Soul Deep Read Online Free PDF Page A

over a black turtleneck
and jeans. “We don’t need to go upstairs. There’s not much up there
besides bedrooms.”
    “I’d like that.” She followed him while he
showed her his office, with its masculine leather furniture and
neat bookshelves; the gym with its sauna and the hot tub they’d
just installed; a breathtaking two-story library that had its own
fireplace; the home theater; and, last but not least, the wine
cellar.
    Janet struggled not to look amazed by it all.
She’d had no idea cattle ranching could be so lucrative. Or maybe
it wasn’t the cattle. Maybe it was the horses. Regardless, the
Cimarron was like no place she’d ever seen.
    Jack turned toward the wall of wines. “This
reminds me. We need something for dinner. How about a nice cru
Beaujolais?” He drew a bottle from the rack and read off the name
in French. “Côte de Brouilly from Château Thivin. This ought to
do.”
    “You’re an oenophile?”
    He frowned. “Does that surprise you?”
    Janet’s mind was still muddled by Percocet.
That’s the only explanation for the words that came out of her
mouth next—and the flirty tone of voice she used when she said
them. “A lot of things I’ve learned about you today surprise
me.”
    Jack’s lips curved slowly into a smile that
made her pulse skip. “Is that so?”
    # # #
    Jack poured wine into Janet’s glass, fighting
to ignore what felt suspiciously like nerves. “Bon appétit.”
    What the hell did he possibly have to be
nervous about?
    Absolutely nothing. That’s what.
    This wasn’t a date or some damned romantic
liaison. He was having dinner with an acquaintance who’d gotten
stranded near his property—and who just happened to be a beautiful
woman. She probably had a boyfriend or, hell, maybe a
girlfriend.
    She smiled, those dimples appearing again.
“It smells delicious.”
    Not sure what she liked, he’d decided to keep
dinner simple—a roast chicken, buttered new potatoes with parsley,
an arugula salad, green beans, and rolls.
    “Thanks.” He sat, spread a cloth napkin on
his lap. “We trade with a friend of ours—organic free-range beef
for organic free-range birds.”
    She raised her glass. “Cheers.”
    He raised his. “Cheers.”
    They drank.
    “This is very good.” Janet looked at the
wine, took another sip. “I don’t know as much about wine as I
should, but I do appreciate a good wine when I taste it. My
mother’s parents made their own wine from grapes they grew
themselves. They grew most of what we ate.”
    “You grew up on a farm?” Now it was his turn
to be surprised. He’d had her figured for a big-city type.
    “My grandfather grew apples, so it was really
more of an orchard than a farm, though they did have a big
vegetable garden. My grandmother canned everything. We had chickens
and beehives, too. I helped her with the chickens—when I wasn’t too
busy running wild.”
    While they ate, Jack listened to Janet talk
about her childhood, her voice smooth and melodic, her green eyes
taking on a sparkle. He tried to envision the woman who’d shown up
at the ranch last February wearing a stiff pantsuit, a gun, and a
badge as a little girl who’d eaten fresh honey from a hive, helped
her grandma gather eggs, played hide and seek in the barn, and
climbed into apple trees to read books.
    “They had sugar maples on the property, so
every spring we’d tap the trees to gather the sap and then boil it
down to make maple syrup, maple butter, and maple candy. I miss
that here. No one in Colorado has even heard of maple cream
pie.”
    “I can’t say I’ve heard of it myself.” But
Jack would damned well look it up. He liked a challenge. “Is that
where you learned to ride?”
    She took a sip of her wine, nodded. “They had
two dressage horses—Hanoverian geldings. I was riding horses before
I could walk, or so I’ve been told.”
    As a rule, Jack didn’t go in for woo-woo, but
he’d swear there was a spiritual connection between women