Knight in a White Stetson Read Online Free PDF

habit born of long years of practice and experience, but the small gesture of affection between Calla and Jackson shook him a little.
    Henry wondered what it would be like to touch this woman so casually. He had nearly lost his head when Jackson ran his hand across his daughter’s head, and followed suit. Her hair was damp from a washing, and she hadn’t pulled it into the severe ponytail she’d been wearing yesterday. He hoped she wouldn’t. It gleamed even in the dim light of the kitchen. He’d wanted to plunge his fingers in that mane of hair since he’d first seen a strand of it come loose from her ponytail while she was changing that tire.
    And when Calla caught her father’s hand in hers and pulled it to her lips to kiss it, Henry felt a strong, warm wave of … something … envy? … desire? … pass through his chest to settle at the pit of his stomach. His mouth went suddenly, ferociously dry, a first, sharp sign of lust.
    He swallowed a couple of times to work the saliva back in. Okay, so he was a little horny. That wasn’t a terrible sin. Or an indication of anything more important. Just libido. After all, it had been more than a year since Heidi had left him. A year since he’d passed his hand across the crown of a woman’s head, felt the press of a mouth on his hand. Since he’d felt anything at all, for anyone at all.
    He caught himself mooning, just a bit, at the woman in front of him. Mooning, for God’s sake.
    This is trouble, he thought. I should run. Boy, California is the place you oughta be.
    But when Calla got up from the table and started outside, he followed. He couldn’t help himself.

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    Chapter 4
    « ^ »
    H enry ran the swather along the edge of the last row, following a straight line, the blades of the machine neatly cutting the hay and laying it behind in long, perfect rows. Henry had always loved this job. It was the engineer in him, he thought. Nothing like straight lines to satisfy an engineer. Calla would be satisfied.
    Calla.
    Straight lines were all well and good, he thought, but curvy lines had their merits, too.
    There was no air-conditioning in the cab of the swather, and he felt the sweat bead down from his hair to his neck and soak into his T-shirt. A wonderful feeling. A little hard work, a little healthy lust. Definitely a good sweat.
    Henry looked back over his shoulder at the beautifully cut rows of sweet alfalfa. It had been years since he’d been in a swather, the summer his grandfather died and Henry’s father, already a prominent physician, had sold the farm in central California to real-estate developers who turned the rich soil under and planted fifteen hundred identical, neatly spaced, half-acre house lots with views of the delta.
    Henry reached the end of his perfect row and turned the swather deftly, plunging it forward into the tall, purple-budded alfalfa of the next section. The smell of cut alfalfa was one of his favorite scents, and he closed his eyes and breathed deeply.
    Calla.
    He opened his eyes and headed for a point at the end of the field. She’d sneaked her wily way into his thoughts every few minutes since she scooted out from under that truck yesterday and thrust her hand at him like a man.
    She wasn’t as beautiful, he thought, as some women he’d seen. After all, he’d worked in Los Angeles for the past two years. He saw the most beautiful women in the world every day. She wasn’t even beautiful like Heidi was, like most of the women to whom he’d ever been attracted. Heidi had been blond and willowy thin, her skin light, her eyes the crystal blue of the Pacific Ocean. She’d worn clothes in the latest fashion, and she’d looked perfect in them, her model’s figure shown to its best.
    Henry, rich and young and smart, had dated several thin, beautiful blondes before he married Heidi, but she was by far the most captivating. To me and everyone else, Henry thought, his mouth twisting into a grimace.
    But Calla wasn’t thin and