The Maverick's Wedding Wager. Joanna Sims

Creek Falls was nice enough and the women sure were pretty. But, then his father dishonored him, and his brothers, by offering to pay a local matchmaker, Vivian Shuster, a million bucks to find brides for his sons. Knox felt humiliated and the wound was deeper because the source of that humiliation was his own father. More than any time in his life, Knox wanted to send his father a message: stop meddling in my life!

      In no time at all, Genevieve was finished with the third horse and ready for the last one. Perhaps it was the fact that their visit was about to be over—or perhaps it was because he had grown so comfortable with this woman. Either way, when Knox placed the last horse in the cross ties for Genevieve, he broached a subject with her that he had sworn he’d never broach with anyone other than family.

      “I suppose you’ve heard all about the million-dollar deal my dad made with Viv Shuster.” Knox had his arms crossed in front of his body and he watched Genevieve’s face carefully.

      She was about to kneel down and begin working, but his words must have caught her off guard. Genevieve looked up at him with what could only be read as embarrassment—not for her, but for him. Of course the pretty farrier had heard all about the million-dollar deal Max had made to marry off his six sons. Of course she had.

      * * *

      Genevieve had hoped that the subject of the Viv Shuster deal would never come up between Knox and her. Everyone in Rust Creek Falls had heard about Maximilian’s quest to marry off his six eligible bachelor sons. It was the talk of the town! Most of the townsfolk were rooting for Viv so she could keep her sagging wedding business afloat. And there was a good chance Viv could pull it off. There were a lot of single women in town who wanted in on the Crawford action. Because Knox had become a friend of sorts, Genevieve never wanted to bring up what might be a sore subject for him. After all, she knew too well what it was like to have an overbearing father determined to control the lives of his adult children.

      “I heard,” she said simply, not wanting to sugarcoat it. Knox didn’t seem like the type to want things sugarcoated for him. She took a moment to look directly into his intense, deep brown eyes so he would know that she was sincere when she said, “And I’m sorry.”

      His heavy brown brows lifted slightly at her words. “Thank you.”

      She nodded her head. Perhaps she was the first to say that to him. Instead of starting right away on the last horse, Genevieve opened up to Knox in a way she hadn’t before. “You know, I do understand how you feel. My dad’s been trying to marry me off for years. He thinks that my profession is unladylike.” She made quotation marks with her fingers when she said unladylike. “He thinks my expiration date for making babies is looming like an end-of-the-world scenario. As if that’s the only thing I’m good for.” She frowned at the thought. “I’ve gone out with every darn made-in-Montana cowboy within a fifty-mile radius—”

      “You haven’t gone out with me,” the rancher interjected.

      The way those words slipped past Knox’s lips, like a lover’s whisper full of promise of good things to come, made Genevieve’s stomach tighten in the most annoying way. She did not need to get involved with anyone in Rust Creek Falls. That was not the plan.

      Wanting to laugh off the suggestion in his words, she smiled. “Well, that’s because you are a made-in-Texas cowboy. That doesn’t count.”

      Knox took a step closer, his eyes pinned on her face in a way that had never happened before. This new line of conversation had seemed to open something up between them, and Genevieve wasn’t all too sure that she shouldn’t slam the lid shut real quick on what might turn out to be a giant Pandora’s box.

      “Well,” the rancher said, his voice lowered in a way that sent a tingle right down her spine. “You know what people say about things from Texas—”

      “I know, I know.” She cut him off playfully. “Everything is bigger in Texas.”

      “Now, that’s a dirty mind at work.” Knox smiled at her, showing his straight white teeth. “I was going to say better but if you want to say bigger, then I’m not going to object.”

      The banter seemed to break the odd tension between them and they both laughed. And that’s when she noticed that when Knox took a step toward her, she had mindlessly taken a step toward him. With a steadying hand on the neck of the horse patiently waiting in the cross ties, Genevieve said, still laughing, “Do you know that I even agreed to go out with your brother on a date, just to get my father off my back?”

      In the rancher’s eyes, there was a fleeting emotion that Genevieve could identify only as jealousy. It was brief, but she saw it.

      “Not that anything happened between us,” she was quick to add before she got to work on the final horse of the day. If she got lost in conversation with Knox, she would lose the time she had made up and then she would be late for her next client. “I knew that Logan had it bad for Sarah. As a matter of fact, I told him to quit being such a chicken on our date. It was just a one and done for me. I told Viv to take my name officially off the list and I told my dad I tried.”

      “So... Logan wasn’t your type?”

      Genevieve glanced up to see that same intense, focused, almost examining expression in Knox’s eyes.

      “No,” she said with an easy laugh. “And obviously I wasn’t his! He’s married to Sarah and everyone in town knows how much he loves being a father to baby Sophia.”

      Genevieve gently moved the horse’s hoof onto her stand so she could smooth out the rough edges left behind by her nippers. “My dad says I’m too picky, but is there really such a thing as being too picky when you’re looking for your soul mate? I mean, unless I meet that exact right guy, I’m not even all that sure that I want to get married and have kids. I have my business and my career to build. I’m happy. Why fix what ain’t broken, right? That’s why I’m living in the apartment above my parents’ garage—I’m saving money so I can move to California. There’s a lot of really exciting stuff happening with holistic approaches to horse care there and I want to be a part of it.”

      “So, you’re not even planning on hanging around Rust Creek Falls?”

      “Nope.”

      “That might just be perfect, then.”

      The cryptic tone Knox used to say those words made an alarm bell go off in her head, but she didn’t ask him about it. Some things, in her experience, were better left alone.

      Genevieve finished her work and unhooked the last horse from the cross ties, hooked the lead rope to its halter and handed the horse off to Knox.

      “You can tell your father that all the horses got a clean bill of health today. I can see these four again in four to six weeks.”

      Knox nodded rather absentmindedly. He led the horse back to its stall, and then he headed back to her, covering the distance quickly with his long-legged stride. There was a new determination in the way he walked, and there was a glint of mischief in his dark brown eyes that caught her attention and made her feel a little queasy in her stomach, like she had just gotten a mild case of food poisoning.

      Instead of handing her a check as was typical, Knox stood in front of her, his hat tilted back a bit so she could see his eyes, and asked her, “How would you like to get your dad off your back while you’re earning your way out of here?”

      “How would I like that?” She shook her head with a laugh. “Are you kidding me? I’d love to get Lionel Lawrence off my back.”

      “Then you and I are in the same boat. Because I would love to get Max off my back and out of my business.”

      Genevieve heard, and understood, the frustration in Knox’s voice. Having an overbearing, meddling parent as an adult could strain even the most solid of parent-child relationships.

      She shrugged. “I hear you, Knox, but so far, nothing I’ve tried has worked. If I could find a guy who would just be a no-strings-attached boyfriend for