Page 3 of Wrangling a Wild Texan

“No, Uncle Reid,” Sophie jumped in. “Sunny was nowhere close to hitting me. She only skidded a little and I braked fast so I wouldn’t hit her.”

“A little?” He looked at the front of the car hugging the fence post before his attention returned to Sunny, his eyes glittering with suppressed anger.

Just like that, Sunny felt like she’d just jumped out of a plane at twenty thousand feet. She felt weightless, breathless, and . . . extremely turned on. All she could think about was Reid bending her over those muscular wrangler-encased thighs and giving her a much-deserved spanking.

“Does your car run?”

His question snapped Sunny out of her naughty-girl fantasy and made her realize that her engine had quit. She turned the key to restart it and there was a loud grinding noise like a forgotten spoon in a garbage disposal. She sent the grumpy cowboy a smile.

“I guess that would be a no.”

His lips pressed into a firm line. “Get in the truck. I’ll drive you to Corbin and Belle’s house. I’m assuming that’s where you were headed.”

“Yes, but you don’t need to drive me. I can walk. It’s not that far.”

He snorted. “I’m sure my boss would love it if I let his sister walk home in a rainstorm. Now grab your stuff and get in the truck. You too, Soph.”

Sunny had never let men tell her what to do—not even her two brothers. But before she could tell him to go to hell, he took off his rain slicker and held it out for Sophie. Sunny didn’t know if it was the sweet way he enfolded his niece in the coat or the way the rain turned his white T-shirt transparent that made her follow his orders.

Probably the T-shirt.

By the time he helped Sophie into his truck and sent the horse back to the stables, it was nothing more than wet tissue paper. When he walked over to her, holding his duster over both their heads as she got her suitcase out of the trunk, she couldn’t help staring like a spectator at a bodybuilding competition. With his arms raised, his biceps popped into orange-sized knots, his pectorals flexed into hard, nipple-topped slabs, and his stomach was a tempting washboard that begged to be strummed.

“Stop.”

The gruff command had Sunny’s gaze snapping up to Reid’s face. An angry and annoyed face. “Stop what?”

“You know what, Ms. Whitlock. That innocent act isn’t going to work with me. I know your type.”

“Really? Exactly what is my type?”

He started to say something, but then snapped his mouth shut and shook his head. “Never mind.” He handed her the duster and took her suitcase from her before turning for the truck. Unwilling to let him brush her off so easily, she hurried after him and grabbed his arm.

It was like grabbing on to a bolt of lightning. As soon as her fingers curved around his muscled forearm, an electric current raced through her, lighting up her entire body like a thousand-watt light bulb. She would have thought she was the only one who felt it if his breath hadn’t sucked in and his pupils hadn’t dilated. Before she could get over her reaction—and his—he jerked away.

“I think I need to make things perfectly clear, Ms. Whitlock. I’m not interested. Do you understand me? Not only because you’re my boss’s little sister and I don’t want to get fired, but also because you’re trouble. Trouble is the last thing I need right now. So stay away from me . . . and Sophie.” He turned and headed to his truck, carelessly tossing her suitcase into the bed.

Any other woman would have felt embarrassed. Or annoyed. Or angry. Sunny felt none of those things. As she stood there in the cold drizzle and watched him climb into the cab of his truck and slam the door hard, she only felt one thing.

Challenged.

And Sunshine Brook Whitlock had never been able to ignore a challenge in her life.

Chapter Two

Reid Mitchell’s plans for his life had never included being a parent to a belligerent teenager. He had never wanted kids. Kids were chaos in pint-sized bodies. Reid had never liked chaos. He liked things quiet and simple.

Which probably explained why he had never gotten along with his sister.

Bree was chaos with a capitalCand had caused their mama more than her fair share of grief. She had smoked and taken drugs and gotten kicked out of school. At seventeen, she’d run off with some loser and never looked back. Occasionally, he or his mama had gotten a call from her saying she’d broken up with another deadbeat and needed money for her and Sophie—the daughter of one of those deadbeats—to start over. But mostly she lived her life and let Reid live his. When Mama passed away, he’d boxed up things he thought Bree might like and sent them to Oklahoma City where she had been living at the time. She didn’t reply. No thank you. No go to hell. Nothing. He didn’t hear a peep out of her until she called to tell him she had terminal cancer.

First, he’d felt stunned, like someone had sucker punched him without any warning at all. Then he’d felt sad.Overwhelmingly sad. Finally, he’d felt angry. Angry that she hadn’t even said goodbye to him when she’d left home and yet here she was calling to ask if he’d take care of her kid. Didn’t she have a boyfriend? A close friend or neighbor? Anyone would make a better father than her loner brother who preferred horses and cows to people.

But it turned out that the last few years of her life she had been as much of a loner as he was. There had been no boyfriend. No friends. He was the only one she could ask. He thought about refusing, but while she had been the irresponsible daughter, he had been the responsible son—the son who kept his room spotless, did all his homework, and worked a job after school to help his single mama pay the bills. The one who called the landlord to fix the leak in the roof and mowed the weeds when they got too high. The one who bought groceries and learned how to cook healthy meals for their diabetic mama. The one who had been sitting in his truck outside the quarantined hospital when the doctor had called him to say she’d passed away from covid.

As much as he wanted to, he couldn’t ignore his sister’s plea.

So he’d quit his job as foreman for a ranch outside of Amarillo and headed to Wichita Falls where his sister and niece had been living. The money he’d put away as a down payment for his own ranch had quickly been used to pay his sister’s mounting bills.

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