My Darling Gunslinger Read Online Free PDF Page B

Lord, enough is enough. It’s worse than spring in England.”
    Daisy only dipped her head to hide a smile.
    “Sugar!” Charlotte tossed the hopelessly snarled pile of blue yarn into the basket at her feet.
    Sebastian looked up from the book he was reading to grin at her, showing the gap where he’d lost a tooth the day before.
    “What?” she asked her son with a huff of laughter.
    “It’s a bad word if you use it in place of a curse word.”
    Charlotte recognized her own words, realized how ridiculous they sounded.
    “Sugar is not a bad word,” she replied with a wave of her hand. “My goodness, sugar is sweet and comforting.”
    “So is fudge,” Sebastian said with all of the authority of a seven year old who knew he was on to something. “And you sent me to my room just the other day for saying it.”
    He had her there.
    “Perhaps I was bit hasty in my judgment,” she agreed. “This motherhood business is confusing. I don’t remember Nanny Bettelheim ever having to discuss which words were proper and in what context.”
    “You weren’t raised on a ranch amid rough cowhands,” Daisy pointed out.
    “True,” Charlotte replied. “I certainly never heard a single one of Father’s footmen curse.”
    “Those high-stepping servants of your father’s kept their cursing below stairs,” Magnus bellowed from the doorway. “Time for bed, Sebastian, my boy.”
    “Just let me finish this chapter,” Sebastian pleaded. “The pirate captain is about to spot the deserted island.”
    Magnus looked to Charlotte, smiled when she gave a quick nod.
    “Twenty minutes,” the Scotsman grumbled good-naturedly as he ambled out of the room. “Just enough time for a snack.”
    The room fell silent but for the rhythmic clicking of Daisy’s knitting needles, the crackling of the fire and the beating of the rain against the windows.
    Charlotte watched her son. He lay on his stomach, a book propped open before him, his bare feet swinging in the air and one small finger poised at the top corner of the book in anticipation of turning the page.
    Sebastian had inherited her love of reading, would in fact read anything that came to hand. But his true preference was adventure stories. Just like his mother.
    For seven long years her life had been one adventure after another and she’d given up reading the stories she’d loved as a girl. It was just too much.
    Now, after a year of peace and contentment on the Zeppelin Ranch, she’d begun to enjoy the tales of Arthur and Odysseus and Robinson Caruso once more.
    Seeing Sebastian quiet and relaxed, listening to the homey sounds in the cozy yellow parlor, smelling the lingering aroma of Akeem’s pipe and Ethel’s roast pork, Charlotte wanted to hug herself and then jump to her feet to dance about the room.
    So she did.
    Sebastian looked up as she sprang to her feet and kicked off her slippers. Daisy kept right on knitting, a smile turning up her lips.
    Charlotte hummed as she began to dance about the room, her fingers clutching her cotton robe and holding it up, showing off trim ankles and pink feet.
    “Oh, Mother, not again,” Sebastian protested.
    Charlotte wasn’t fooled. She heard the laughter in his voice.
    “Dance with me, Sebastian,” she crooned as she twirled around his supine form on the carpet.
    Her son only rolled onto his back and smiled up at her.
    Around and around she went, her movements graceful if somewhat disjointed, while Sebastian watched her with a big, gap-toothed grin and Serendipity jumped onto the windowsill to avoid a trampling
    Golden hands reached for her and she looked into Ken Chang’s laughing, black eyes.
    “May I have the honor of this dance?” He bowed over her hand just as his wife began to pound out a rollicking tune on the pianoforte in the corner. What Ethel lacked in musical ability she more than made up for in enthusiasm.
    Ken twirled her around the perimeter of the parlor, deftly maneuvering around furniture and two old hounds