Yuletide Cowboy Read Online Free PDF

all right by y’all?”
    Everyone gave hearty agreement and Sam strode off on his bowlegs. Chance knew Sam had been referring to Chance’s childhood…he’d long ago come to terms with the fact that his dad had had better things to do than raise his son. Chance had been hard to deal with at an early age and his mother hadn’t known what to do with him. He’d spent many summers here in Mule Hollow with his cousins. Their dad had loved him and treated him like his own, worked him hard and given him as much direction and love as he gave his own sons. But in his early teens Chance had rebelled against his dad’s lack of interest and he’d hit the road…it had been a hard time. Too heavy for him to think about right now.
    â€œLook, Chance, take it from my experience.” Seth glanced around the table at his brothers. “God is in control even when we don’t understand or don’t agree. You’ve given us all that advice at some point in time.”
    â€œYeah, I was pretty liberal handing it out, wasn’t I?”He grunted, his mood taking a downhill turn and picking up speed.
    Wyatt frowned. “You hand out great advice. I owe you and there’s no two ways about it. God sent you to me with the advice I needed to hear just when I needed to hear it. I was about as low as a man can get and you helped me see what I needed to do to help Amanda. You just have to heed your own good advice and give this over to the Lord. We’ve all been where you’re at, and it’s not a fun place to be.”
    Applegate and Stanley had been pretending like they were engrossed in their morning checkers game—why they were even pretending was a mystery to Chance. For two men who couldn’t hear they heard everything. It was a miracle beyond understanding, which made Chance smile—some much-needed relief from the downturn of this conversation. App spat a sunflower seed into the brass spittoon at his feet and Stanley did the same. Both hit the opening in the conversation dead-on.
    â€œSounds ta me like that steak dinner is jest the place you need ta be. Don’t you thank so, Stanley?”
    â€œYup. Ain’t nothin’ like a good steak and the company of pretty women ta pull a man out of the dumps.”
    â€œA woman is the last thing I need to be thinking about.”
    â€œIt ain’t us that caused Lynn ta blush,” App grunted.
    â€œYou got a free ticket and a woebegone attitude that needs sprucing up. Put on some starched jeans and a crisp shirt, slap on a little smell-good and join the festivities.”
    Sam came out of the kitchen loaded down with plates. Chance had never been so glad to see a plate of eggs inall his life. Maybe putting food in their stomachs would get them off him.
    â€œAnd speaking of other thangs,” App drawled, his lean face cascading into a dour look. “We need a preacher. No two ways about it. I been thankin’ that thar is the reason the good Lord brought you home.” App had made it clear at Wyatt’s wedding that he thought Chance should come home to Mule Hollow and become the past or of the church. Chance had told him then that he didn’t feel called to preach in a local church. That should have ended the discussion, but App wasn’t known for letting go of things and it looked like he hadn’t let this go either. “So what do ya say?”
    Chance looked at the steaming breakfast plate and took a long, slow breath. So much for thinking the food was going to get him off the hot seat.

Chapter Three
    T he morning after Chance had flustered her by telling her she smelled sweet, Lynn dreamed about him! Oh yeah, but thankfully she was awakened from dreaming about the hunky, dark-haired bachelor by her horse of a dog, Tiny. Her unlikely hero bounded onto her bed and pounced on her with all four of his huge paws! The power of the attack knocked the wind and the dream right out of