Fearless Love Read Online Free PDF

quite the same again.
    He wondered if there was any way he could convince Carmody to add a few more hens. Hell, all she had to do was let that randy rooster loose and then let one or two of the hens brood up a flock of chicks.
    Of course, he hadn’t been inside her hen house. Maybe she didn’t have room for any more chickens. He should probably take a look, give her some advice about expanding.
    Yeah, right. Mr. Altruism here.
    Joe grimaced as he watched Placido load the dishwasher. MG Carmody still looked like she could use a good meal and a quick trip to Kohl’s, but even at six thirty in the morning, she also looked like someone he’d like to know better. Which was a sort of polite way of saying she looked hot, even in a pair of cargo pants and a T-shirt, with no obvious make-up and a certain amount of straw in her hair.
    As he recalled, straw in the hair was an occupational hazard around hen houses. In fact, you were lucky if it was just straw.
    Darcy took a load of chopped vegetables into the cooler, ready for the lunch crowd, then emerged wiping her hands on her towel. “You talk to Kit about the prep cook?”
    He nodded. “We’ll put out some feelers to see who’s available. Meanwhile, I’ll get you somebody to do the basic scut work.”
    “All right then.” She pulled off her apron and tossed it in the laundry bag. “I’m going out for coffee. You can tell the Beav I’ll be back in time to finish the lunch prep and get the quiches going.”
    Joe managed not to grin. Calling Fairley the Beav wasn’t going to endear Darcy to him, particularly if he heard her do it. On the other hand, it struck Joe as a spot-on description. He did a cursory check to make sure Leo was doing lunch prep, then headed for his cabin.
    When he’d first arrived at the Woodrose Inn, he’d been happy enough to have a house on the premises, even if it was a converted guest cabin. Now the space had begun to feel downright claustrophobic. One of these days he needed to find somewhere else to live, but it was still low on his list of priorities. He hung up his jacket and pulled a Hawaiian shirt on over the undershirt he wore underneath, then headed toward the parking lot.
    He’d had an idea when MG Carmody had wandered into his kitchen that morning, and cooking breakfast for the relatively small number of guests had allowed his thoughts to percolate. He figured he’d need to do a little selling to convince Carmody herself, but he was ready to give it a try.
    As he walked through her front yard, he noted the patches of bare dirt under the pecan trees and the slight sag in the front steps. MG Carmody might actually be a dotcom billionaire who liked living off the land, but he doubted it. He raised his hand to knock on the front door when he heard clucking from the rear.
    As he walked around the side of the house, he noted the remains of a well-established vegetable garden at the back, including some telltale asparagus stalks. Definitely worth checking out later on.
    MG Carmody stood in her grassy back yard near the chicken coop. Five or so hens moved around her ankles, industriously snipping at the grass. The rooster stood on the other side of the fence, squawking loudly in what sounded like indignation.
    Joe put a hand on the fence post, leaning back to watch. “Trying fresh feed?”
    MG jumped, then turned toward him, frowning. “You should wear a bell or something when you come back here. That’s the second time you’ve startled me.”
    He shrugged, trying for apologetic and failing. “Herding chickens?”
    “I read an article on the Internet that said you should feed them grass and let them scratch. They can scratch in the chicken yard—” she gestured toward the largely dirt patch inside the fence around the hen house, “—but there’s no grass there. And I can’t afford to build one of those ‘chicken tractor’ things where you move them around the yard to a different spot every couple of days.”
    “So, like I