Once Upon a Cowboy Read Online Free PDF Page B

been working my ass off.”
    Ma whacked himwith a spatula. “No swearing in my kitchen.”
    “Sorry, Ma.”
    Behind Ma’s back, Decker gave him the finger, then pushed through the doors and started clattering the plates onto the long dining room table. Cole reached into the fridge and grabbed a beer, cracking it open with Ma’s ancient under-counter Coca-Cola opener.
    “You all right?” she asked.
    “Why are you asking?” Cole took a draw of the coolale, letting it slide down his parched throat.
    “Well, Decker would probably use a more colorful expression, but you’re acting like a big ol’ bug crawled up into your nether regions.”
    “Just tired.”
    And agitated. Supremely, hugely agitated.
Cole took another slug of his beer. Despite a forty-five-minute run and a cold shower, he still couldn’t get the picture of Jess in her soaked white dressand purple bra out of his damn head. All those curves and hollows, all that lusciousness, all outlined in perfect relief.
    “Well,”—Ma pointed at the silverware drawer—“tired or not, that table’s not gonna set itself. Do the silverware, would you?”
    As he set his beer down and rolled his eyes, Ma winked. “It won’t take your mind off a girl in a wet dress, but it’ll at least keep your hands busy,right?”
    —
    “How long are you staying, Jess?” Hayley’s eyes widened as she looked at Jess’s bed in the cabin, strewn with three open suitcases. Her curly red hair was restrained by a pink, sparkly headband that looked suspiciously like a nine-year-old had made it, but for some reason it just made her look even more adorable than usual.
    Jess stuffed a pile of T-shirts into a drawer. “Two weeks.”
    “Good God! How much did you have to pay in baggage fees?”
    “I packed in a rush, okay? And the weather out here’s a little unpredictable, temperature-wise. I wanted to be prepared.” So far she’d found enough yoga clothes to hold three classes a day, but she still hadn’t found any underwear.
    Hayley pulled a tank dress out of one suitcase and held it up to herself in the mirror. “I wish I couldrock this color.”
    “You could.”
    She smirked. “Right. Because redheads look fabulous in yellow. So”—Hayley put the dress on a hanger in the closet—“I hear Cole welcomed you with open arms this afternoon.”
    Jess laughed. “He welcomed me with
something
.” She pushed a pile of jeans into a drawer. “You should have seen his face, Hayls. I have never seen a more mortified man in my entire life.”
    “Imight have actually paid to see that.”
    Jess pulled a hoodie out of her suitcase, but stopped before she got it onto a hanger. “I’ll kill you if you repeat this, but I somehow managed to forget how utterly gorgeous that man is.”
    “There’s a reason the Whisper Creek website gets six thousand hits a day.”
    “Is he still—”
    “A player?” Hayley’s eyebrows lifted. “You know, the more I get to know him,the more I wonder how much of a cover that is. I think, deep down, he wishes he could find somebody to settle down with.”
    “Right.” Jess rolled her eyes. “Because that’s what every red-blooded cowboy dreams of—being tied down.”
    “You asked.”
    “Idle curiosity.” Jess moved to the closet again. Right. Idle curiosity, her foot. The feel of Cole’s arms around her wet body two hours ago had ignitedall sorts of feelings she was completely unprepared to deal with.
    “Well, now that you’re in dry clothes again, we should probably head up to the lodge for dinner. I heard Ma’s making your favorite.”
    “I’m going to adopt that woman.”
    Hayley shook her head. “Too late. I already did.”
    As they left the bedroom, Jess looked around the cabin, a peaceful feeling stealing in the same way it had everytime she’d come out to Whisper Creek. The living room had a big, soft couch with lots of colorful pillows, and if she hadn’t promised Kyla she’d help with the guests all week, she could easily