ISBN: 9780373753222

The big black horse skidded to a stop, rose high on its rear legs and dumped its rider headfirst onto the arena ground. He landed with a dense thud and a loud "Oomph." "Daddy!" Terrifie… More...

The big black horse skidded to a stop, rose high on its rear legs and dumped its rider headfirst onto the arena ground. He landed with a dense thud and a loud "Oomph." "Daddy!" Terrified, Maryanne Devonshire flew toward the open gate, silently cursing her Gucci heels, which sank like lead weights into the soft dirt. Frustrated, she kicked off the shoes and ran barefoot the rest of the way. She reached her father just as he was pushing himself to a sitting position with the help of a tall, lanky cowboy. "You're not dead," she blurted. "Not yet." Gil Devonshire dusted off his pant legs and stood with a grunt. "I don't think dead people hurt this much." "Is anything broken?" She inspected him closely, touching his arms and shoulders. Not that she had the first clue what fractured bones looked or felt like. "Just my pride." He rubbed the back of his neck and his left side. "But only in one or two places." The horse, the devil incarnate as far as Maryanne was concerned, stood nearby, quietly chewing on the metal thingie in its mouth. A bit, right? And the leather straps attached to it were calledreins. Yes. Three days at Cowboy College, and she'd learned two whole new vocabulary words. Maybe by next week she wouldn't feel like everyone was speaking a foreign language. Maybe by next week her father would come to his senses, and they could leave this place. He had no business whatsoever tie-down roping, a rodeo sport dominated by men decades younger than him. And with good reason. Rodeoing was intended for individuals with youth, not those trying to recapture their lost youth. "Daddy, you have to quit this nonsense before you really do kill yourself." "Thanks for the vote of confidence, Cookie." She sighed. Asking her father not to use her childhood nickname did no good. He'd only apologize, then turn right around and use it again. Her mother, on the other hand, had always called her Maryanne. Except once three years agoon the day she died. Her last words to Maryanne's father had been, "Take care of Cookie." Funny, it had turned out to be the other way around. Mary-anne was always taking care of her father. Like now. "I think you should have a doctor check your neck. You could have whiplash." He laughed. "I was thrown by a horse, not rear-ended by a car." A pair of cowboys at the other end of the arena herded the loose calf her father had been attempting to rope into a pen with other calves. Flapping their arms, waving their hats and shouting, the cowboys reminded Maryanne of squawking hens. Probably not the image they were trying to convey. "Go on, walk it off." The lanky cowboy clapped Maryanne's father good-naturedly on the back. "You'll be fine." Walk it off? What kind of insane advice was that? Did he not realize her father was pushing sixty-three? Not to mention his high-blood pressure, high cholesterol and increasingly frequent gout attacks. She turned to stare down the cowboy and give h Fiction Fiction eBook, Harlequin<