The Convenient Cowboy Read Online Free PDF Page A

head away and slowly rolling so her back was to him. She didn’t care what Spence thought or wanted. She was staying right here.
    His hand, with its smooth—but not girlie—palm, rested against her forehead as she tried to move farther away.
    “No fever,” he grunted.
    “You woke me out of a sound sleep.”
    “I wouldn’t have woken you if you’d been in the bed.”
    “I was comfortable here.”
    “I’ll help you to bed.”
    “You will not. I’m staying here.”
    “Olympia, I’m not letting you sleep here. Come on.” She turned enough to see him towering over the couch, his arms crossed over his chest—his broad chest, where she’d laid her cheek after they’d made love.
    “Go away.” She squinched her eyes closed against him and the memories of that night. Dear Lord, the night she’d gotten pregnant. Her stomach heaved, and she fought her way out of her nest of pillows.
    When she finally came out of the bathroom, she didn’t fight Spence as he helped her to the bed. Exhausted, she just wanted to lie down and have her head stop spinning. Spence held up the covers for her, and she carefully slid in. She lay there in the middle of the huge empty bed, listening to him in the bathroom, brushing his teeth and doing all those domestic things that she’d imagined in her silly girlhood would mean that she finally belonged somewhere and to someone. Now here she was, married to a man she didn’t like most hours of the day, pregnant—there, she’d thought it without hyperventilating—and alone on her wedding night.
    Tears tracked down her cheeks. She wiped at them and buried her face farther into the pillow. She hated crying but couldn’t stop the sob that bubbled up and out. She tightened her jaw to keep the next one in. Her chest hurt from holding back her gasping breaths. Her eyes burned from the tears, then the sob parted her lips and she couldn’t stop. What the hell was she crying about? The bed dipped. She popped up, wrestling with the blankets and sheets.
    “Everything’s okay,” Spence whispered, brushing her hair behind her ear. “Lie down.” He pulled her toward him, bringing her cheek to rest on that solid chest, where she could hear the thud of his heart. His hand rubbed her back. She wanted to tell him to get away from her. Instead, she lay there, clutching his shirt and blubbering. Damn it. She wasn’t the kind of woman who cried. She’d always prided herself on that.
    Hours passed. It had to be hours. Her tears left tight, salty trails on her cheeks. Her eyelids rasped across her eyes. She tried to push herself away from Spence, but he just tightened his hold.
    “Relax. Go to sleep. Morning will be here before we know it.”
    Even those inane words made her feel better as she drifted into sleep, thinking that this would be something to tell their children. She jerked awake. She wasn’t keeping the baby, and she wasn’t keeping Spence. None of that was in the life she had planned. James women made horrible wives and even worse mothers.
    * * *
    T HE COMBINATION OF a vibrating pocket and deliciously round female butt against his crotch brought Spence slowly and pleasantly from sleep as an imaginary Olympia asked him, “Is that your phone? Or are you just happy to feel me?”
    The vibration paused for five breaths as he gathered himself to figure out where he was and why his mouth tasted as if he’d eaten dead coyote for dinner. He rolled slowly away from Olympia. His wife. Had he really married her? Had they really gotten pregnant? Was that the sun coming in through the curtains?
    He sat up slowly, making sure he didn’t jar his head. He knew that once he really woke up, the hangover he deserved would pierce his brain. “Hello,” he whispered hoarsely into the phone.
    “Daddy,” Calvin said. “You forgot to call.”
    Spence stood quickly and hustled from the bed to the window. Crap. The sun was bright and way up in the sky. Then the spike-through-the-head hangover hit. Why had