Convincing the Rancher Read Online Free PDF Page A

totally forgettable—but for the way he’d been an asshole and had selfishly pressured her to stay in Benson.
    And then it hit him. He didn’t hold all the cards here. She could chat to whomever she wanted about their one-night stand. And it could certainly change his life if she did. He wondered what his constituents would think if they knew what he’d done in Phoenix with Tess— and how much he’d enjoyed it.
    The good people of Benson had elected him mayor almost unanimously. And why not? He was a pretty upstanding kind of guy. A high school football hero, college scholarship kid. Head of the Cattlemen’s Association, a city council member and now, mayor of the town. People thought of him as an up-front, what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of guy. And he was—except for that one night.
    He should have agreed when she’d offered to leave town. It would have ensured that his reputation was never tarnished. Because it wasn’t just his reputation he had to worry about. Being a leader in Benson was family tradition. His grandfather and his dad had both been mayor, and his great-grandfather had pretty much founded the town.
    Maybe he owed his ancestors an apology because he hadn’t been able to let her go. In some bizarre miracle, after two years as a ghost in his fantasies, she was here in Benson. And that had to mean something.
    The problem was, he had no idea how he was going to handle having her in town. He’d promised her it would be easy to keep things professional, but he’d pretended a confidence he didn’t have. All the attraction he’d felt that night in Phoenix was still there, sharpening his senses the moment she’d walked into his office, making him hyperaware of every one of her movements, every seductive curve under that power suit she wore.
    Which made the reason she was here even worse. Windmills. Looking out to the plains beyond his ranch, he tried to imagine them speckled with huge, white turbines and instantly all the wild emptiness was domesticated and destroyed. It was awful enough to imagine—he couldn’t allow it to happen.
    Slaid drained the bottle and stuck it back in his pocket, taking one last look at the view. There was dinner to cook, dishes to clean, homework to help with and a few rounds of a video game to play before Devin went to bed. Then he needed to rewrite the agenda for next week’s city council meeting to make sure the wind farm was on it—there’d be a lot to discuss.
    It would be a busy night, but he kind of liked it that way. Staying busy kept him from thinking too much. He’d learned that trick after Jeannette had left Benson, and it seemed as though he would need it again now that Tess Cole had arrived.

CHAPTER THREE
    T ESS WASN’T PREPARED for a Jeep that looked like an ice sculpture. With a pang of longing, she pictured her underground parking space in San Francisco, where even on the rare frosty morning she never had to worry about a frozen car. Reluctantly she opened her wallet and stared at her rainbow assortment of credit cards, wondering which one she could sacrifice as an ice scraper. The Saks Fifth Avenue card was nice and thick and would work the best, but she didn’t want to risk ruining it. Same with Bloomingdale’s. And there was no way she’d sacrifice Nordstrom—their annual shoe sale was coming up.
    She finally settled for Talbots and started scraping at the frosted windshield. The ice came off in a spray coating her bare skin. “Ow!” she exclaimed and pulled her hand away abruptly, shaking it to try to get the frost off and the heat back in.
    “Don’t tell me you didn’t bring gloves?” The deep voice had her whirling to confront the mayor. He looked warm and comfortable, his thick parka advertising the fact that he was prepared for the weather. The battered leather cowboy hat on his head was one more reminder that she’d left San Francisco far behind.
    “It’s probably seventy degrees at home today,” she said by way of an