Valentine's Cowboy Read Online Free PDF

and talking down on the putting green, he muttered under his breath, “I don’t know how to relax.” How pitiful was that?
    Shelby leaned toward him, startling him into realizing she’d overheard his quiet admission. She gently touched his arm. “I’ll help you.”
    He watched her glance toward the condo next to them, the one he’d been concentrating on ignoring because he could hear the woman who’d haunted his dreams puttering around in there. Valentine must have her sliding door open like he did. He didn’t even have to close his eyes to see her all but naked on his sofabed. He could still see those plump breasts that he’d ached to reach out and touch. He continued to ache to touch them. He really was damn pitiful.
    “I bet Val would help you. She’s really good with people, very understanding.”
    He hadn’t actually seen the “understanding” side of Dr. Valentine Hart. What he’d seen—and felt—was one soft, sexy package of temptation. Woman lover . Yeah right! She drew a man’s attention without any work at all. He’d seen proof of that down at poolside the night before. And she drew him to her like she’d cast a line and sunk a hook into him. ‘Course her reaction last night when she’d learned who he was, and this morning when she’d found herself draped over his naked body, had been more like she’d jerked him off her hook and tossed him back out to sea. Still, there’d been a couple of moments of awareness between them during their panic when Shelby had pounded on his door. The situation really had been innocent enough. Truthfully, he wouldn’t have minded if it hadn’t been. The only “help” he wanted from her was something his sister didn’t need to know about.
    “Sam?” Shelby touched his arm again in concern. “Are you all right? You seem so distracted today.”
    He glanced in her direction. She did not need to know what he’d been thinking. “Yeah, I’m good.”
    She didn’t look like she believed him, but she sat back and they silently watched the people below. Relieved, he stretched his long legs out and crossed them at the ankles. No, she did not need to know that his body had been incredibly aroused by her friend. A fact that still surprised him, not because he didn’t find Valentine Hart attractive, but because of who she was. The romance therapist who’d spent time with his sister learning private things about Shelby and probably about him, too. The therapist who’d managed to make Shelby seem to see him in a different way these days.
    He wasn’t at all sure how he felt about her newly found independent attitude. She no longer relied on him to make the decisions in their lives. He wasn’t in control anymore and that bothered him. He’d always preferred to be in control. Dale probably had a lot to do with Shelby’s change as well, but he preferred to blame Dr. Valentine Hart. He didn’t have much use for people who played at messing with other people’s minds and emotions.
    The women in his past, including his recent ex-girlfriend Kathryn, didn’t play emotional games. They knew and understood his unspoken relationship rules. He took a woman out to dinner or a movie when he felt like it. He was intimate with her when he wanted to be. Kathryn had accepted his ways and had never gone against him. Never once said she was “annoyed” with him, like Dr. Hart had told him last night in her drunken state.
    There was a niggling reminder in his head that Kathryn had told him the month before that she’d found someone else. If he was so in charge of the relationship—like he’d thought he’d been, why hadn’t he cared more about her calling things off? And why did he find Dr. Hart’s being upset with him far more intriguing? She was one woman who he sensed wouldn’t go easily along with his being in charge of anything. That would no doubt cause some friction in their getting along. Enough friction that some serious heat would build up, enough that when he