Just a Cowboy and His Baby (Spikes & Spurs) Read Online Free PDF

mention Goodnight. She lives between Claude and Amarillo. She and her husband are part of a carnival that winters there,” Gemma said between bites.
    “Blaze McIntire?”
    Gemma nodded.
    “Colleen is your sister?”
    Another nod.
    Trace chuckled again. “Small world! I know Blaze well. Only met your sister once, but I can see the resemblance.”
    “Really?”
    “Oh, yeah. Blaze and I’ve—” He chuckled again. “Guess I’d best hush or I’ll get in trouble. Colleen doesn’t need to know about all the things in Blaze’s past.”
    “And your past?” Gemma asked.
    “Colorful. We’ll leave it at that. Now back to Sugar.” He changed the subject. “The woman I was dating was tall, blonde, pretty. And sometime in the fall, must’ve been about the middle of October, we started talking about taking a Christmas trip together.” He carried his plate to the table and sat down at the far end away from Gemma.
    “To Mexico?”
    Trace’s brows knit together and he tilted his head to one side. “Why would you say that? Oh! Sugar is a Chihuahua. But no, we were thinking about Florida to the beach. I asked her what she wanted for Christmas and she said something that would fit inside a stocking this big,” he held up his hands and measured about six inches, “and nothing bigger. So I figured she meant plane tickets to Florida and a long weekend in a fancy condo. I got them and they looked pretty small inside the red stocking and then I remembered that she’d thrown a fit over a Chihuahua in the pet store when we were in Amarillo at the mall. So I bought a six-week-old puppy and on Christmas Eve when we exchanged presents I stuffed the dog down into the stocking with the tickets.”
    Gemma finished her pancakes and sipped at the still hot coffee. “And?”
    “She was allergic to dogs. She hated the beach and she wanted an engagement ring. I asked her why she let me think she wanted to go to the beach with me and she said she thought I was joking to throw her off base with the engagement ring.”
    “Wow!”
    “Yep, I didn’t do too hot that Christmas. I got a refund on the plane tickets and only lost the price of one night on the condo, but the dog was not returnable.”
    “And the name?”
    Trace swallowed a gulp of coffee. “I took one look at the critter as she stormed out the door and sped out of my driveway and said, ‘I guess visions of sugar plums weren’t what was dancing in her head.’”
    Gemma giggled. “And Sugar Plum stuck? What happened to the woman?”
    “The dog’s name on the registration papers is Sugar Plum Ziva.”
    “After Ziva David on NCIS ?”
    “You got it. Sugar might be small, but she’s a force just like Ziva,” Trace said.
    “And the woman?”
    “Oh, I run into the lady now and then at the café or in the grocery store. She’s engaged to a CEO of some company out of Amarillo these days. Guess he understands her a lot better than I did.”
    Gemma clamped her hand over her mouth to keep the giggle from growing, but it was useless. She could just see the woman peeling out of a driveway in her fancy car, all mad as hell because she got a dog instead of a ring. One bitch sure didn’t want another bitch in her house. The more she visualized the whole scene the funnier it got, and the giggle grew into a guffaw and that went to an infectious roar with Trace joining in.
    Finally, Trace wiped at his eyes with a paper napkin. “It is funny, isn’t it? I haven’t laughed that hard in years, but the look on your face was hilarious. What would you have done if it had been you?”
    “I bet it wasn’t funny then. Did you love her? I would have taken you to court for custody of the dog. I love all animals except spiders and mice. Dogs. Cats. Horses. Even donkeys.”
    “No, it wasn’t funny then, and I don’t know if I loved her. I doubt it. She wasn’t ranch material so there wasn’t going to be a long-term relationship. I’m a rancher and have no intentions of being anything