The Bridal Path: Sara Read Online Free

hoped the flat, unequivocal statement left absolutely no room for negotiation.
    He regarded her curiously. “Where did you come up with such a screwball idea?” he asked, genuinely puzzled by the out-of-the-blue proposition. Women had been making outrageous and indecent offers to him since the day he won his first rodeo title, but not one of them had ever suggested trying to outride him on the back of a mean old bull.
    Of course, Sara Wilde wasn’t like most other women. He’d known that the moment he’d set eyes on her. She’d been barely seventeen back then and she’d had audacity to spare. To Jake’s private amusement, not a single one of Trent Wilde’s attempts to tame her had had any effect. Her sweet, ladylike mother had been totally flummoxed by her out-of-control daughter.
    At one point, Trent had threatened to send Sara off to some fancy finishing school where she’d learn manners and social graces. Sara had responded by stealing a horse and hiding out in the wilderness for an entire weekend on her own. Trent had been so relieved when she’d sauntered back into the house unharmed that he’d dropped the notion of sending her away.
    When she’d reluctantly gone off to a nice sedate college, Trent had breathed a sigh of relief. He’d evidently figured a few years in the world of academia would accomplish what he hadn’t been able to. At the very least he’d been counting on her to make a good match and become some other man’s headache. His bewildered expression when she’d returned home, unchanged and unmarried, had kept Jake entertained for days.
    Jake understood that kind of grit and determination better than most. He had a willful streak of his own that was a mile wide. It had served him well so far. He won most arguments, whether he started them or not.
    But then again, like Trent, he’d never butted heads with anyone quite like Sara before. Even now, she was trying to stare him down, undaunted by his flat refusals.
    “I want Three-Stars,” she said bluntly. “So do you. There’s only one way I can see to settle it. If I stay on that bull longer than you, then the ranch is mine. You back off and tell Daddy you have other plans for the rest of your life. Go steal somebody else’s land out from under them.”
    “Have you mentioned to your daddy how badly you want the ranch?” he asked.
    “Every weekday and twice on Sundays since I hit my teens,” she responded with a shrug of resignation. “Daddy doesn’t listen to anything that doesn’t suit him. You might have noticed that about him.”
    He had. Trent had a mind of his own and very little interfered with his decisions once they were made. Jake had learned to jump into his boss’s thinking process early, when he still had half a chance to sway him. Sara clearly had waited too late, though it seemed likely that Trent had reached this particular decision long before Jake’s arrival. Chances were he’d reached it the minute he’d realized he was never going to have a son to whom he could leave his beloved ranch.
    Outnumbered by the unexpected number of women in his life, Trent had always viewed Jake as a surrogate son who could help to even the odds in his out-of-balance household.
    “Have you told him the lengths to which you’re willing to go to keep Three-Stars?” Jake asked.
    She shrugged, her expression as resigned as her tone. “It wouldn’t make any difference. I figure it’s between you and me now.”
    Jake wasn’t willing to let her break her neck
and
lose the ranch. There had to be another way to get her to back off, especially since he had no intention of giving up the land he’d been intent on buying since the day he first set foot on it.
    Three-Stars meant more to him than it possibly could to the daughter of Trent Wilde. She’d had a lifetime of privilege. He’d been born to a shiftless father and a drunken mother. Success on the rodeo circuit had given him money and fame, but not the one thing he truly