Linda Castle Read Online Free PDF Page A

She frowned at him. He swayed a little as she glared at him. It was obvious he had been sharing Clell’s bottle.
    “Nothing, nothing at all.” Brooks shook his head.
    “Good. For a moment I thought you might have been upset about the invite.”
    Brooks gave her a lopsided grin. “Nothing to be upset about. The whole idea is ridiculous. I know you are too sensible to even consider such a thing.”
    “And just why is the idea of me going to New York so comical?” Missy pressed.
    “What?” Brooks tried to listen to what she was saying, but Clell’s whiskey had brought a buzz to his head and a ringing to his ears. “Well, little lady, wearing boots and hats in New York drawing rooms is not the thing this year.” Laughter bubbled up in the back of his throat as he imagined Missy sitting down to tea in her form-fitting chaps.
    “So you think I ain’t got sense enough to learn to act like a lady, is that it?” Missy’s dark eyes narrowed with anger.
    “Not exactly.” Brooks blinked a couple of times and tried to clear the cobwebs from his brain.
    “You learned to be a cowboy…”
    “That’s different.” He blinked and steadied himself.
    “What’s different about it? If you could learn to be acowboy, why is it so hard to believe that I could become a lady?”
    Even in his half-looped state, Brooks was intelligent enough to recognize a loaded question when he heard one. “You just can’t go. Now let’s stop all this silly talk.”
    “I can’t? Did I hear you right?” Missy shook her head in disbelief. “Did you just tell me that I can’t go to New York?”
    Brooks sucked in a breath, tried to catalog his own thoughts into a proper order while he looked at Missy. Indignant fire burned in her brown eyes. She had lovely eyes when she was spitting mad. A part of him wanted to tell her that, but that kind of talk was the sort of thing that got men tangled up. He bit back the compliment, not wanting to do anything that would upset his plans of having no entanglements, no commitments. He had to keep a cool head. Then he could remain free as the wind. “Now, Missy…”
    “Don’t you ‘now Missy’ me. And just when, oh-so-mighty Mr. James, did you start tellin’ me what I can or can’t do?” She advanced on him, and to his utter astonishment, he retreated a step. She raised herself up on her slippered toes, but even then the top of her head barely reached his chin. She was narrow eyed with fury now.
    He felt the current of excitement arc between them. This was what he wanted, what he liked—a hot channel of interest running between them like a river of fire.
    “I know you have an overblown notion of your importance, but I didn’t think it went so far as to include the whole of New York City!”
    “That wasn’t exactly what I meant,” Brooks began, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. The whiskey was dulling his senses and slurring his words, but he was still acutely aware of her.
    She would be bored in a brownstone instead of under a wide, azure sky. Patricia and Ellen, and especially women like Violet, would never—could never—understand the restless energy of Missy. He wanted to tell her that her spirit would wither without the wind in her face and a gallop each morning.
    You would be unhappy.
    “I should’a known you’d have something nasty to say.” Missy inhaled a long breath. “Thank you for invitin’ me, Mr. and Mrs. James. I’d love to come. Right now.” She lowered herself back to the soles of her feet and glared at Brooks again.
    “I was goin’ to say no, but since you seem so all-fired determined that I can’t go, I have changed my mind.” She turned once again to face his parents. “I’ll start packing and will be ready to leave with you at the end of the week.”
    Brooks frowned and tried to steady himself. Until this moment he had not realized how many toasts he had drunk to his sister’s marriage. But the shock of Missy’s words had begun to sober him