Date with a Cowboy: Iron Cowboy / In the Arms of the Rancher / At the Texan's Pleasure. Diana Palmer

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ

      Sara and Lisa burst out laughing.

      “Horsey, Mama, horsey!” Gil demanded, bouncing.

      Lisa put him on one knee and bounced him while he laughed happily. “He’s going to be a ladies’ man when he grows up,” Harley drawled. “He’s starting early!”

      Lisa laughed. “You may be right. He likes Sara.”

      “Everybody likes Sara,” Harley said smoothly, winking at her.

      “Not everybody,” Sara murmured as Jared Cameron walked toward them with Max curled close in his arm. He was smiling at Max, but his green eyes shot daggers at Harley and Sara when he came closer.

      “Should you be up so soon after major surgery?” Jared demanded, glaring at Sara.

      “Major surgery?” Sara gasped. “I had my appendix out! The incision was barely four inches long!”

      Jared’s eyes narrowed. “It ruptured,” he pointed out.

      “Why does he get to make comments on your surgery?” Lisa asked innocently.

      “Because I took her home with me and Tony and I nursed her back to health,” Jared said curtly. “We have a vested interest in her recovery.”

      “Like it put you out! Tony did all the work!” Sara retorted.

      Jared held up his hand with all the plastic bandages on it.

      “You didn’t try to pick up Morris, did you?” Lisa asked the newcomer.

      Jared looked around him, exasperated. “Am I the only person in this town who didn’t know that he bites?”

      “Looks like it,” Harley chuckled.

      “I hate cats,” Max muttered. “They’re scary, and they have fangs, like snakes.”

      Sara wished the other woman had been around when Morris was staying at Jared’s house. She’d have loved watching him stalk the slick lawyer. He loved to attack people who were afraid of cats.

      “Hi, Sara,” Tony said, thickening his drawl for the group.

      He was wearing his suit and his sunglasses, and he looked really big. “You doing okay?”

      Sara had gotten used to him being as articulate as Jared in the privacy of the Cameron ranch. Only now did she realize what a compliment he’d paid her by not putting on what was obviously an act for the masses.

      “I’m much better, Tony, thanks,” she replied, and gave him a genuine smile.

      Max was looking more uncomfortable by the minute. “We aren’t going to eat outside, are we?” she asked uneasily. “I mean, there are flies!”

      “They only land on bad people,” Sara promised.

      Seconds later, two huge black flies came to rest on Max’s arm.

      She screamed, hitting at them. “Get them off!” she exclaimed.

      Tony glanced at Sara and grinned. “Sound familiar?” he teased.

      She burst out laughing, remembering her own horror at the yellow hornet that had landed on her shoulder at Jared’s house.

      But Max thought Sara was laughing at her and, without a pause, she swung her hand and slapped Sara in the face.

      There was a sudden silence around them. Cy Parks, who’d been directing the cowboys cooking the beef, strode up to the small group with blood in his eye.

      “Are you all right, Sara?” he asked in a menacing tone.

      “I’m … fine,” Sara replied. She had a huge red mark on one cheek.

      Cy turned to Max. “I’ve never asked a guest to leave my home until now. I want you off my property.”

      Max fumed. “She laughed at me! I was covered up in flies and she thought it was funny!”

      “She was laughing because the same thing happened to her at our place with a yellow hornet,” Tony said, and he looked menacing as well. “I reminded her of it.”

      Max flushed. “Oh.”

      Jared hadn’t said a word until then. But his eyes spoke volumes. “You can apologize to Sara before I take you back to the ranch,” he told Max, and he wasn’t smiling.

      Max backed down at once. “I’m very sorry,” she told the younger woman. “I hope I didn’t hurt you,” she added in a condescending tone.

      Cash Grier joined the small group. He wasn’t smiling, either. “If you’d like to press charges,” he told Sara while he glared down at Max, “I’ll be delighted to arrest her for you.”

      “Arrest me!” Max exclaimed.

      “For assault,” he replied coldly. “In Jacobsville, you don’t strike another person physically unless you’ve been attacked physically. It’s against the law.”

      “Yeah, you’d think a lawyer would know that, wouldn’t you?” Tony put in his two cents’ worth.

      Max seemed to be suddenly aware of her whereabouts and her vulnerability in this small town. She laughed nervously. “Surely that won’t be necessary …?”

      Cash looked at Sara. “Sara?” he questioned softly.

      Sara took a deep breath and gave Max her best glare. “I won’t have you arrested,” she said quietly. “But if you ever touch me again, I’ll show you how much I learned in Chief Grier’s self-defense course last fall.”

      “It won’t happen again,” Jared replied. He took Max firmly by the arm. “Thanks for inviting us,” he told Cy, “but we have to go.”

      Tony grimaced. “Yeah. Sorry,” he added, smiling at Sara. “That barbecue sure smelled good.”

      “Can’t you stay?” Sara asked Tony gently.

      He lit up like a Christmas tree at her tone.

      Jared muttered something under his breath and Max protested as his hand tightened bruisingly on her arm.

      Tony glanced at his boss and sighed. “No. I got to go, too. See you, Sara.”

      She smiled. “See you.”

      The three walked away with stiff backs. Sara could have kicked Max. She’d ruined everything.

      “Thanks, Chief Grier,” Sara told the town’s police chief.

      He shrugged. “You were my star pupil,” he replied. He grinned. “I wish you’d pressed charges, though. I would have enjoyed locking her up.”

      “Locking who up?” Tippy Grier asked curiously, joining her husband. The “Georgia Firefly” as she’d СКАЧАТЬ