A Cowboy in Manhattan by Barbara Dunlop

occasional whinny punctuating the steady whirr of her bike wheel.
    “I’m not upset.” She reached for the plastic water bottle in the wire holder on the bike frame, popping the top and squirting some of the tepid liquid into her mouth.
    “Good to know.” He crossed his arms over his broad chest, leaning sideways against a rough wood post.
    Katrina snapped the cap back into place and slid the bottle back into its holder. She braced her hands on the handlebars and upped her speed.
    A few moments went by in silence. Lights flicked off in the far reaches of the barn, and doors banged shut behind ranch hands packing it in for the night.
    “Gone far?” asked Reed.
    “Fourteen miles or so, I think.” She swiped the back of her hand across her damp forehead. She was dressed in lightweight black tights and a baggy white tank top, but the air in the barn was still warm and close around her.
    He went silent again, gazing dispassionately at her while she rode.
    After about five minutes she cracked, straightening on the bike seat to look at him. “What are you doing?”
    “Waiting.”
    “For what?”
    “Mandy says you’re worried about your ankle.”
    “Mandy needs to stop discussing my private business with everybody in the valley.”
    “I already knew about your ankle.”
    “She didn’t know that.”
    “She does now.”
    Katrina stopped riding and huffed her frustration. “Are you going to get to your point?”
    “I already did. Your ankle.”
    “What about it?”
    He shifted away from the post, moving closer to her. “Will you let me look at it?”
    Though she’d stopped riding, she was still growing hotter. “Are you a doctor?”
    “No.”
    “A physiotherapist?”
    “Nope.”
    “Guy with an ankle fetish?”
    Reed cracked a grin. “No. But I’ve worked on a lot of horses with strained tendons.”
    She coughed out a laugh. “Good for you.”
    He braced a hand between hers on the handlebars. “I know how to make a herbal wrap that will increase circulation.”
    She crooked her head to look up at him. “Is this a joke? Did Mandy put you up to this?”
    “I’m completely serious.”
    “I’m not a horse.”
    His gaze flicked down for a split second. “In fact, you are not. But the principle’s the same.” He motioned for her to lift her foot.
    She ignored the gesture. “I thought you were mad at me.”
    “I am.”
    “So, why do you want to help?”
    “Because you need it.”
    “And because Mandy asked you?”
    “Mmm-hmm.”
    Katrina considered his expression seriously. “Were you ever in love with my sister?”
    “No.” He reached down and lifted her ankle, crouching and resting her leg across his denim-covered knee.
    She didn’t fight him. “Are you lying to me?”
    “No.”
    “So, there’s nothing between you and Mandy?”
    “She’s marrying my brother. That’s what’s between us.” He tugged at the bow and loosened the laces of Katrina’s sneaker.
    “I don’t even know how to interpret that.” Did he mean Caleb had come between him and Mandy?
    Reed gently removed Katrina’s shoe and set it on the worn, dusty floor. “There’s nothing to interpret.”
    “You’re being deliberately oblique.”
    Reed shook his head, slipping off her sock. “What makes you think I had a thing for Mandy?”
    “Because you’re doing her a favor. By helping me. What other reason would there—”
    His large warm hands wrapped around her ankle, and she jumped at the electric sensation.
    “It’s not Mandy.” He rotated her ankle. “Does this hurt?”
    Katrina sucked in a breath and tried to tug her foot out of his grasp.
    “Hold still.”
    “It hurts.”
    “Sorry.” His thumb pressed on the inside of her foot below her ankle bone. “This?”
    “Yes,” she hissed.
    He tried the opposite side of her foot and glanced up.
    She shook her head in an answer.
    “Point your toe?”
    She did.
    “Other way.”
    She flexed. “Ouch.”
    “Yeah,” he commiserated, moving back toward the