The Loner Rancher Waited for His Mail Order Bride — And a Woman Twice His Size Stepped Off the Wagon

Chapter 2

By the time they reached Mrs. Pruitt’s garden, the damage was done. Rose bushes three years in the earth lay trampled into mud. The border stones were scattered like children’s toys. And Gideon — two thousand pounds of muscle and bad temper — stood in the middle of the ruin, head lowered, pawing the ground with one enormous hoof.

Mrs. Pruitt stood on her porch, face the color of a boiled beet, shrieking accusations at anyone within earshot. Two neighbor men had already made undignified attempts and gone scrambling over her rail fence, and a third had arrived with a rope he seemed reluctant to actually use. Every man there knew what a charged bull could do. Every man there was keeping his distance.

“You can’t rope him from the front,” Mara said quietly, and Caleb realized she had appeared at his elbow without a sound. She wasn’t looking at him. She was watching Gideon the way you’d read a difficult page — slowly, carefully, line by line.

“He’s always been stubborn,” Caleb managed. “But never like this. I don’t know what got into him.”

The truth was worse than he could say out loud. He had been dreading this exact hour since the day he bought the animal. He didn’t have the weight to stop Gideon, didn’t have the reach, didn’t have the instinct. Every man in the valley knew it, and now they were all here to watch him fail at the one thing a rancher was supposed to be able to do.