Nighthawk & The Return of Luke McGuire Read Online Free PDF Page A

then let it go wild. It’ll be years before I get it back in shape.”
    Esther blinked. “Really? I never thought about that.”
    “Neither did I. I thought when I bought the place that I was getting a lot of good land.” He glanced her way and gave her a rueful smile. “’Course, what did I know about grazing sheep? I drove a truck.”
    “Big occupational change.”
    “Still should’ve read up before I jumped into it.”
    “So what do you do about it?”
    “Little by little we’re getting the pasturage in shape. Then we’ll be able to increase the flock. Might even bring in some cattle.”
    “Cattle? But they can’t graze with sheep, can they?”
    “That’s a commonly held belief, but the fact is you can graze ’em side by side. They mostly eat different plants, and between ’em they’ll help keep the pasture healthier.” He shrugged. “Then again, maybe I won’t get in any deeper than sheep. Ransom Laird has a spread up north of here where he raises sheep, and he seems to be doing well enough.”
    “I met him once,” Esther remarked. “When I was doing something for the sheriff. He seems like a nice man.”
    “Yeah.” Tipping his head back, Nighthawk downed the last of the coffee, closing the subject immediately. He set the mug on the porch with a thump. “I’d better get back to work,” he said. Rising, he returned to the garden and started digging.
    Esther stared after him, wondering what she had said wrong.

Chapter 2
     
    E sther really needed to get to work. She had a gallery showing in London coming up in a couple of months, and she still had several of the promised paintings to complete, not to mention one she hadn’t even started yet. Instead she was standing in her kitchen cooking a huge breakfast for a man she didn’t know who plainly just wanted to be left alone.
    She couldn’t quite explain why she thought that. He’d been sociable enough, but had given her the distinct feeling that it wasn’t easy for him. Of course, it wasn’t easy for her either, so perhaps she’d been guilty of projecting her feelings onto him.
    And what the hell did it matter? Obviously she was losing her mind, cooking breakfast for a man she didn’t know when she made it a rule to avoid men as much as humanly possible. Something must have shaken a few of her screws loose.
    Even so, she kept right on cooking, frying slices of the small ham she’d meant to use for her dinners, making home fries because she was out of bread for toast, and finally scrambling some eggs.
    And something inside her quivered with unease. Was she doing this for Mr. Nighthawk because he’d been kind enough to restore her garden—or was she doing this because it was what a woman was supposed to do for a man? The mere thought nauseated her.
    But she finished cooking breakfast anyway. When she went out front to get him, he was just finishing. Her garden plots were a riot of pink and purple blossoms and Nighthawk was putting the spade in the back of his truck.
    “Come in for breakfast,” she called to him. “I have home fries, ham and eggs.”
    He turned slowly, his inscrutable face betraying just a smidgen of surprise. “I don’t think I ought to come in.”
    It was as if his words snapped her into a bird’s-eye position, looking down on the two of them, seeing herself as a woman alone in the middle of nowhere with a man she didn’t know. Of course he didn’t want to come into the house. “I’ll bring it out onto the porch then.”
    He hesitated, then nodded. “Thanks. I appreciate it.”
    Of course he was hesitant. He had no idea what kind of person she was. The realization eased her own apprehension. If he was concerned about such things, then she probably had nothing to fear from him.
    She had a round table and chairs at one corner of the porch, and it was there she served them both breakfast. The breeze blew gently, carrying the fresh scents of the morning earth to them, enhancing the already delicious aroma of