Only Skin Deep Read Online Free PDF

jasmine perfume as they walked to his pickup. Opening the passenger door of his one-ton dually for her, Travis realized it was a fragrance that could get under a man’s skin. He hadn’t been able to get it out of his mind since the reception, and right now it was making him itchy from the inside out.
    Standing just under five foot five inches in her stocking feet, Lauren needed a stepladder to climb into the truck. Seeing as he didn’t carry one around with him, Travis offered to help her up into the cab. He was glad she didn’t object when he put his hands on either side of her waist and gave her a little boost. And relieved that she didn’t slap him when they lingered there a moment longer than they should have.
    Their gazes collided. Travis lost himself in a pair of eyes the color of aspen leaves at the first sign of spring. There was no softer color on the face of the earth. The air in his lungs got stuck there as he forgot to breathe.
    Just the other day on the dance floor he’d had to fight his way through all those filmy layers of chiffon just to even find her waist. Today Lauren wasn’t bothering to hide her mouthwatering physical attributes. A crop top the color of pale lemon meringue was tucked enticingly into a pair of slacks. There was nothing particularly sexy about the pants that Travis could see—other thanthe way they hugged her hips made him want to peel them off of her.
    Whoa! This is no frivolous little swinger looking for a good time. This is a woman who’s made no bones about the fact that she’s looking to settle down. Hell, I’m not so sure she was joking earlier when she asked you to marry her. And you, cowboy, are about as eager to tie that knot again as somebody standing on the gallows….
    With that solemn reproof in mind, Travis purposely worked at keeping the conversation light as they traveled the five miles out of town to the Half Moon Ranch. Nestled into the base of the mountains and dissected by a picturesque river, it had been in the Banks family for generations and meant everything to Travis. That land was as much a part of him as the marrow in his bones.
    Against his lawyer’s advice, Travis maintained that Jaclyn was welcome to anything she wanted in the divorce—except the ranch itself. A woman devoid of sentimentality or an appreciation of nature, Jaclyn had wanted to subdivide the property the instant she calculated its value by an investor’s standard. She simply couldn’t understand why anyone would endure the long hours and physical labor necessary to keep such a massive operation going when a killing could be made by selling it off. It hadn’t taken her long to discover that the life of a rancher’s wife was not the one of luxury that she’d expected. And to abandon it as quickly as she had her vows.
    The scent of Lauren’s perfume, with its own subtle, flirtatious voice, filled any lapses in the conversationand kept him from traveling too far down old roads. Lauren seemed so excited about the prospect of having her own place that she was oblivious to the effect she was having on him. Travis was glad he’d paid someone to come over on the weekend to straighten the place up. He didn’t care whether Lauren actually rented it or not, but he didn’t want her mocking that which held a special place in his heart. The times he had spent with his grandfather in that old cabin were among his best childhood memories.
    He didn’t need to worry. Lauren fell in love with it the moment she set eyes on it.
    â€œIt’s perfect!” she exclaimed as if seeing the Taj Mahal instead of the humble little cabin that his ex-wife considered an eye sore.
    Sentimental value, and a certain measure of spite, had kept Travis from complying with Jaclyn’s repeated requests to tear it down. There was no denying that the place was a fixer-upper, but that only seemed to endear it to Lauren all the more. As she