The Widow and the Wildcatter: A Loveswept Classic Romance Read Online Free PDF Page B

contract if he decided to drill. “Whose name is on the deed to this farm?”
    “Grandpa’s and mine, as tenants in joint.” Joni gave the porch floor a nudge with her heel, setting the swing in motion, then folded her hands in her lap. “You look surprised.”
    “Curious is more like it.”
    She saw a small patch of beard near his right sideburn that had escaped the morning razor, and it provoked an unsettling feeling of intimacy. “How so?”
    His brows were pulled down into a low V over his eyes. “I’m just wondering why you haven’t put the farm in your name and put your grandfather on Medicaid.”
    “Farmers want parity, Mr. McCoy, not charity.”
    “That’s all well and good, Mrs. Fletcher, but it sounds like you’re letting pride get in the way of practicality.”
    She lifted her chin a notch. “Meaning …?”
    Looking down at her freckled face, seeing the soft violet shadows of fatigue that lay under her beautiful blue eyes, Chance felt something stir deep inside him. Something he chose to ignore in light of what had to be said.
    “Meaning you could put your grandfather in a nursing home and get on with the business of making this place pay.”
    Joni’s lips parted as if he’d just plunged a knife between her ribs. For a moment she didn’t speak, but only stared at him. When she did find words,her voice underscored her contempt for the root of her problems.
    “And you called me a mercenary!” She stopped the swing and surged to her feet, advancing on him with the ferocity of a spring cyclone. “Well, let me tell you something, you—you money-grubbing bastard! Grandpa was born here and he’s going to die here.”
    Standing toe to toe with the wildcatter now, she jabbed that Rock of Gibraltar chest with an emphatic finger. “This is the only home he’s ever known, and as long as I’ve got breath in my body, no one is going to take it from him. Or him from it!”
    Chance took a real pounding as she blew her course. And when she’d spent her fury, he took her in his arms.
    Joni tried to resist. She raised her hands to his shoulders, thinking to push him away, reminding herself that he was a rolling stone … here today, gone tomorrow.
    But her need to be held overrode the restraints of her mind, and she latched onto him as if there were no tomorrow. He was here. And for now that was all that mattered.
    Chance gathered her close, expecting a deluge, but Joni came up dry-eyed and horribly embarrassed at having been caught with her defenses down.
    “I’m sorry.” With a quick twist she slipped free of his hold and turned to look over the fields that should have begun greening with wheat and corn and milo by now. “I don’t know what got into me,lighting into you one minute and then throwing myself at you the next.”
    “No harm done.” If she could shrug it off, so could he. But there was no denying that she’d felt more womanly than any other woman he’d ever held in his arms.
    Oddly deflated by his indifferent tone, she took a deep, restorative breath. “Was there anything else you wanted to discuss with me, Mr. McCoy?”
    “Chance.”
    “I beg your pardon?”
    He saw her shoulder blades draw pointedly erect under that clingy material. “My name is Chance.”
    The wind picked up again, and she clamped her skirt down with palms suddenly gone clammy. “So?”
    “So I want to hear you say it.”
    “Why?”
    “Come on, Joni.” His use of her name made her blood sing. As did his touch when he took her by the arm and turned her so that her back was to the wind, his face into it. “Just say Chance.”
    She sensed that to give an inch with this man was to give a mile, but she relented anyway. “Chance.”
    “Very good.” A smile tinged his tempting lips as he released her and reached into his jacket pocket for the recipe card that mapped their mutual dreams. “Now that we’re on a first-name basis, you can say ‘Good luck, Chance,’ and I can say ‘Thank you, Joni,’