Crushing on Love (The Bradens of Peaceful Harbor, Book Four) Read Online Free PDF Page A

his fingers. She feigned setting the key in his palm.
    He curled his fingers over hers and said, “Thanks, Butterfly.”
    He tucked the invisible key in his shirt pocket while she tried to remember how to chew.

Chapter Three
    THE CUMBERLAND RANCH was nestled at the base of the mountains. Rolling pastures gave way to pockets of forest. It was one of the prettiest properties around. Not that there was an ugly acre in all of Colorado as far as Steve was concerned, but this was definitely right up there as one of his favorite spots. When he was younger, he and the two oldest Cumberland brothers, Mack and Will, had run wild, exploring every inch of the property.
    “Is this the plan?” Shannon asked. “Stare out at the land and hope the owners change their mind via brain waves?”
    He pulled the keys from the ignition and breathed deeply, readying for a conversation he wasn’t looking forward to having with his two old friends. Mack and Will had lost their mother two years ago, and their father had passed away last winter. Their parents had been good to Steve, treating him like one of their own, and he missed them. He was sure his friends were still grieving, and he imagined handling their parents’ estate was making things even more difficult. He didn’t want to add stress to their difficult time, but there would always be reasons not to take a stand. If he waited for a good time to present itself, it might be too late.
    “That’s what’s wrong with you city dwellers. You’re always in a hurry to get to the next thing, when the most compelling things are right in front of you.” He shoved the keys in his pocket and tried to shake his uneasy feeling about the impending conversation with his friends. He’d also flirted more than he would have liked with Shannon, and he knew he was sending her mixed messages. But he had too much on his mind to think clearly.
    He motioned toward the gorgeous property. Every few years another parcel in Weston was sold, another farm was subdivided. It pained him to see the sprawling landscape chopped up into communities and meted out as if land were expendable. He’d been fighting the good fight for long enough to know one person could make a difference. But with a property of this size and an asking price of nearly 2.4 million dollars, he knew it would take a lot more than good intentions and a little rallying to keep it out of the hands of developers, unless his friends agreed with his idea.
    “I’m not a city dweller. I’m a beach dweller.” She glanced at him, then out the front window. “Are we getting out of the truck?”
    “In a sec, Butterfly. I’m just taking it all in. I played frontier with Mack and Will Cumberland in those fields. Sneaking out at night, spending hours climbing trees, finding snakes and frogs and scaring my sister with them.” He laughed with the memory. “We used to hide in the hayloft in that barn down there. I remember the sound of their father sliding the heavy wooden doors open and the feel of my pulse racing, the pungent smell of hay as we buried ourselves in it. The way the smell invaded my lungs and tickled my throat and I had to choke back coughs.” He rubbed his forearm. “I can still feel the scratches it left on my arms and legs.”
    He opened the truck door and met her intense gaze. “Can you get that on your Pinterest boards?” He walked around the truck and opened her door, offering her a hand to step down.
    “Pinterest has pictures of everything.”
    She took his hand as she stepped from the truck, and he led her to the fence surrounding the pastures, nodding in the direction of the woods in the distance toward their left. “At night we used to meet in those woods with our flashlights. I love this land, and I really don’t want to see it fall into the wrong hands.” Even back then he’d wanted to live in the mountains, and he wondered whether Shannon saw the beauty he saw, or like so many others who didn’t grow up there, if