Chapter One

In Hot Water

Cissy Riverton was headed for trouble. Sauntering from the ranch house toward the stables of Grey Gulch Ranch, she cocked her head sassily and rolled her hips in a nonchalant manner, which suggested she hadn’t a care in the world. At that very moment, she didn’t. Unabashedly innocent, looking more like a sixteen-year-old kid than a woman of twenty—which she was—Cissy could be the poster child of untainted virtuosity when a prim attitude suited her fancy. Her short red mop of curls framed a petite face, great wide blue eyes, and a broad, happy mouth. The body below was shapely, her breasts small, her waist slim, and her ass quite generous—though not out of proportion to the rest of her. She could look gracefully demure or vampish depending on her mood; but, regardless of any pose she struck—for any reason, legitimate or devious—her body communicated exactly what she wanted. And since Cissy Riverton was a conniving schemer and a shameless flirt at heart, she used her body well.

At the moment, she was looking for Garth, who was visiting Jake—her cousin once removed. (Theremoved part was a bit of a joke between them—the rock solid Jake Colton might have beenremoved in theory, but he was hardlyremoved in practice, having played a very substantial role in Cissy’s life for the past five years.)

“Well, well, well,” she heard Jake’s familiar drawl, just as she ambled through the stable door. Though her eyes might naturally move toward Garth, the county’s dreamy young sheriff whom she’d been dating for several months, they settled on her cousin’s scowl instead. “Just who I was looking for,” he droned on. Something simmered beyond his cool exterior, and as the lanky cowboy pulled himself upright with his green eyes focused keenly on his redheaded cousin, he drilled her with the question, “Want to tell me where you’ve been?”

“Where I’ve been?” Though she was hardly ready for an interrogation, her brain worked fast—after all, she’d had lots of practice. Her eyebrows knit with puzzlement as a beautifully contrived blank expression fille