Heartbreak Ranch Read Online Free Page A

sauntered toward him.
    â€œYou win. Lead on, O Mighty One.”
    His eyes slit. He didn’t know why it should continually surprise him that inside that luscious-looking mouth lurked the tongue of a baby viper. He strode toward the foaling barn, leaving her to catch up to him. Not that she tried, of course. She strolled along behind him at a hip-swinging pace set by some senseless god and entered the barn a good five minutes after him.
    By that time he was already deep in a discussion with Les, the hand in charge of the foals and yearlings, leaving Julianne to roam the place on her own.
    When he joined her again, she was holding a colt’s muzzle in her hands, petting the velvety softness and cooing to it in a lilting voice. “Oh, you’re a precious one, aren’t you? You’re a sweet thing, yes, you are. Who’s your daddy, hmm? I’ll bet it’s one of those mean old stallions who breed champions and get the better of Jed occasionally. Is that what you’re going to do, pretty boy? Are yougoing to get big and love the ladies and whip up on mean, old Jed?”
    â€œDon’t give him any ideas,” he said dryly. “His sire has the worst temper on the ranch. I’m hoping this one’s got his dam’s temperament.”
    She aimed an innocent look at him. “Isn’t it a coincidence that the males have the orneriest dispositions, in both the animal and human worlds?”
    He ignored the gibe and reached out to smooth a hand down the colt’s smooth brown neck. “This one’s not going to get a chance for much of a love life, I’m afraid. In another few months he’ll be a gelding.”
    â€œShh!” She covered the colt’s ears with her hands and fixed Jed with a reproachful look. “Don’t talk like that in front of the baby.”
    Her teasing tone lightened something inside him. He reached out and tugged at a strand of her bright gold hair. “A soft heart doesn’t go far on a working ranch, Jules. You know that.”
    She wrinkled her nose at him, much as she had when she was a kid. For a moment he was transported back to the time he’d first come to the ranch. Five years his junior, she’d been a precocious one. She’d had the run of the place and had been miserably spoiled by most of the adults on it. That is, with the exception of the one whose attention she’d most craved—her father’s.
    That had been another bond between them, one he’d never put into words. He hadn’t known his real father, and his adoptive one, Luther Templeton III, had never had much interest in a family. As a stepfather, Harley had treated Jed just as he did his own daughter, alternating between sporadic, careless indulgence and long periods of inattentiveness. The ranch had been the first solid thing in Jed’s life that he could hold on to, and at one time it hadrepresented the same for Julianne. He wondered how much it still did.
    â€œAnnie said you’d talked to Harley.”
    She nodded, giggling when the colt nuzzled her shirt pocket, unashamedly begging for treats. “It wasn’t much of a conversation. I reached his service, then he called me back from Las Vegas. Sounded like he’d run into some good luck. He had to rush out to continue his streak.”
    Jed reached down to a bag of oats propped next to the stall door and distracted the colt from Julianne’s chest with a handful. “He was in Reno when I spoke to him a couple weeks ago. He said he was going to speak to you.” Had been promising to for weeks, as a matter of fact. He should be used to broken promises from Harley, but he didn’t remember a time when one had bothered him as much as this one did.
    She lifted a shoulder. “You know Harley. I only had him on the phone two minutes before he had to run to the next card game.”
    â€œYeah,” Jed said grimly. “I know Harley.” Any other father