The Curvy Vet and the Billionaire Cowboy (He Wanted Me Pregnant!) Read Online Free PDF Page A

that was just a tiny bit disappointed.
    Russ cleared some ground and built a fire. By the time it was roaring, the temperature had dropped enough that I was very glad of its heat. There was chili, heated over the fire, thick and dark and warming. Salty, crunchy crackers and icy spring water to go with it. Stretched out on a blanket, eating in companionable silence, I never wanted to move again. I could get used to this, I thought. And for a second I entertained childish dreams. Me and him in some rosy portrait of country life, all home-cooked food and kids running barefoot in the fields.
    Except the wife wouldn’t look like me, would she? She’d be like the woman at the airport. Slender and petite and beautiful.
    “Look up,” Russ said.
    “What?”
    “Look up.”
    I looked up…and gasped. While I’d been watching the fire, the sky had come alive with stars. I could see the milky way, the sweep of light across the sky that makes even the most cynical observer think we are not alone. Looking up at the millions of tiny pinpricks of light, I somehow felt tiny and yet part of something much bigger, all at the same time. I wanted to share it with someone.
    That’s why I reached for his hand. I wasn’t even aware I was doing it until it was done. My fingers curling around his much larger ones. A second’s hesitation and then he closed his grip and squeezed mine tightly.
    We sat there in silence for a few minutes, just watching. And then I started to feel something. Like a hot throbbing emanating from our held hands, radiating out along our arms and into our bodies. As if our hearts had started to thump to the same beat. Shit! What do I do now?!
    I’d accidentally created a moment. Alone, miles out into the wilderness, where no one could see us. Under the stars. Holding hands. Shit!
    The sensible thing, if it had been a movie, would have been to lean over and kiss him. Or maybe lean over and close my eyes and part my lips and wait for him to kiss me .
    But this wasn’t a movie. If it had been a movie, Russ would have had a little slip of a woman with long, arrow-straight blonde hair and perky little breasts and an ass that was barely there. She’d be a natural rider instead of nearly falling off the horse and she’d giggle and smile prettily and he’d be able to sweep her up into the air with one hand. The only movie I was auditioning for was a painful romantic comedy where the klutzy heroine misreads the signs and comes on to a man who isn’t interested. And I didn’t want that part.
    I jumped up, releasing Russ’s hand. “I have to stretch,” I said. “My leg is going to sleep.”
    He nodded. He’d taken his hat off at last and his dark hair shone in the firelight. For a second, he looked almost embarrassed. Why would he be embarrassed? It was me who’d nearly done something stupid.
    I needed something safe to talk about. Something that had nothing to do with relationships or love or sex. Work. We would talk about work.
    “So, tell me about the farm,” I said. I made a big show of stretching my leg, almost toppling headfirst into a rock in the process. “How does an oil man come to breed horses?”
    He let out a chuckle. He did that a lot, I was noticing, and it made me more aware of my own moodiness. How was everything so easy for him? He seemed to completely miss all the inherent dangers and stresses that surrounded us. He didn’t seem to be checking the ground every few seconds for scorpions, or jumping at movements in the shadows that might be bears. He didn’t seem to be worried about the fact that we only had enough water for a few days and what if someone came in the middle of the night and unscrewed the caps on our canteens and let it all drain out and we woke to find ourselves miles from anywhere, slowly dehydrating, crawling on our bellies towards a river that turned out to be only a mirage—
    Breathe, Amanda.
    My point was, none of those very real and reasonable fears seemed to bother him.