The Maverick's Wedding Wager Read online

  “I dare you to marry me!

  I bet you won’t do it.”

  Hardheaded cowboy Knox Crawford has his mind made up—he’s got to get married...and fast. Knox’s faux fiancée? Genevieve Lawrence, a gorgeous, sassy horsewoman who is not afraid of anything...except commitment. As they fake marry to trick Knox’s matchmaking dad, the two stubborn singles discover the only thing harder than pretending to be a couple is realizing they might be falling in love for real!

  “Genevieve Lawrence—will you do me the honor of being my fake bride?”

  “You’re being ridiculous.”

  “Don’t ruin this special moment for me.” He moved the hay ring back and forth for her to see. “It’s not every day I get engaged.”

  “Fine,” she said with an annoyed sigh as she held out her left ring finger. “I will be your fake bride, Knox. But only if you win the wager and show up tomorrow.”

  The cowboy stood up and slipped the makeshift ring made of hay onto her finger. Did she imagine it, or did a small shock pass between them when he took her hand in his? She looked at that ring encircling her ring finger; she had never thought to see any type of ring on that finger for years, if ever. Even a hay ring made her feel boxed in like a trapped wild animal. Genevieve swayed backward and put her hand on the door to steady her body. She was well-known for her nerves of steel when she was off-road racing or vaulting on the back of her horse—why were those nerves failing her now?

  * * *

  MONTANA MAVERICKS:

  Six Brides for Six Brothers!

  Dear Reader,

  Thank you for choosing The Maverick’s Wedding Wager, the third book in the Montana Mavericks: Six Brides for Six Brothers series. This is my first Montana Mavericks book and I am so excited to be included in this wonderful series.

  The Maverick’s Wedding Wager tells the story of Knox Crawford, a Texas cowboy newly transplanted to Rust Creek Falls, Montana, and Genevieve Lawrence, a blonde spitfire horse farrier who is as daring as she is pretty. When patriarch Maximillian Crawford offers a million dollars to a local matchmaker to marry off his six eligible sons, Knox is determined to take matters into his own hands.

  As I sit here writing this letter today, I am reminded of my own experience bringing our horse Chief Crooked Ear to our farm. One of the most important things on my to-do list was finding a farrier. I searched all of the local websites and one farrier stood out among the rest—her name was Katie and she just happened to be a petite, pretty blonde ex–race car driver! I want to take a moment to thank Katie for the interview she participated in for this book and for allowing me to use her as a living reference for the character of Genevieve.

  I sincerely hope you enjoy The Maverick’s Wedding Wager because I had an absolute ball writing it. As always, I invite you to visit my website, www.joannasimsromance.com, and while you’re there, be sure to sign up for Rendezvous Magazine for Brand-family extras, news and swag.

  Happy reading!

  Joanna

  The Maverick’s Wedding Wager

  Joanna Sims

  Joanna Sims is proud to pen contemporary romance for Harlequin Special Edition. Joanna’s series, The Brands of Montana, features hardworking characters with hometown values. You are cordially invited to join the Brands of Montana as they wrangle their own happily-ever-afters. And, as always, Joanna welcomes you to visit her at her website, joannasimsromance.com.

  Books by Joanna Sims

  Harlequin Special Edition

  The Brands of Montana

  A Match Made in Montana

  High Country Christmas

  High Country Baby

  Meet Me at the Chapel

  Thankful for You

  A Wedding to Remember

  A Bride for Liam Brand

  High Country Cowgirl

  A Baby for Christmas

  The One He’s Been Looking For

  Marry Me, Mackenzie!

  Visit the Author Profile page at www.Harlequin.com for more titles.

  Join Harlequin My Rewards today and earn a FREE ebook!

  Click here to Join Harlequin My Rewards

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  Dedicated to Sandie Weiss

  I wanted you to know how much I love you, so I dedicated this book to you!

  I love you, Aunt Sandie, and I always will.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Excerpt from Home to Blue Stallion Ranch by Stella Bagwell

  Chapter One

  “You are late.”

  “I know,” horse farrier Genevieve Lawrence said to her phone as she stepped on the gas. She hated to be late and yet, here she was, running behind again on the way to her next client. Spotting one of her favorite off-road shortcuts ahead, Genevieve downshifted her four-wheel-drive Chevy Colorado, jerked the steering wheel to take a hard right and then floored it once the hind end of her truck stopped fishtailing. Laughing as she sped over a large bump in the road that sent her truck airborne for a split second, Genevieve knew she was taking a risk using this dirt road. It had been a rainy late August in Montana and there would be mud hole mine traps everywhere. But she’d been off-road racing since she was a teenager and knew this road like the back of her hand. If she didn’t get stuck, she’d shave a good fifteen minutes off her time.

  “What’s life without a little risk?” Genevieve gave a rebel yell, fighting the steering wheel to keep it straight when the back tires hit a slick pocket of mud that sent her sliding sideways.

  “Now you are really late,” her phone gave her another verbal reminder.

  “Nobody likes a know-it-all, Google!” Genevieve snapped as she went careening through a large puddle of standing water, splashing brown water onto her windshield and temporarily blinding her view.

  Putting her wipers on high so she could see, she saw the end of the dirt road up ahead and, instead of slowing down, she floored it again. In Genevieve’s mind, this was the best part. This was the most dangerous, and therefore, the most exhilarating, part of this shortcut. If she got up enough speed and momentum, she would really catch some air off a large mound of dirt right before she had to make a sharp left onto the main road.

  “Woo-hoo!” she shouted, loving that wonderful sinking feeling in her stomach that she always got when all four wheels left the road.

  A loud honk of a horn brought her smashing back into reality and made her tighten her grip on the steering wheel. She had successfully navigated the sharp left turn onto the highway, but miscalculated how close the next vehicle was to her entry point and she ended up cutting them off—just a little.

  “Sorry!” She waved her hand out of the window with another laugh. She had cut that one a bit too close for comfort. But in her mind, no harm, no foul. This was what living was all about! Taking risks for big payoffs.

  By the time she pulled into the driveway to the Crawford’s cattle spread, the Ambling A, her heart was still pounding and her body was still crackling with adrenaline. She parked in front of the twenty-stall stable. When Maximilian Crawford, th
e patriarch of the Crawford family, purchased the ranch, the barn had been just a plain metal structure. Maximilian refurbished the barn, matching the exterior to the main house’s log cabin design, and now the once plain barn was an impressive showpiece by anyone’s standards. Everything about the updated stable wreaked of money—from the custom Ambling A windmill perched atop the cupola to the red brick rubber pavers in the long, wide aisle that provided a cushion for the horses’ legs and joints. The Crawford cowboys had already begun to fill that fine stable with some of the highest pedigreed Montana-bred quarter horses money could buy.

  Working with those horses was an honor Genevieve never thought to have. In fact, she had been completely shocked when Knox Crawford, one of Maximilian’s six sons, had called to hire her as part of the Ambling A’s horse care team. From her experience, most ranchers still had a mindset that being a horse farrier was a job for menfolk. And that mindset went double for her father.

  As she was shutting off her engine, Genevieve spotted Knox up in the hayloft above the barn. The two large doors to the hayloft were open and Knox was restacking bales of hay, presumably getting ready for another shipment. The moment she spotted Maximilian’s fifth-born son, she felt that same wonderful shot of adrenaline that she normally only experienced when she was bungee jumping from a bridge, off-road racing or winning a wager with some cowboy who thought that he couldn’t ever lose to a chick.

  Knox Crawford was tall and lean with intense brown-black eyes; his body appeared to be carved out of granite from years in the saddle. When Genevieve saw Knox as he was now, shirt unbuttoned with the glistening sweat from his muscular chest making an eye-catching trail down to the waistband of his snug-fitting, faded jeans, it made her almost change her mind about leaving Rust Creek Falls for more open-minded pastures in California.

  Almost.

  * * *

  Knox heard the crunching sound of tires on the gravel drive and that got his heart pumping just a little bit faster. He’d been checking his watch, anticipating pretty Genevieve Lawrence’s arrival. In fact, he’d found himself looking forward to seeing her all week. Knox hoisted one last bale of hay onto a tall stack nearby before he walked over to the wide opening of the hayloft to greet the horse farrier. Genevieve’s truck, white with a colorful horse mural painted on the side, was covered in brown mud. The petite blonde got out of the driver’s side door, looked up at him with an easy smile and waved.

  “Sorry I’m late!” she called up to him and the sweetness in her voice rang some sort of bell in the deep recesses of his mind.

  Ever since his father had tasked him with the job of finding a veterinarian and farrier for their horses, and Knox had stumbled upon Genevieve’s Healing Hooves website, something in his soul seemed to hone in on this woman like a heat-seeking missile aimed at its target. Surprisingly for him, it wasn’t the fact that she had long wavy, wheat-colored hair that framed her oval face in the most attractive way—even though he had always had a weakness for blondes. And it wasn’t those wide cornflower blue eyes and full lips that seemed to always be turned up into a smile when she looked at him. It was more than just her looks. She fascinated him; she made him laugh. In his mind, that was a mighty potent combination.

  “Not a problem.” Knox took his cowboy hat off so he could wipe the sweat from his brow with his sleeve. “Did you get stuck in a mudhole?”

  Genevieve had walked around to the back of her truck so she could get her tools as she always did. With a laugh and a cocky smile, she said, “I took a shortcut.”

  “Must’ve been one heck of a shortcut.”

  “It sure was,” she said with another laugh.

  While the farrier buckled on her scarred-up leather chaps that covered the front part of her thighs and knees, Knox tugged his gloves off his hands with his teeth so he could button his shirt. He never took his eyes off Genevieve. She was the sexiest darn tomboy he had ever met. Whenever he saw her, it made him sorely regret that he was dedicated to sticking to his self-imposed dating moratorium. His father was paying big bucks to a matchmaker to marry off his sons and Knox had no intention of going along with the plan quietly. If he had to give up dating for a good, long while, then that’s what he was going to do—but he’d do it his way.

  As she finished her task of putting on her chaps, she looked up to find him staring at her. There was no use trying to play it off—she had caught him dead to rights.

  “How many do we have today?” Genevieve asked, all business. She was the one woman in his new hometown of Rust Creek Falls that he’d like to flirt a little with him, and yet she seemed to be the only one who didn’t. When she came out to the Ambling A, she was friendly but always professional and on task.

  “Four,” he told her.

  “You know,” she said, “we could get all of these horses on the same trimming schedule. It’d be easier on you.”

  “Naw. Then I’d only get to see you once a month.” He said with a smile. “I’ll meet you down there.”

  Genevieve had a routine and he knew it well. She had a policy that the owner, or an owner’s representative, had to be on site when she trimmed hooves, and from her very first visit back in June, Knox had been the one to greet her. There was something special about the time he spent with Genevieve while she worked; he could talk to her in a way he’d never been able to talk to another woman. In fact, he could talk to her like she was one of his brothers. She liked to do guy stuff and she wasn’t overly concerned with her nails and her hair and she was as pretty as they came without makeup. Perhaps the confident, no-nonsense way Genevieve comported herself was why he felt, for the first time in his life, like he had begun a genuine friendship with a woman. The fact that she was easy on the eyes was just a bonus.

  Knox slipped the halter on his big dappled gray gelding, Big Blue, and led him down the wide aisle of the barn to the cross ties where Genevieve had set up her hoof stand.

  “How’s Blue today?” The farrier ran her hand down the horse’s neck as she always did, checking out the horse’s body and stance before she moved to the hooves.

  “No complaints.” He hooked the cross tie onto Blue’s halter to keep the horse standing in one place while Genevieve worked.

  “He’s got a good weight on him.”

  “He’s fit, that’s for sure.”

  Genevieve finished her inspection, circling back to the horse’s left front hoof. Unlike any other farrier he had ever seen, she knelt down beside Blue’s front left leg, lifted it and let it rest on her thigh while she took one of her tools from a pocket of her chaps. On the first day she’d come out to the ranch he’d asked her about her unusual trimming posture—kneeling instead of standing, which was the standard because it was safer for the farrier. Genevieve’s answer had stuck with him—she had said that it was all about the comfort of the horse for her. Yes, it was more dangerous, but she trusted the horses and they trusted her. If she had to get out of the way, she knew how to do it. That night he had gone to his father, who was convinced that hiring a woman farrier was bad business, and told him that he had just met one of the most talented farriers he’d ever known. And to this day, he hadn’t changed his mind about Genevieve.

  “How’s he looking?” Knox moved closer to Genevieve, liking the way she would flip her long, thick braid over her shoulder.

  “He looks great.” She glanced up from her work to nod at him. “The walls of the hoof are strong, the frog has got good give, and it’s been so rainy and wet these last few weeks, I’ve been seeing a lot of thrush out there, but Blue’s don’t have any signs of that.”

  “All good news then.”

  “All good news.”

  After that brief exchange, Knox leaned back against a nearby wall and watched Genevieve work. She was fast and efficient, another trait he appreciated about her. She didn’t smoke or spit tobacco, or take extended breaks in between horses to shoot the breeze about hunting or to re
count worn-out rodeo stories like the past farriers he had hired. Genevieve kept her focus on the horse, even during the times when they had a conversation going.

  “He’s ready to go back to his stall.” She unhooked Big Blue from the cross ties.

  Knox had been so lost in thought that he hadn’t even noticed that she had finished. Those moments when he had been brooding about the conflict he was having with the father had raced by without him noticing.

  “He’s already done?” He pushed away from the wall. “That was quick.”

  “Quick and competent.” She handed him the lead rope with a smile. “Bring me my next victim, please.”

  Knox led Big Blue back to his stall before he grabbed a dun mare with a black mane and tail and a tan body his father had just purchased for breeding.

  “Who’s this beauty?” Genevieve’s face lit up at the sight of the new addition to the stable.

  “Honey.”

  Genevieve rubbed the mare between the eyes, and the mare, who had been head shy and skittish around most of the ranch hands at the Ambling A, lowered her head and nuzzled the farrier’s hand.

  “And, you’re sweet like honey, aren’t you?”

  After her standard body and leg check of the mare, Genevieve went to work. The first order of business was pulling the mare’s shoes; Genevieve had a reputation of being one of the best “barefoot” farriers and could often get a horse sound without shoes. Some horses required shoes, but it was best for the horse if they could have their hooves natural like God made them.

  “Walk her forward for me so I can see her walk,” Genevieve instructed once she pulled the last shoe off the mare. “Let’s see how she does.”

  After a couple of cautious steps where the mare was trying to get used to the odd sensation of walking without metal attached to her hooves, she began to walk naturally without any signs of lameness.

  With a pleased smile, Genevieve waved her hand. “Bring her on back. She’s going to do just fine without shoes.”