The Traveling Kind Read Online Free PDF

a quirking smile. “What is your given name? Charlotte or Charlene?”
    “Charlotte, but practically no one ever calls me that. It’s always Charley.” She gave a little shrug that showed she had no objections to it and took a sip of her coffee.
    “That’s because it suits you.” His gaze traveled over her in a way that seemed to take some of her breath. “A masculine-sounding name always makes a woman seem more feminine. The reverse isn’t true, however. It would never work if your brother, Gary, was called Mary.”
    “Not hardly,” she agreed dryly.
    “I’m surprised your brother isn’t married by now. A young, good-looking rancher should be a likely candidate for the single girls in the area,” Shad commented, eyeing her with silent question.
    “I suppose he is,” Charley conceded. “A year ago he was almost out of circulation but the engagement was broken. Since then he’s sworn off women.”
    “That’s a noble vow, but it won’t last.” He seemed to speak from experience as he pushed his empty plate back and set his coffee cup in front of him. “What went wrong? Do you know?”
    She shook her head, the mass of caramel-colored hair brushing her shoulders. “Gary doesn’t like to talk about it.” She wasn’t sure if she should have even told Shad about it. He was virtually a stranger and here she was spilling the family secrets. Of course, Gary’s broken engagement wasn’t exactly a secret. It was the discovery that she was talking more freely to Shad than she did with most people that she found disconcerting. “How about you?” Charley switched the subject. “Have you ever been close to the marriage altar?”
    “No, I haven’t even been close enough to catch the scent of orange blossoms.” Shad smiled at the question and took a swig of his coffee.
    Charley realized she had been subconsciously wondering if a woman had started him out on his wandering path. It had seemed logical to assume he was running from something, but apparently that wasn’t the case.
    Silence stretched for a span of several seconds, broken by the scrape of a chair leg on the tiled kitchen floor as Shad came to his feet with lithe ease. Her upraised glance encountered the smiling light in his blue eyes.
    “It’s time I started earning my keep.”
    “Thanks for fixing breakfast. It was good.”
    “So was the company. Food always tastes better when you don’t have to eat alone. I know,” he said with a wry twist of his mouth.
    That last comment of personal knowledge caused Charley to fall silent. As he turned away from the table she studied his lean, muscular form, the width of his shoulders tapering to a slim waist and hips, moving with the loose-limbed ease of a horseman. He paused at the back door to take his brown Stetson from the brass hook and push it onto the midnight black of his hair.
    As he walked out the door without looking back she tried to imagine what the life of a drifter was like—traveling down so many lonely roads and meeting a lot of people, but never staying long enough to call any of them “friend.” To her it seemed depressing, yet Shad always had a trace of humor in his expression. He seemed to be a vital and vigorous man, embracing life and living it to the fullest.
    Still Charley sensed he was searching for something. Perhaps it was a place to call home. The thought brought a vague stirring of hope, which she quickly squashed. It wasn’t wise to dream of such things. That led to a fast road to heartbreak with the drifting kind like Shad Russell.
    While she nibbled on the last slice of toast, she cleared the table and stacked the dishes in the sink. The uneven thump of a pair of crutches heralded her brother’s approach to the kitchen. Charley glanced over her shoulder as he entered the room.
    “You’re up early this morning.” Since he’d come home from the hospital, he’d been in the habit of sleeping until nearly eight.
    “My leg was bothering me,” he explained and she