Beauty and the Cowboy by Nancy Robards Thompson - Beauty and the Cowboy Read Free Book Online Page A

had to give himself enough time to cool down. To get a hold of himself.
    He’d gone out into the garage through the kitchen to feed Lulu, as he’d promised Mattie he’d do since she was spending the night with Gina. When Lulu was done with dinner, Jesse leashed her up and took her out the side garage door for a short walk. The walk was just as much for his benefit as it was for the puppy’s.
    Why had he kissed Charlie?
    Well, he knew why. He wanted to kiss her again and do a lot more than that. A more apt question was: Why had he let himself lose control?
    He and Charlie had always connected on a deep level, but as friends. Good friends. He’d never gotten close to her like that. Not until tonight. Right. A night when she was drunk and vulnerable.
    One week ago, Charlie had been looking at engagement rings with her long-term boyfriend. Now here Jesse was making a damn fool of himself and ruining any shadow of a possibility that this spark—if there even was one—might have ignited if he’d kept his libido under control.
    She’d be perfectly within her right to hate him in the morning, if she didn’t already. The only choice he had was to man up and go in and apologize.
    He picked up Lulu and carried her into the kitchen. Jesse’s gaze landed on the empty table and the untouched plate of eggs. For a split second, he wondered if Charlie had left. But, no, how would she have gotten home? They were a good three miles from her apartment. She was too smart to try to walk that distance alone at night.
    But, then again, she probably wasn’t in her right mind. She’d kissed him, hadn’t she?
    He set down the puppy and walked into the living room. That’s when he saw her there on the couch. She was lying on her side with one arm tucked under head.
    God, she was beautiful. His chest tightened, and for a moment, he stood there, drinking in the sight of her.
    He wasn’t going to let that kiss ruin a relationship that spanned a lifetime. He’d figure it out and do whatever he had to do to make it right. Even if that meant giving her some space to figure out her own head and heart.
    But right now, he needed to wake her up and get her home.
    He gave her shoulder a gentle shake. “Charlie?”
    She breathed in a long, soft breath, but she didn’t open her eyes.
    He gave her shoulder another shake. “Charlie, wake up. I need to take you home.”
    All she did was snuggle a little deeper into the couch. She was out cold, and unless he picked her up and carried her out to his truck, she wasn’t going anywhere.
    Jesse got a blanket from the hall linen closet and covered her up. Since Mattie was gone for the night, there was no harm in letting Charlie sleep on the couch.
    He went into the kitchen and filled a glass with water and took a bottle of aspirin out of the cabinet where he kept the meds and vitamins. If she woke up in the middle of the night, she might need them.
    After he set the glass and bottle on the coffee table, he had to ball his hands into fists to keep from reaching out and touching her smooth cheek. He’d learned his lesson. He might be a lot of things, but he wasn’t an idiot.
    That jackass fool Tom Tucker was an idiot for letting her go.
    “If you were mine, Charlie, I would’ve already married you.”

Chapter 4
    C harlotte awoke in a dark room, on the couch in a strange house. She had a dry mouth and a crick in her neck. When she rubbed it, she realized that, no, the pain wasn’t just in her neck. Her head felt like someone had taken a sledgehammer to it. Sitting up, she blinked and forced her eyes to adjust as she looked around, trying to figure out where in the world she was.
    A sliver of moonlight streamed in through the living room window. It took a minute, but she remembered that she was at Jesse’s house. He’d brought her here after she’d had too much to drink at Grey’s. He’d cooked for her…and she’d kissed him.
    She pulled the cotton blanket up to her chin, as if that would preserve