Page 3 of Love’s Silver Bullet

“Come on, Sully, you promised.” Blaze Donovan snatched a piece of hay up from the barn floor and stuck it in his mouth. He cocked a hip to the wooden wall of the horse stall, hay twirling in his mouth while the smell of fresh manure permeated the air.

Twenty-seven-year-old Jake “Sully” Sullivan wasn’t sure if he should blame his horse for stinking up the barn or the best friend who was trying to unload a pile of dung onto his day.

Make that former best friend, Jake thought as he peered up at Blaze through narrowed eyes, hefting his saddle over his horse, Midnight, with a scowl. Mouth in a mulish press, he cinched up the straps and jerked them good and tight. Just like he wished he could do to his so-called best friend at the moment, who seemed hellbent on pushing Jake into precarious situations with Sheridan, Blaze’s little sister.

And Jake’s for the last fourteen years.

“No, you promised, Donovan,” Jake snapped, tired of these pesky feelings that had suddenly sprung up toward the little girl who used to follow him and her brothers around from the age of four.

He stifled a grunt. “Little girl”? If only! Because at eighteen years of age, Sheridan was anything but. Jake secured his saddle with a final yank, scorching Blaze with a heated glare. “And all because you’re too dad-burned weak-kneed to say no to your little sister.”

Blaze had the gall to grin while he massaged his left shoulder with a fake grimace. “I know. Just like you’re too ‘weak-kneed’ to say no to me since I saved your sorry butt from falling off that cliff, wrenching my shoulder in the process.”

Jake cut loose with a groan as he pinched the bridge of his nose, figuring he’d long since paid his debt to Blaze Donovan for saving his life when they were kids. “Blue blazes, Donovan, how long you plan to milk that cow, anyway?”

“For as long as I can, my friend.” Blaze slapped Jake on the back before he moseyed over to lean against the railing of Midnight’s stall, arms in a casual fold while he propped a dusty boot to the lowest slat. “Because all Sheridan asked for as a graduation gift was for somebody to teach her how to shoot, and we all know you’re the best shot on this ranch, my friend, and in the state, for that matter. So naturally Uncle Finn and I thought it should be you.”

Naturally. A second groan slipped through Jake’s clamped lips as he dropped his forehead against Midnight’s saddle. Uncle Finn. Otherwise known as Mayor Griffin McShane. Otherwise known as the man who rescued Jake from the Virginia City orphanage, when he took him in as a “cowhand in training,” something he often did for homeless boys.

His employer.

His second father.

And the one man other than Blaze he’d do anything for.

Blaze cleared his throat. “And, of course, Sheridan thought you’d be perfect too,” he said, humor lacing his tone.

Oh, I just bet she did! Jake banged his head against the saddle over and over while Blaze’s laughter ricocheted off the barn walls, both of them fully aware that Sheridan had had a ferocious crush on Jake since he’d arrived at the Silver Lining Ranch. Which was just fine and dandy when she wore pinafores and bows at age four and overalls and dirt through age ten.

But the moment she turned eleven, it seemed all she wanted to do was pretty up again in dresses and bows, which wouldn’t have mattered a whit if those dad-gum dresses hadn’t started sprouting curves at age sixteen. And now that she was an eighteen-year-old woman heading off to college in three months? Sweet mercy, Jake couldn’t wait for her to go!

Because the truth was that over the last two years, Sheridan Marie Donovan had begun filling out those gingham dresses and blue jeans a little too well to suit, unleashing wayward thoughts in Jake’s brain that no adopted big brother should have.

Blaze always thought Jake tried to dodge Sheridan’s flirtations because he saw her as a “little sister” annoyance, always tagging on his heels. And he’d be partially right. She was an annoyance.

Almond-shaped eyes, as clear and turquoise as a glacier stream.

Long flaxen curls, as shiny as corn silk halfway to harvest.

And a petite body with more deadly curves than a sky-high mountain road.

Huffing out a heavy sigh, Jake stood up tall to face his best friend with a plea he’d given more than once over the last year. “Come on, Blaze—have a heart. I’m not comfortable around Sher since she’s all grown up and you know it, especially since she’s made it perfectly clear that she likes me as more than a big brother. So why can’t one of the other hands just teach her? Clint is almost as good as I am with a gun, and Charlie is right behind, so why not one of them?”

“You know why, Sully.” Blaze’s eyes crinkled in sympathy like always when Jake tried to dodge close interaction with his sister. “Neither Uncle Finn nor I are comfortable with any of the hands being around Sher but you, because you know how moony that girl is about romance. Blue blazes, she may be the smartest girl in the county when it comes to schoolin’, but she doesn’t own a lick of common sense when it comes to the real world, especially men. So, you’re the only one we trust since you’re immune to her.”

Yeah, immune. Like a bee to honey.

“Which is why you’re so perfect,” he continued in that quiet, arm-twisting tone, “because it’s you she wants to teach her. Heck, Sul, she’s practically your little sister, so you’re the big brother who can protect her by teaching her to shoot the derringer Uncle Finn bought her for Christmas.”

Jake stifled a grunt. Yeah, but who’s going to protect me?

“Face it,” Blaze said, “none of us are comfortable with Sher traipsing across the country on her own to attend college, especially since she’ll be taking trains back and forth for holidays. So, we all want to make sure she can shoot since we won’t be around, and we both know Uncle Finn has been too busy with town business to do it.”

He held up his right hand, which was swathed in a bulky plaster of Paris cast on his wrist, thumb, and palm. “And I’m as riled as a rhino with rabies that I hurt my shooting hand busting that bronc last week, so I can’t teach her, and Dash?”—Blaze wrinkled his nose at mention of Sheridan’s other older brother, who spent most of his time managing the Ponderosa Saloon—“well, let’s just say his talents lie in other areas, so that just leaves you.” Blaze pushed off from the stall to approach Jake with hands deep in his pockets and that hang-dog look that said he understood completely.

Only he didn’t. Because if he did, he sure in the devil wouldn’t be asking Jake to do this. “Rule number one,” Finn McShane had told the cowhands when Sheridan turned sixteen, “is no one—and I mean no one—is to even look cross-eyed at my niece on this ranch no matter how much she flirts or bats her eyes, understood? Because if you do, you’ll be drawing a paycheck somewhere else with your butt branded by a flaming footprint.”

Jake swallowed hard. Oh, yeah, he understood, better than any cowhand on this ranch.