Desire Me More (26 page)

At the front door, I turn around and begin backing onto the porch. “What favor?”

“If he hurts you again, use those boots to get revenge where it counts.”

 

An Excerpt from

A Seven Brides for Seven Cowboys Novel

by Lizbeth Selvig

When Harper Lee Crockett returns home to Paradise Ranch, Wyoming, the last thing she expects is to fall head-over-heels in lust for Cole, childhood neighbor and her older sister's long-time boyfriend. The spirited and artistic Crockett sister has finally learned to resist her craziest impulses, but this latest trip home and Cole's rough and tough appeal might be too much for her fading self-control.

 

T
hank God for the chickens.
They
knew how to liven up a funeral.

Harper Crockett crouched against the rain-soaked wall of her father's extravagant chicken coop and laughed until she cried. This time, however, the tears weren't for the man who'd built the Henhouse Hilton—as she and her sisters had christened the porch-fronted coop that rivaled most human homes—they were for the eight multi-colored, escaped fowl that careened around the yard like over-caffeinated bees.

The very idea of a chicken stampede on one of Wyoming's largest cattle ranches was enough to ease her sorrow, even today.

She glanced toward the back porch of her parent's huge log home several hundred yards away to make sure she was still alone, and she wiped the tears and the rain from her eyes. “I know you probably aren't liking this, Dad,” she said, aiming her words at the sopping chickens. “Chaos instead of order.”

Chaos had never been acceptable to Samuel Crockett.

A
bock-bocking
Welsummer rooster, gorgeous with its burnt orange and blue body and iridescent green tail, powered past, close enough for an ambush. Harper sprang from her position and nabbed the affronted bird around its thick, shiny body. “Gotcha,” she said as its feathers soaked her sweater. “Back to the pen for you.”

The rest of the chickens squawked in alarm at the apprehension and arrest of one of their own. They scattered again scolding and flapping.

Yeah, she thought as she deposited the rooster back in the chicken yard, her father had no choice now but to glower at the bedlam from heaven. He was the one who'd left the darn birds behind.

As the hens fussed, Harper assessed the little flock made up of her father's favorite breeds—all chosen for their easy-going temperaments: friendly, buff-colored cochins; smart, docile, black and white Plymouth rocks; and sweet, shy black Australorps. Oh, what freedom and gang mentality could do—they'd turned into a band of egg-laying gangsters helping each other escape the law.

And despite there being seven chickens still left to corral, Harper reveled in sharing their attempted run for freedom with nobody. She brushed ineffectually at the mud on her soggy blue and brown broom skirt—hippie clothing, in the words of her sisters—and the stains on her favorite, crocheted summer sweater. It would have been much smarter to run back to the house and recruit help. Any number of kids bored with funereal reminiscing would have gladly volunteered. Her sisters—Joely and the triplets, if not Amelia—might have as well. The wrangling would have been done in minutes.

Something about facing this alone, however, fed her need to dredge any good memories she could from the day. She'd chased an awful lot of chickens throughout her youth. The memories served, and she didn't want to share them.

Another lucky grab garnered her a little Australorp who was returned, protesting, to the yard. Glancing around once more to check the empty, rainy yard, Harper squatted back under the eaves of the pretty, yellow chicken mansion and let the half dozen chickens settle. These were not her mother's birds. These were her father's “girls”—creatures who'd sometimes received more warmth than the human females he'd raised.

Good memories tried to flee in the wake of her petty thoughts, and she grabbed them back. Of course her father had loved his daughters. He'd just never been good at showing it. There'd been plenty of good times.

Rain pittered in a slow, steady rhythm over the lawn and against the coop's gingerbread scrollwork. It pattered into the genuine, petunia-filled, window boxes on their actual multi-paned windows. Inside, the chickens enjoyed oak-trimmed nesting boxes, two flights of ladders, and chicken-themed artwork. Behind their over-the-top manse stretched half an acre of safely-fenced running yard trimmed with white picket fencing. Why the idiot birds were shunning such luxury to go AWOL out here in the rain was beyond Harper—even if they had found the gate improperly latched.

Wiping rain from her face again, she concentrated like a cat stalking canaries and made three more successful lunges. Chicken wrangling was rarely about mad chasing and much more about patience. She smiled evilly at the remaining three criminals who now eyed her with concern.

“Give yourselves up, you dirty birds,” she called. “Your day on the lam is finished.”

She swooped toward a fluffy Cochin, a chicken breed normally known for its lazy friendliness, and the fat creature shocked her by feinting and then dodging. For the first time in this hunt, Harper missed her chicken. A resulting belly-flop onto the grass forced a startled grunt from her throat, and she slid four inches through a puddle. Before she could let loose the mild curse that bubbled up to her tongue, the mortifying sound of clapping echoed through the rain.

“I definitely give that a nine-point-five.”

A hot flash of awareness blazed through her stomach, leaving behind unwanted flutters. She closed her eyes, fighting back embarrassment, and she hadn't yet found her voice when a large, sinewy male hand appeared in front of her, accompanied by rich, baritone laughter. She groaned and reached for his fingers.

“Hello, Cole,” she said, resignation forcing her vocal chords to work as she let him help her gently but unceremoniously to her feet.

Cole Wainwright stood before her, the knot of his tie pulled three inches down his white shirt front, the two buttons above it spread open. That left the tanned, corded skin of his neck at Harper's eye level, and she swallowed. His brown-black hair was spiked and mussed, as if he'd just awoken, and his eyes sparkled in the rain like blue diamonds. She took a step back.

“Hullo, you,” he replied.