Christmas In Snowflake Canyon by RaeAnne Thayne Read Free Book Online

could take care of himself.
    Then again, since he had come home half-dead, they could possibly have room for doubt.
    “See that you are,” Dermot said. He paused for a moment, long enough for Dylan to accurately predict a lecture coming on.
    “I’m disappointed in you, son. Surely you know better than to find yourself in a fight at a place like The Speckled Lizard, no matter the provocation.”
    “Yes. I’ve heard the lecture now from both Jamie and Andrew, thanks, Pop.”
    “What were you thinking to drag that pretty young Genevieve Beaumont into your troubles?”
    He snorted at the blatant unfairness of that. “Who dragged whom? You obviously didn’t hear the whole story. I was minding my own business, waiting to share a drink with my brother. I can’t help it if the woman is bat-shit.”
    “Watch your mouth,” Dermot said sharply. “That’s a young lady you’re talking about.”
    He shuddered to think what Pop would say if he knew the kind of semipervy dreams Dylan was having about that particular young lady, crazy or not.
    “Right. A young lady with a particular aversion to Christmas carols and a right hook that needs a little work.”
    “Ah, well. She’s a troubled girl who could use a few friends in town. You treat her kindly, you hear me?”
    When Dermot was riled, the Irish brogue he’d left behind on the shores of Galway when he was just a lad of six peeped out like clover in July.
    “I hear you.”
    “Now you had best be hurrying along if you’re to make it to meet your brother on time.”
    “Yeah. Message received. I’m up. I’ll be there. I’m heading into the shower right now.”
    “See that you are.” Dermot’s voice was stern but he tempered it to add, “And I’ll expect to see both of my sons here afterward for a bite and any news from court.”
    He hung up with his father and slid out of bed. After letting Tucker out with a quick check to make sure he didn’t have to plow again in order to make it down to the main canyon road, he hurried into the shower, trying to pretend he wasn’t wondering whether Genevieve would be there.
    “No. hell no. Are you freaking kidding me? That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard. Absolutely not.”
    Through her own shock at the proposal Andrew Caine had just laid out for the two of them, Genevieve found Dylan’s reaction fascinating.
    “Geez, Dyl. Don’t hold back,” his brother said with a raised eyebrow. “Seriously, why don’t you tell us how you really feel?”
    “You want to know how I really feel? I feel like I’ve just been steamrolled.”
    “Come on. It’s a hundred hours of community service. It’s not like you’re being sentenced to hard labor on the chain gang. I hope I don’t need to tell you how far I’ve had to bend over in the last forty-eight hours to make this deal happen. You’re lucky you’re not serving hard time for assaulting two officers of the court.”
    Beside her, she was aware of Dylan’s hand clenching on his thigh. Despite the evidence of his frustration, she couldn’t help thinking he looked quite different from the disreputable hellion who had brawled at The Speckled Lizard just a few nights earlier. Though his hair still needed a trim, he had shaved off the stubble that had made him look so dangerous, and he wore tan slacks, a light blue dress shirt and a shiny hammered silver bolo tie that gleamed in the fluorescent lights.
    She wouldn’t have taken him for the cowboy sort but the look somehow worked.
    “I’ll do the community service,” he growled to his brother. “I’ve got no problem with that. Just not there.
    This is a damn setup, isn’t it? They got to you, didn’t they?”
    Andrew Caine looked slightly bored. “Who’s they?”
    “Charlotte and Smoke Gregory. Since the moment the two of them hooked up, they’ve been trying to drag me into this stupid Warrior’s Hope business. I won’t do it. Have the judge throw me in jail for contempt if you have to, but I’m not going out