The Rancher Takes A Bride (The Burnett Brides Book 1)

snake."
    "Believe me, the feeling is mutual. Snakebite is quick and fatal. Your kiss could be just as deadly."
    She raised her arms in disbelief, then dropped them dramatically. She started to laugh hysterically. "I've just admitted I'm attracted to you, and all you can say is my kiss is deadly?" She sighed, her breasts rising and falling. " Merde! You are a stubborn, ignorant man."
    For a moment he was stunned, as the impact of her words sank slowly into his dazed, angry mind. She had admitted she was attracted to him. She was drawn to him, just as he was drawn to her. Slowly his anger receded, to be replaced by that anticipatory feeling that came upon him whenever he was with Desirée, or whatever she was calling herself now. That feeling that something better was just a deep kiss away. That feeling he'd been running from since that roadhouse outside of Waco.
    God, yes, he wanted her too, but it was all wrong.
    The memory of her deception came racing back, and he reminded himself that she'd probably told any number of men she was attracted to them. Why should he think he was the first, though he wanted to believe her words were real? Part of him wanted to believe that she was attracted to him, but he couldn't. "How can I know your words are not just an attempt to seduce me into letting you go?"
    The expression on her face drooped like a wilting flower, and he watched as she clenched her fists. " Lourdeau schnock ."
    "Don't start talking that French talk to me," he demanded. "Speak English so I can understand."
    " Vache! " She turned and strolled off, leaving a stunned Travis watching her just as Isaiah returned from the barn.
    "What did she just say?" he asked Isaiah.
    Isaiah shrugged. "I don't know for certain, but I think she just called you some kind of animal."
    ***
    Rose had never been so despondent in all her life. Her normal cheerful disposition had been beaten down to near extinction. Only Isaiah's return the night before had lifted her spirits. Even then, they'd had precious little time alone until this afternoon.
    Sun rays glistened on the shimmering pond as Rose and Isaiah walked along the beaten path surrounding the water. It was their first chance since his return for a private moment out of range of listening ears.
    A warm breeze teased wisps of dark curls about her face. She brushed the tendrils back with her hand. "It seems like you've been gone for much longer than a couple of days. How was your father, Isaiah?"
    "He's getting old, Miss Rose. I was really hoping we could stay in this area a while longer so I could visit him again."
    "I know. Me too," she said wistfully. "We were doing well in Fort Worth. We could have earned enough money to reach New York."
    "Yep."
    But instead she was trapped on a ranch struggling with a growing sense of awareness of a man who thought she was a thief. One moment she wanted to shoot him and the next she wanted to kiss him. Her warring emotions battled within her, neither one maintaining the upper hand for long.
    "I don't think I can take Mr. Burnett's hospitality much longer, Isaiah. I would have tried leaving again, but I was hoping you'd find me." She squeezed his arm. "And you did."
    Since the trellis incident, she'd been watching the comings and goings on the ranch, looking for a better opportunity to escape.
    "Well, I had to do some serious searching," Isaiah said, his boots scuffing at a rock in the ground. "It gave me quite a scare to see you'd moved on without me."
    "Isaiah, I never would have left you." She placed her hand on his arm. "I didn't have any choice."
    A bird trilled a song in a nearby cottonwood tree, the noise oddly soothing.
    Isaiah chuckled. "Yeah, that's what the deputy told me."
    Rose kicked a rock and watched it roll, tumbling down into the pond. Isaiah's arrival last night had been a balm to her disturbed soul. Finally, she had someone on her side. Someone who knew who she was and, more importantly, what she wasn't. Someone to help her make Travis realize she wasn't a thief.
    "The marshal told me Mr. Burnett was holding you because he thought you had stolen his mother's wedding ring." Isaiah glanced at her, his dark eyes gazing at her with pity.
    "Yes. I don't even know what the band looks like." She paused and then turned to look at Isaiah. "He doesn't know me, but still he's assumed the worst about me."
    Isaiah stopped walking, reached down, and picked up a rock. With a gentle toss, he threw it out over the water and watched it skip