Beautiful Dreamer with Bonus Material Read Online Free PDF

from many years of practice, she buried the thought of the Turners and her father’s futile dreams of a “good” marriage for his younger daughter. It had all happened a lifetime ago. Both fathers were dead, Hope’s mother was dead, her sister was dead.
    Hope was alive.
    In surviving, she had learned the difference between a man’s easy promises and the terrifying reality of his lust. But more important than yesterday and lies and a young girl’s screams, today Hope was a woman whose ranch was dying beneath her feet. Next to that fact nothing mattered, certainly not the irretrievable past.
    She picked up the receiver and dialed quickly. The housekeeper answered the phone on the second ring.
    “Hi, Sally, this is Hope. I’d like to leave a message for one of your hands.”
    “I’ll get John,” Sally said quickly.
    “No, there’s no need to bother him.”
    It was useless. Sally was already gone. Hope closed her eyes and waited for the lord and master of the Turner empire to come to the phone.
    Mason’s eyes narrowed as he watched a mask settle over Hope’s face. It had almost broken his heart when he had seen her dropped off by Jase Turner nearly eight years ago. Her face had been pale, bruised, and her expression far too old to belong to a laughing girl who had just turned eighteen.
    Sighing, cursing under his breath, Mason rubbed his neck wearily. Thinking about the past always made him feel old and futile. The only good things about those years were Hazel and Hope’s father, Wayne, and they were both dead now. And Hope, of course. She had come out of the past and she was alive. To hear her laughter on a winter morning made everything worth it. He would do whatever it took to make certain that she would never again forget how to laugh.
    “Hello, John,” Hope said neutrally. “I told Sally not to bother you.”
    “It’s never a bother talking to you, baby doll.”
    “I’d like to leave a message for one of your hands. A man called Rio.”
    There was a fractional pause. When Turner spoke again, his voice wasn’t nearly so warm. “What do you want with him?”
    She waited for a long moment, letting the rude question echo, before she said crisply, “Sorry to disturb you. Good-bye.”
    “Wait! Don’t be so stiff-necked. I’m just looking out for your interests. You can’t trust every man, you know.”
    Hope thought of water and thirsty cattle and held her tongue. Turner’s arrogance and rocklike insensitivity shouldn’t surprise her anymore.
    “This Rio is a drifter and a cocksman,” Turner said baldly.
    “I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself.”
    Now.
    Neither of them said the word, but it was there between them. Hope hadn’t been able to hold her own with a man when she was eighteen, but she could now. For that, she could thank John Turner. For that, she once had wished him and herself dead.
    The thought almost made her smile now. It was hard to believe that she had ever been so young and naive.
    “I thought you and Mason broke all your horses on your own,” Turner said. “The ones you have left, that is. If you’d just give me the word, baby doll, I’d have you three deep in the best horses money can buy. And if it’s Storm Walker that’s giving you trouble, I’ll be glad to put the spurs to him myself. He’s too damn much horse for a woman.”
    With a grimace Hope schooled her voice to show nothing. When she spoke, she ignored his repeated proposal to become Mrs. John Turner. She also ignored his casual reminder that she had only five horses left, and one of them was a stallion that was a double handful of thunder to ride.
    “If you see Rio, tell him I called,” she said.
    “He won’t be in for several hours, maybe not for days. He’s an independent bastard. You better tell me what you have in mind. He’ll want to know what—”
    “He already does,” Hope cut in.
    “Wait. Are you coming to the barbecue tomorrow?”
    It was an effort to keep her voice civil, but she