A Hero To Count On. Linda Turner

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СКАЧАТЬ with herself—she really did need a break from the man!—she grabbed the keys and found Rainey’s SUV parked in the circular drive at the front of the house. Within minutes she was heading west, toward the old hunting cabin in the mountains where Elizabeth and John would live after they were married.

      Nearly forty-five minutes later, she broke through the trees into a small, natural clearing, and there was the cabin right in front of her. Last month, one of the wannabe heirs had torched it in an effort to drive Elizabeth and John away from the ranch, and the damage had been significant. When Elizabeth had told her that she and John were going to rebuild it and make it their home, Katherine had thought they were crazy. She’d assumed it was nothing but a burned-out shell and any attempt to repair it would be nothing but a waste of time and money. She couldn’t have been more wrong.

      Only part of the cabin had been burned, and John had already removed the damaged wood and replaced it. He hadn’t, however, stopped there. The framework for two new rooms and a new front and back porch were already in place, and although the design was simple, Katherine could see that it was going to be charming when it was finished.

      “Hey, stranger, I see you finally decided to join the world of the living,” her sister said with a grin as she parked and stepped from the car. “What do you think?”

      “It’s wonderful! Why didn’t you tell me…”

      From the corner of her eye, she caught sight of movement and turned just in time to see Hunter come around the side of the cabin. Stunned, she gasped, “What’s he doing here?”

      Chapter 3

      He’d pulled off his shirt and hung it on a nearby tree branch, and in the late-morning sun, his bare chest glistened with sweat. Transfixed, Katherine heard a roar in her ears and only then realized that it was the thunder of her heart. And it was all Hunter’s fault, she decided with a scowl.

      No man had a right to look so good dressed in nothing but a pair of worn jeans. Faded, torn, soft from a thousand or more washes, they hugged his lean hips in a way that any woman with any sense of decency would have wanted nothing to do with. And all she could think about was touching him. Were the muscles of his chest as hard as his jeans were soft?

      Shocked by the direction of her thoughts, she wanted to sink right through the ground. Her eyes met his, and the glint of humor she saw there told her without words that he knew exactly what he was doing to her. And he loved it.

      Hot color flooding her cheeks, she hardly heard her sister say, “You mean Hunter? When he heard that John was working on the roof today, he offered to help.”

      “I don’t know what we would have done without him,” John added from the roof.

      “I told you I was a good guy to have around,” Hunter told Katherine with a grin. “Wanna help?”

      Help him? She didn’t think so. “Thanks, but I don’t like heights.”

      “Then you’d better get some Dramamine or something,” he said with a wicked chuckle, “because you’re going to need it when I take you to the moon and back.”

      “Hunter!” Elizabeth gasped, laughing. “Stop that!”

      Up on the roof, John grinned broadly. “He’s just giving her fair warning, honey.”

      “I don’t need fair warning,” Katherine retorted, never taking her eyes from Hunter’s. “In other words, Romeo, I’m not interested.”

      “Are you sure?” he teased. “You don’t know what you’re missing.”

      “I’ll chance it,” she said dryly. “I know that must devastate you, but there’s nothing wrong with your ego. You’ll survive.”

      “I might grow on you.”

      “You mean…like a fungus? I don’t think so.”

      “Katherine!” Elizabeth choked on a laugh. “Remember your manners.”

      “Leave her alone,” John said, grinning. “She’s holding her own.”

      “She sure is,” Hunter chuckled. “Be still my heart.”

      Determined not to smile, Katherine said, “You’re wasting your time here, lover boy. Why don’t you check out Mabel at the Rusty Bucket? Last I heard, she was hot for just about any cowboy who walked in the door.”

      “Katherine!”

      “It’s okay, Elizabeth,” Hunter chuckled. “The woman’s crazy about me. Can’t you tell?”

      Katherine just looked down her nose at him. “Don’t let me keep you from your work,” she said coolly. “I have better things to do than drool over you.”

      Not the least insulted, he only laughed and made his way up the ladder to help John.

      Long after Katherine returned to the house, the memory of Hunter dressed in nothing but jeans, work boots and a grin still had the power to make her mouth go dry. And it was driving her crazy. What was wrong with her? It had only been a few weeks since she’d discovered that the man she’d planned to spend the rest of her life with was not only married to another woman but had a child with her. He’d broken her heart in a way no one ever had before, and it would be months, possibly years, before she was ready to move on.

      So why did Hunter only have to grin at her to set her heart pounding?

      She needed a distraction, she decided. She had work, of course, but she needed something more than her illustrations, something that would keep her thoughts from straying to Hunter’s worn jeans and hard body whenever she dropped her guard. But what? she wondered with a frown. How was she supposed to put him out of her head?

      She thought about it for the rest of the day but couldn’t come up with anything. Then she sat down to dinner with the rest of the family and once again found herself seated across from Hunter. He took one look at her and winked, and suddenly she knew what she had to do.

      “You should have stuck around this morning,” Hunter told her with a grin. “What’d you do the rest of the day? Miss me?”

      “Not at all,” she said dryly. “Instead, I’ve been giving it some thought, and I’ve decided Elizabeth and Rainey were right. I need to join a dating service.”

      “Are you serious?”

      “That’s wonderful!”

      “Are you sure you want to do that?” Buck asked with a frown as his wife and sister voiced their approval. “There’s no way to check these guys out.”

      “Buck’s right,” Hunter said, scowling. “You think you had trouble with your married boyfriend? Wait till you meet a con man who takes a woman for everything he can get while he tricks her into falling in love with him. Men like that feed on women like you online.”

      “What do you mean…‘women like me’?” she demanded indignantly. “I’m not some naive innocent who’s never been out on my own before. I know a line when I hear one.”

      “Really? Then why did you believe Mr. СКАЧАТЬ