Emma wiped the sweat from her brow with the back of her gloved hand, her muscles aching from another grueling day mucking stalls and hauling feed sacks. At twenty-six, she’d taken the temporary stable hand position out of desperation and a need to escape the noise of her failed relationships. She hadn’t expected the isolation to feel so… alive.
The Double Bar Ranch stretched for thousands of acres, remote enough that the nearest town was an hour’s drive away. And then there was him. Colton Reed. The head rancher. Forty-two years old, built like the land itself, broad shoulders, thick arms corded with muscle from years of breaking horses and a sharp jawline.
He’d caught her staring on day one. She’d been forking hay into a stall when he rode up on his black stallion.
“New girl,” he’d gru
