he see that Sam hadn’t even used an extra brace at the fence posts? This was a corral they would use to break some of the wild mustangs later in the season. They needed a strong pen.

  “Sam, I need to speak with you.”

  The ranch hand blanched. He darted a glance at Jonah as if Jonah would step in and save him. Maybe he would. CJ narrowed her eyes and avoided Jonah’s own prairie-sage blues.

  “Celia Jo.”

  Her name rolled off Jonah’s tongue like an English serenade. She ignored him and instead crossed her arms over her chest and drilled Sam with a stern glare.

  “Pack your things, Sam.”

  “But—”

  “No. You chose not to fix the fence properly and you know it.”

  Sam lifted his chin, his mustache dropping below it like a dirty dust rag. “Ain’t true.”

  “You know I’m right. It’s a sorry sight, and there’s no pride in it. Pack up and head out.”

  Jonah stepped between them. Only he faced her, not the lazy Sam, who now sneered at her behind Jonah’s back. Sam’s eyelid dropped in a self-satisfied wink. CJ sucked in an annoyed breath.

  “There’s a pile of rock that needs to be hauled from behind the shed to the rock pile for fencing. Please see to it.” Jonah’s request to Sam was spoken over his shoulder while his gaze never left CJ’s face. It wasn’t the New Mexican sun that fried her cheeks as warmth infused her skin. The outright gall of the man.

  Sam spun on his heel. His cocky slouch matched his stride.

  “How dare you try to insert yourself over my authority!” Jonah was livid. His eyes snapped. “I already told you Sam was not to be let go.”

  CJ had no intention of being trifled with. “And you prefer to see your beloved horses push through a weak boundary? Even once they’re broke, they could push through that corral with little effort if they wanted to.”

  Jonah’s square jaw clenched. “I’m not a ninny.”

  “Neither am I.”

  “I beg to differ.” Jonah rested his hands on his hips.

  CJ couldn’t help but notice the breadth of his palms. His one hand would swallow both of hers whole. “I can’t have cowboys who won’t do their work.”

  “And I can’t have a foreman who won’t listen.”

  CJ blinked.

  Jonah’s upper lip twitched.

  He had a chiseled mouth, with the shadow of dark whiskers that outlined carved cheekbones and strong features.

  CJ corralled her thoughts. She knew Jonah was only asserting his power as owner to make her quit. Soothing his guilty conscience. She could see right through his staid English exterior. He owed it to Charlie. The old man who’d always painted such a different picture of Jonah Sparks. Where was the man Charlie told her stories of? The man who’d been a defiant future English aristocrat and had transformed into a godly man with strong ethics? Well, no matter how Jonah insulted and undermined her, no matter what he did to sabotage her efforts, she would win.

  CJ couldn’t help the tempestuous smile that teased her lips. The same thrill that ran through her blood when she was thirteen and stole her brother’s horse to race it across the desert now surged through her. Jonah was daring her. Daring her to succeed. Well then. CJ had always possessed a wild streak of trouble, and if her own brothers couldn’t tame it, she dared Jonah to give it a go.

  Chapter 2

  He knew his mother would say his behavior was abhorrent. Baiting CJ Matheson, setting her up to fail, and lying to a ranch hand that his work was above par? Shameful. Jonah flicked his finger and sent a crumb skittering across the tabletop. Breakfast of eggs and salsa teased his nose, but the bite of toast he just swallowed settled in his stomach with a thud.

  Sam. He should have let CJ fire him. Jonah knew with one look at the fence that it was a haphazard job. Not as awful as CJ made it out to be. It would still hold the mustangs. But truthfully, the crazy ranch hand was a scoundrel. Or as Charlie would’ve said, a deadbeat.

  Charlie. The old man’s voice hadn’t left Jonah’s head since that summer when ranching embedded its glory in his soul. Charlie would be ashamed of him, too. But Charlie should have known better than to send Jonah a woman as foreman.

  And what in blazes was that impish twinkle that entered her eyes yesterday afternoon? That lopsided smile and mischievous tip of her nose? In a different environment, he would make a wager that CJ Matheson was up to something. In a different environment, he’d allow his imagination to run rampant and be tempted to kiss every freckle that dotted her nose.

  “Your eggs no good?”

  The Spanish lilt of his housekeeper, Bonita, yanked his attention back to his food.

  “Yes. They’re fine, thank you.”

  “You no hungry this morning, señor?”

  She hovered, her brown eyes motherly, dark hair pulled into a bun, and her round frame evidence of her good cooking. Bonita was married to Martin, who cooked for the ranch hands. While Martin was a solid master of food, Bonita made the culinary art something to savor.

  Jonah rewarded the older woman with a smile.

  “It’s marvelous. I just—”

  “Good morning!”

  The sing-songy voice shattered his peace. Jonah choked on the bite of toast he had just bitten off.

  “Bloody—!” He bit back an oath that would have shamed not only his mother, but himself.

  CJ floated into the dining room, her curves covered in a dress that no foreman of his should be swathed in. The light gray whatever-material-it-was had a wide black ribbon around her waist, froufrou ruffles three quarters of the way down her arms, and puffed sleeves that were big enough to hide a colt.

  “Bonita agreed to teach me to cook.” CJ refilled his coffee without asking. It slopped over the side of his cup.

  Jonah smelled lemongrass and brew as dark as cowboy coffee. He noticed the grounds floating in his cup. God help him. Where was good English tea when he most needed it?

  “Cook? You’re the foreman!” The words croaked through his voice. He grabbed for his coffee and took a gulp. He needed to wash down his fury, regardless of the condition of the brew.

  “I am?” CJ’s eyelashes batted in exaggerated fashion and that mischievous grin toyed with her lips. She knew what she was doing. Ohhhhhh, she knew. “But you made it very clear yesterday that you made the decisions. I figured it’d be best if I made myself useful some other way. Like scramblin’ eggs.”

  CJ snatched his fork and speared the middle of the egg on his plate. It ran all over and into his second piece of toast. She leaned down and whispered in his ear, sarcasm dripping as thick as the yellow egg. “Aw, shucks. The yolk broke.”

  “She makes good eggs, si?” Bonita beamed with pride, as if she’d found the long lost daughter she and Martin never had.

  CJ graced the woman with a genuine smile.

  Jonah shoved his coffee away and finished the job of emptying it on the table.

  Bonita clucked and whipped a dish towel from where it hung over her shoulder.

  Jonah’s chair scraped backward as he stood.

  CJ stared up at him. She blinked. Innocent like a little prairie dog, but savvy and poisonous as a rattler.

  “I’m not paying you to learn how to cook.” Jonah gritted the words between his teeth. They hurt with the pressure of biting down so hard.

  CJ tipped her head. “No? What are you paying me for? To look pretty?”

>   “Of course not.”

  CJ’s eyes snapped, and her coquettish act disappeared as quickly as it had come. She was playing him, like a gambler in a poker game. Toying with his head and his senses.

  “Then let me do my job.” She crossed her arms over her chest.

  Jonah had nothing to say.

  “Yes? I may? Why thank you, Mr. Sparks.” CJ untied the apron from around her waist, balled it up, and slapped it on the table. “And the next time you undermine my work on this ranch, expect burnt biscuits and gravy.”

  He couldn’t help it. Jonah’s jaw dropped at her audacity. Her cheeky threat. The little imp had no more sugar in her than his afternoon tea. Outright defiance. Sheer arrogance. Complete and utter lack of respect for authority.

  “Ahh, such spirit!” Bonita gathered the apron from the table along with the coffee-stained dish towel, but a twinkle winked from her eye.

  Yes. CJ had spirit, Jonah admitted. That spirit was going to get her into far more trouble than she’d bargained for.

  Chapter 3

  A wolf whistle pierced the air from the direction of the silhouette in the doorway of the barn.

  “Oh stuff it, Kip.” CJ breezed past the one ranch hand who gave her respect. But he also assumed the right to tease, and that could become a problem.

  His smile was broad, lazy, and handsome. “Wasn’t expectin’ you to come to work this mornin’ all dandified.”

  CJ cleared her throat. Why was it a woman couldn’t dress like a lady and still get the respect due a man? She was either fighting for her place as foreman or fighting not to become a porcelain doll someone placed on the mantel. “God gives special skills to special people,” Charlie had always told her. “Ain’t no reason yours can’t be the same as mine. Lord knows, we both burn our toast as equals. Why can’t one shoe a horse as good as the other?”

  Kip dogged her heels. “What’s the occasion?”

  “I made eggs and toast.” He might as well know the truth.

  “Eggs and toast?”

  “Never mind.” CJ wasn’t sure her point had been made to Jonah, let alone trying to re-explain it to an overeager Kip. “How’s Remmy?”

  Remmy. Jonah’s special-order horse. The Appaloosa he’d purchased and had transported to the ranch. The pony was from the breed in the Northwest the Nez Percé tribes had ridden and the white man had almost wiped out.

  Jonah had good taste in a strong, hardy horse, she had to admit. If he could get an Appaloosa stud and breed Remmy, he could have the edge on a special breed of horse not prominently seen in New Mexico territory. The Appaloosa was a breed that would fit into the harsh desert and the gritty days very well. Maybe. But until Remmy’s leg healed up, she was just going to be a horse in a stall.

  CJ couldn’t help but smile when Remmy nuzzled her shoulder. “Hey, girl.” She ran her hand up the broad, spotted forehead. The white hair dotted with black spots and brown smudges tickled her fingers.

  “Her leg is still swollen.” Kip leaned against the stall and draped his arm over the rail.

  CJ moved her hands down the horse’s shoulder and down the front leg to the knee. Remmy lifted her hoof, and CJ noted the wrap around her cannon where the tendon was swollen.

  “It’s gone down, though.”

  “I was thinkin’ she might be ready for a light walk.” Kip shifted, his boots sending dust particles into the air.

  CJ released Remmy’s leg and nodded. “Yes. But I’d like to do that. Mr. Sparks will want the best of care, and I’d rather be the one to take any repercussions should something go wrong.”

  Kip nodded in agreement. How nice to have some respect. CJ rewarded him with a smile.

  “Just let me change out of this getup so I can do some real work.”

  Kip smirked. “Mighty fine with me if you don’t.”

  CJ punched his arm as she neared him. “Show some respect.”

  “That’s all I ever show you, CJ.”

  His words echoed in her mind as she exited the horse barn. Kip was dangerous ground, and she was walking a fine line between aching for comradeship and something flirtatious. The latter wouldn’t be wise. Not in her role as foreman, and certainly not with Jonah’s already dubious outlook on her career. The last thing she needed was to be caught in any semblance of a dalliance with Kip. It’d be exactly what Jonah was looking for. The excuse to terminate her and send her packing.

  CJ hurried to her one-room adobe. She was lucky. Most foremen roomed in the bunkhouse, but that was obviously not something that could happen in her situation. And on her arrival, Jonah made it very clear she was not accepted in the main house for other obvious reasons. Fortunately, the old clay adobe from the original ranch still stood. Messy and dusty, it nevertheless worked for all intents and purposes.

  She crossed the threshold, her toe scuffing the dirt floor. Her eyes caught a cactus in a clay flowerpot on her dilapidated dresser. She loved cactus, and every time she saw that one, she was reminded of her brothers. They did care about her. They truly did. When she told them she was moving north to take a position as a foreman, they all nearly lost their dinner. But when she opened her trunk to find a carefully potted cactus, worse for the wear from travels, CJ was quick to resoil it and rest it in full prominence on her dresser. Her brothers might not believe in her, but they loved her. She must remind herself of that fact. It was good to know one was loved.

  CJ’s throat clogged with emotion. She was so close to succeeding, but she was also so close to failing. If she let him, Jonah Sparks would be the death of her dreams. She couldn’t allow that. Never. CJ ran her finger over a stiff spike on the cactus. Jonah was rigid, unyielding, and prickly. He was everything she never wanted to be as a boss. She unbuttoned the ruffled dress and palmed her neck, her skin, soft with her femininity. But Jonah was also much of what she had dreamed of in a man. Handsome, strong, able to corral her into a corner. No man before could ever do that. Put her in her place. Part of her hated him for it; part of her appreciated it. His blue eyes were—grand. But no.

  She finished skittering out of her dress and threw it in the corner. Today wasn’t a day to be a lady, and not tomorrow either. She was first a foreman. Remmy needed to be walked. Hands needed instruction. Frivolous dreams of romance? Those were the stuff of dime novels. And she had never read one… not that she would admit it if she had.

  CJ let Remmy limp behind her. The horse had been stalled for over a month since Jonah rode her into the ground. Crazy man. Although, CJ had to admit, it could’ve happened to any rider. That Remmy had bowed her tendon on the uneven desert floor wasn’t necessarily an uncommon injury. It was just another something to dislike Jonah for.

  Sam glowered at her from the fence post. So maybe she hadn’t been able to fire him, but she sure as shootin’ was going to have him stabilize the corral. They’d be riding out in the morning to round up the herd of mustang they’d been keeping an eye on in the south canyon. They’d leave the stallion and a few mares, but the rest they’d bring in. With spring in full swing, it was time to prepare for the days when they could start bronc-busting and getting them ready to sell. Good stock. Solid. Mustangs brought in good money, and CJ was bound and determined that this lot would bring in more than Jonah Sparks had ever seen before.

  She caught sight of Kip coming her way and paused. His lanky form and bowed legs shouted that he was a cowboy. His hat slouched over his forehead. He gave Sam a censuring look. Interesting. So he didn’t like Sam either?

  Propping a boot on the lower rail, Kip leaned against the fence.

  “Remmy looks good.”

  “She’s slow and out of shape.”

  “That’s to be expected.”

  CJ curled her fingers through Remmy’s dark mane. The horse responded and nudged her shoulder.

  “Say.” Kip cast a hesitant look over his shoulder. “Wanted to ask if you knew ’bout Mr. Sparks sendin’ a couple o’ guys out to the canyon to check on the trap-and-catch corral?”

  “What?”
CJ stiffened. They’d already done that, and now it was time to leave it alone. Mustangs were as wily as coyote when it came to traps. If they had any inclination they’d be rounded up or that man had been in the area, they’d spook. “What is he thinking?”

  Kip shrugged. “Don’t know. Guess this mornin’ after breakfast he sent ’em out. Said somethin’ ’bout makin’ sure the poles were secured.”

  “Because of Sam?” CJ skewered the ranch hand with a glare. He had the decency not to meet her gaze.

  “Wasn’t only Sam that worked on the trap. Those corrals were inspected by me already, and I’d put my brand on it.”

  “Here.” CJ handed Remmy’s lead to Kip. He took it with a question on his face. “I need to have a word with Mr. Sparks.”

  “Now, don’t make me out to be a tattletale.” Kip’s words drained as Jonah himself strode into view.

  Jonah looked meaner than the stallion that ran the herd of mustangs. CJ gripped the fence and noticed Sam spit into the dirt and shift out of view.

  “What are you trying to do, Roadrunner?” Jonah’s nickname even made Remmy snort and toss her head.

  “Roadrunner?” Kip questioned under his breath. CJ silenced him with a glower.

  “I should say the same for you.” Her hands found their comfort spot on her hips. She was ready and hankering for a good fight. It’d already been a few hours since the last one.

  “Why is Remmy out of her stall? You know she’s supposed to rest that leg?”

  Was the man that dumb? CJ blew out an exasperated breath and gripped the fence. “It’s been four weeks. She needs to get out and start walking on it. To build up strength. I’m not riding her.”

  “She’s mine.” Jonah came to a halt just on the opposite side of the corral. His hands tightened around the pole on either side of hers.

  “And you injured her.” CJ watched a flicker of something spark in Jonah’s eyes.

  It was a standoff.

  Kip let loose a quiet whistle and a muttered, “Well, howdy.” He tied Remmy’s lead to the post and shuffled away.