Sweet and Wild - Carmen Jenner Page 0,30

like to not ride for twelve years straight, but I’m betting she’s feeling every inch of the ground she covered on that horse today.

“You know I can do that for you, if you wanna head on up to the house?” I offer.

She turns and glares at me with her brow arched. Oh, shit. That’s not a happy face. “I’m just fine where I am.”

“Still as goddamn stubborn as ever, huh?” I say and finish currying Knievel. I send him into his stable with a light smack on the ass that I wish I could deliver to Lemon instead.

She practically snarls at me and I throw my hands up in the air and walk away before I can say something I’ll regret.

Outside, West offers me a cold beer. And I accept gratefully and take the fourth armchair beside Cash, falling into it harder than a two-hundred-pound cowboy probably should.

“Rough day?” West asks, raising his beer to me.

“No thanks to you, yeah.”

“I gotta say, I’m amazed she didn’t quit.”

“Well, if there’s anything I know about Lemon Winchester, it’s that she’s twice as stubborn as the number of brothers she has.”

West nods and takes another pull from his beer. “She make you do everything? Maybe we should be paying you for two days’ work?”

“I wouldn’t say no to the extra cash, but I meant it when I said she hasn’t gotten any less Winchester in the time she’s been gone. She wouldn’t let me do anything alone.”

“Not even jack it?”

“Don’t be an ass,” I snap at Wade, and Lemon uses that opportunity to exit the barn. She takes one look at the beer in my hand, walks over to me—though I can see the pain in her face with every step she takes—and she snatches the bottle from me.

“Hey,” I protest, but she just downs the rest of the beer in one go, and passes back an empty bottle.

“Thanks, I needed that.”

The boys laugh.

“Winchester wild,” Wyatt crows.

“Yeehaw!” Whoops and whistles go up as Wade dances about and pretends to spank an imaginary pony.

Lemon shakes her head and turns toward the house.

“Come on, sis?” Wyatt calls. “You don’t wanna stay for a beer?”

“Nope. I’m good.”

West chuckles. “I’m surprised you lasted so long.”

“Anything you can do.” She throws over her shoulder, and ambles away. All six of us burst out laughing because Lemon is walking bowlegged all the way to the ranch house.

“Jesus.” Cash tilts his beer in her direction. “Are we sure she’s not walking funny because she was riding more than a horse out in that field?”

All eyes turn to me, glaring, suspicious, and accusatory. I roll my eyes and sigh heavily. Leaning back in my seat, I place my hat over my face and close my eyes. “Not even if she begged me.”

“Right,” West says gruffly, and the others offer up their opinions that I don’t even have the energy to debate.

I may not like spending time with her, I may not trust the woman anymore, and I may even just hate her a little because seeing her after all these years lets me know I’m never getting over her. But I know one thing for certain—I’m never betting against Lemon Emersyn Winchester again either. Because she never loses. Not when she’s backed in a corner, not when it comes to a battle of wills, and not when it comes to my heart.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Lemon

The bell above the door jingles as I enter and every set of eyes in the Buttermilk Café turn toward me.

“Well hell, as I live and breathe if it ain’t Lemon Winchester.” A woman in a waitress uniform stands behind the counter, hip popped, coffee pot in hand, and I take off my glasses and do a double take.

“Zadie?”

“In the flesh. Girl, where you been?”

I take in her gorgeous mocha skin and deep brown eyes. Her hair is no longer natural but instead worn in brightly colored box braids. She’s every bit as stunning as she was in high school, and I am still just as jealous of her beauty as I always was. Zadie never had to bother with a ton of makeup and perfectly set hair like me. She could have been a damn model if she’d had any inclination to get out of this one-horse town.

I take a seat at the counter in front of her and set my purse on the stool beside me. “I’ve been in New York. I have a gallery there.”

“Yeah, I think I heard that from your brothers, actually. They’re real