Sweet Talking Lawman Read Online Free PDF Page A

home. 
He didn’t look away from her and although her cheeks flushed again, as they had
at the time it happened, she didn’t look away either.  “Damn near,” he
admitted, the hoarseness in his voice revealing the effect that memory still had
on him.
    Mesa looked toward the
barmaid and held up a hand before she looked back at him.  “You look
good.  Are you still in the military?”
    His head shook
negatively.  “I’m workin’ with the Marshal’s Service now.  I’m on an
assignment here for a couple’a weeks.”
    The barmaid appeared at
Mesa’s elbow with a glass of iced water.
    Not sure what was in the
glass, Rafe looked at the girl.  “Put that on my tab.”
    She smiled at him and walked
away.
    Mesa took a cooling swallow
from the glass, then her green eyes joined her lips in a smile.  “I don’t
charge myself for water, Rafe.”
    He shrugged.
    “I not only sing here, it’s
my place.”  She looked around the room with pride.  “It’s not a lot,
but it means I don’t have to do road shows and it keeps me going.  My
partner and I lease the building.”
    He chuckled, “I guess the
name, Howell’s Hideaway, should’a been a clue.”
    “But you didn’t connect it
with me?”  Her eyes reflected wariness.
    He shook his head.  “Not
really.  I guess it did make me think of home.  That probably had
somethin’ to do with me walkin’ through the door, but mostly, I was thinking
about a beer.”
    Her eyes dropped away from
his face, to focus on the glass in front of her.  “What do you hear from
home?”
    “Jenny just had a baby. 
Uci’s still keeping up the home place with the help of Uncle John.  Your
mother is…”
    “Still the town tramp?” she
cut into his sentence, her voice filled with bitterness.
    One side of his mouth
lifted.  “Actually, I was gonna say, is doin’ fine.  Uci says she’s
tryin’ to stop drinkin’.”
    Mesa’s dark brows arched in
surprise and her voice dripped with sarcasm.  “Really?  I guess if
that sticks, she’ll be on the road to sainthood.”
    Before he knew what he was
doing, he’d covered one of her hands with one of his own.  “She’s still a
bitch, Mesa.  I don’t think that had a lot to do with her drinkin’, and
the drinkin’ is off and on.  She still treats Rance like a hired hand, the
way she always has.”
    She turned her hand over and
clasped her fingers around the warmth of his strong hand.  “So all these
years I’ve placed the blame in the wrong place.  Who would have imagined
that?  I hope being a bitch isn’t hereditary.”
    He liked the feel of her hand
in his.  Warmth radiated up his arm, coursing down through-out his body.
    “You look so good,” he didn’t
intend for his voice to carry that husky roughness of desire, but it was there.
    “You do, too.  It’s been
a long time since I’ve seen anyone from home.  Even listening to you talk
is soothing to me, Rafe.  I never dreamed I could miss Oak Ridge.”
    For a few minutes they just
sat, holding hands, glancing at each other once in a while.  Finally Rafe
lifted her hand and looked at her long fingers.
    “No weddin’ band?” he asked.
    She shook her head, the long
chestnut brown hair he remembered had been cut into a short, sophisticated,
face framing style.  “Never met anyone else that I cared more about than
myself.”  A warm smile tilted her full lips up, separating them to reveal
her white teeth.
    Her smile started a fire that
warmed him inside and his laughter was soft as he pushed back his chair and
tugged gently on her hand.  “Dance with me.”
    Mesa hesitated for a second,
but then smiled and stood up.  As she did, a large man wearing a dark
sports coat appeared at Rafe’s elbow.  “Mesa doesn’t dance with the
customers, cowboy.”
    Rafe turned and looked into
the icy blue eyes of the man.  “Who the hell…,” he started, but Mesa
stepped between them.
    “It’s alright, Jory. 
Rafe isn’t a customer.  He’s an old