Daddy Wore Spurs (Mills & Boon Cherish) (Men of the West, Book 32) by Stella Bagwell

guest,” she reasoned. “I wouldn’t feel right doing any less.”
    “But you live here alone.”
    She frowned. “What’s that got to do with it?”
    “I wouldn’t want to make you feel uncomfortable.”
    Heat rushed to her cheeks. “I trust you to be a gentleman. And you look like a strong guy—you can help me with the barn chores.”
    The broad smile he gave her was like a dazzling ray of sunshine. It warmed Mariah as nothing had in a long time.
    “You just got yourself a ranch hand and a houseguest. Thank you, Mariah.”
    She inclined her head in agreement. “If you’d like to fetch your things, I’ll show you where to put them.”
    “I’ll be right back,” he promised.
    Once he was gone from the room, Mariah leaned weakly against the cabinet and wondered if she just made the biggest mistake of her life. Opening her home to Finn wasn’t going to make him change his mind about taking Harry.
    Oh, come on, Mariah. Inviting him to stay here on the ranch had nothing to do with Harry. You want him around because looking at him is a constant thrill. Hearing his voice shivers over your senses like sweet, slow music. And touching him made your whole body ache for more.
    Disgusted with the mocking voice in her head, Mariah left the kitchen and hurried toward the block of bedrooms located at the back of the house. As she collected clean linen for Finn’s bed, she assured herself that she wasn’t about to be charmed by the Nevada horseman. She had more important and pressing issues in her life to deal with. Like finding out whether Finn actually was Harry’s father.
    * * *
    Later that evening, Finn stood in the middle of the ranch yard, surveying the barns and surrounding landscape. From what he could see from his limited view, the ranch was a beautiful property. Run-down in places, but still very usable.
    Not far to the east of the barns and corrals, forest-covered mountains formed a towering green wall. To the west, the land swept away to an open valley floor dotted with a mixture of hardwoods and evergreens. Some twenty to thirty miles beyond the valley, tall blue mountains etched a ragged horizon against the sky. Stallion Canyon was a much greener land than that of the Horn, and the beauty of it made Finn long to straddle a horse and explore the foothills and meandering streams.
    He wondered if Mariah ever had the urge to ride over the ranch, or had the financial difficulties she’d been under robbed all pleasures she’d taken from the place?
    Damn it, he wished he could quit thinking about the woman. Quit wondering why she’d invited him to stay here on Stallion Canyon. Especially when his presence only seemed to upset her.
    You didn’t have to accept her invitation, Finn. You could have told her a quick “no thank you.” Instead, you couldn’t accept fast enough. So you could be near Harry, you told yourself. Bull. Admit it, you want to be near Mariah, too.
    Fighting away the condemning voice in his head, he walked over to a long shed row running the length of a large red barn. A black stallion was hanging his head over a stall gate, and Finn was instantly drawn to the horse.
    “Hey there, handsome guy,” he greeted the animal. “I’ll bet you’d like it if I got you out of there, wouldn’t you?”
    The horse nudged his nose against Finn’s hand and he obliged the animal by gently stroking his face. After a moment, Finn moved his hand on down the strong, arched neck. There, beneath the long curtain of black mane, he found the alpha angles of a BLM freeze brand, which was made by freezing a copper iron with liquid nitrogen before pressing it to the animal’s hide. The process turned the hair on the horse white, rather than burning it off. The white symbols the BLM used could be translated to reveal what state the horse had originally come from, its age, and its own individual code number.
    The sight of the markings against the horse’s black coat tugged at something deep within Finn. The