Cowboy's Kiss Read Online Free PDF Page B

neared five o’clock did Ally begin to consider that Jackson could be back anytime, and since she didn’t want to be caught lounging next to the pool as if this were some kind of resort, she herded Meggie inside for a shower and a change of clothes for them both.
    Ally was just getting dressed in a pair of khaki shorts and a yellow T-shirt after her shower when she heard the sound of a helicopter very nearby. Having lived her life until then in the suburbs, the first thing she thought was that it was a hospital flight-for-life. She rushed to the window just as it landed on a square of tarmac to the west of the house, a patch she’d noticed earlier and somehow thought might be the beginnings of a tennis court.
    But the tarmac was a landing pad and the helicopter was not medical. It was private.
    And as she took a closer look, she realized Jackson was the pilot.
    She didn’t know why she kept on standing there, watching as he flipped switches and turned knobs on the panel control in front of him, but she did. She didn’t move when he climbed out of the aircraft, either.
    Tall and terrifically handsome, there was something very commanding about him. He wore sunglasses that lent a dashing, dangerous air to his appearance, and a white dress shirt that almost made him seem more like an executive than a cowboy—except that the sleeves were rolled to his elbows, the collar button was open rakishly, and no self-respecting executive would have been caught dead on the job in his tight jeans and roach-killer boots.
    Of course, Ally had never seen an executive who could do for a pair of jeans what Jackson Heller could. His legs were long and so thickly muscled they bulged against the denim. His hips were narrow but not so narrow that they were slight. And the outward curve of his zipper stirred up things inside of her that hadn’t been stirred up in a long time.
    Ally wondered at that fact. At herself for being stuck to the window like glue, studying the way he walked—smooth, graceful, confident, and with just a hint of swagger to the slightly bowlegged gait.
    She ordered herself to move away, to stop gawking like a hormonal teenager who’d never seen a man with quite that much raw masculinity and just plain sensuality oozing out of his every pore.
    But there she stayed, anyway.
    It was just curiosity, she reasoned. Purely academic. It wasn’t as if she were really interested. Or mesmerized. She was only appreciating the sight the way any red-blooded woman would have.
    It didn’t mean anything. Good-looking or not, Jackson Heller was too unpleasant and difficult for her to enjoy anything but the sight of him. And Lord knows, she would not have been in the market for a relationship even if Jackson had been different. Her hands were full trying to get Meggie through the divorce residual, trying to get both their lives back on course. The last thing Ally needed, wanted or would even entertain thoughts of was any kind of involvement with a man, even a man who wasn’t as cantankerous as Jackson Heller.
    No, she told herself as she watched him step around the barbecue pit, this was just a bit of voyeurism. She was still human, after all, and cantankerous or not, he was a gorgeous hunk of manhood. She just didn’t want anything more than the sight. At a safe distance. When he didn’t know she was looking.
    And when she was out of the range of his temper.
    The bedroom door opened just then and Ally spun away from the window as if she’d been caught doing something she shouldn’t be. She expected to find Meggie, but instead a tiny little boy stood there solemn faced, reminding her suddenly of the very person she’d been spying on.
    â€œâ€˜Lo,” he said in a serious voice.
    â€œHi,” Ally answered with a note of question to it.
    â€œI’m Danny. We comed for supper and there’s a girl in my room and this one was my dad’s ‘fore we went to live at