A Dark & Stormy Knight: A McKnight Romance (McKnight Romances) by Suzie Quint Read Free Book Online

just . . . I’d
really like Eden to have a live-in daddy. I think it’s important to give her
that.”
    There was a slight pause before he asked,
“Are you thinking about getting back with Sol?”
    “What? Sol? Oh, no!” Damn. That wasn’t
supposed to be his go-to thought on the subject. But then there’d been that
little pause before he’d asked. Maybe he was worried she’d fall back into Sol’s
arms. “That’s a mistake I don’t need to make again.” There. That should
reassure him.
    “I hear you.”
    That was enough risk-taking, Georgia thought, so she’d let the conversation drift to other topics.
    She wished, not for the first time, that
she could be sure Daniel would welcome turning their friendship into a romantic
relationship. Would it irrevocably damage the friendship? That would be awkward
since their daughters were so close.
    And one incident of kissing and groping
didn’t necessarily mean anything more than that Daniel was a guy and he’d felt
the need for some comfort. Heck, alcohol had even been involved.
    She pulled into the McKnights’ ranch
yard, parked her car in front of the house, and decided to stop thinking so
much about Daniel and what might be. Living with her parents and taking care of
her mother was all she could deal with at the moment.
    Georgia checked her makeup in the rearview mirror before getting out of the car. When
she got to the back porch, she saw Ruth in the garden behind the house and went
out there instead. They exchanged greetings and the obligatory “how’s everyone”
updates.
    “Sure wish it would rain,” Ruth said as
she took a hoe to one of the trenches that ran between the rows of tomato plants.
“I get tired of watering this here garden.”
    “Daddy says he’s worried he’ll have a
poor yield on the hay as dry as it’s been,” Georgia said.
    Ruth nodded. “Us, too. It’s been so dry,
the trees been chasing the dogs.” She sighed. “I wish we hadn’t bought that
land from the Gundersons. We could use that cash if we have to buy feed for the
cattle.”
    Sol had mentioned his daddy’s “land lust”
more than once.
    Ruth leaned on her hoe. “Eden’s watching Gideon shoe a horse for Daisy. Why don’t you head on over to the smithy?”
    “I’ll do that,” Georgia said, eager to see her daughter.
    She found Eden holding the halter while
Sol’s brother Gideon braced the horse’s foreleg between his knees as he fit the
shoe on the hoof.
    “Hey, Mama,” Eden said softly.
    “Hey, sugar dumplin’.” Though she wanted
to wrap Eden in her arms, Georgia knew better than to startle the horse. She
sat down on the rough plank bench next to Daisy. “How’s it feel to be a free
woman?” she asked Sol’s dark-haired sister who had graduated high school in May.
    “It feels great,” Daisy put down the
latest Horse & Rider magazine. “Hard to believe I ain’t got to go
back in the fall.”
    Georgia repressed a smile. Daisy was fully capable of speaking grammatically correct
English, but she shared that rebel streak that ran through the McKnight clan
and liked to express it as poor grammar.
    “You’re not going to college?” She didn’t
know why she even asked. Daisy was the eighth of the thirteen McKnight kids,
and so far, only Jake had gone on to college. Even so, he wasn’t going to
escape the ranch. In his second year of veterinary school, he’d be through
before she knew it.
    Daisy wrinkled her nose. “I’m tired of
school.”
    “So what are you going to do?”
    “Horses,” Daisy said with her usual
confidence. “I’m going to train barrel racers.”
    She should have known. Cut a McKnight,
and they bled rodeo.
    “Did you know a proven barrel racer will
go for fifty thousand dollars?” Daisy asked. “Sometimes even more.”
    “Yes, but a newly trained horse isn’t a
proven racer.”
    “Everyone starts somewhere. And if the
trainer’s got a good enough reputation and puts out winners, they can make a
nice living. I’m