Counterfeit Cowgirl (Love and Laughter) by Lois Greiman Read Free Book Online

she’d neglected to set the table, but delighted to find a trio of clean, mismatched plates near the sink, they distributed the crockery, then stood beside their chairs, looking anything but at ease.
    She glanced toward them, then turned swiftly away, wondering with some anxiety, what she should do next.
    She cleared her throat. “Sit down,” she said.
    They did so, bumbling with their chairs before settling in. In a moment she had the steaks out of the oven and deposited on their plates. As for herself, she was too nervous to eat, so she rushed back to the stove for the potatoes.
    The men were bent over their plates, so she deposited the pan on the table and hurried away in search of a serving spoon.
    “Hey!” said Ty suddenly. She turned to half standing as he lifted the pot in his right hand. The vinyl tablecloth came with it, but finally gave way, leaving a perfectly melted, panshaped hole where the table now showed through.
    “Oh!” Hannah murmured.
    Ty stared at her, then settled back into his chair. “It’s, uh, an old tablecloth,” he grumbled.
    Nate was staring at his brother with raised brows. Ty glared at him. Nate grinned, then said, “Yeah, and happily sacrificed for a good meal. Mashed potatoes,” he crooned. Taking the pan from Tyrel, he peeked inside. His brows raised even farther. “Or not.”
    Hannah rubbed her hands nervously against her thighs. “They, umm…They were quite hard. It made them difficult to mash.”
    Both men were staring at her again.
    “Some people cook them before they mash ‘em,” Nate said.
    “Oh.”
    “It’s not necessary, ya understand,” he added.
    “God help us,” Ty said.
    Hannah propped her fists on her hips. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    “Nothing,” Ty said, raising his hands in surrender.
    Frustration boiled with a thousand other emotions in Hannah. “Eat your steak,” she said.
    “Sure,” Ty responded, setting his knife to the meat. “I like mine frozen in the middle.”

4
    “W HAT THE HELL !” Ty shouted, racing into the house.
    Sparks were shooting from the microwave like a light show gone mad. Shielding his eyes with one hand, he gathered his nerve and punched a button.
    The blue sparks faded to oblivion, but his temper did not It had only been a few hours since he’d forced himself to eat half-frozen steaks. Now this!
    “What the hell are you doing?” he shouted into the living room.
    Hannah sat on the floor beside an empty milk bottle. It was obvious she’d fallen asleep there. A crease bisected the smooth skin of her cheek where it had rested on the parka, her hair was messed, and one slim hand still rested on the calf’s back, but it was her eyes that held his attention. They were as large and soft as a fawn’s.
    “What?” she asked, looking disoriented…and vulnerable.
    Vulnerability. It seemed a strange attribute for this woman who could slash him to shreds with nothing more than a word or a glance. And yet it was there in her expression, just as he had seen her earlier when she’d been talking to the calf.
    He tried to remember his anger, but it had burned to ash now, with only a bit of heat left to punctuate his words. “What were you doing?”
    She rose to her feet. The calf rose with her.
    “I was defrosting the casserole…as instructed.” It took her a moment, but she could draw dignity around her like a magical cloak. Even half asleep, obviously in the wrong, and caught dead to rights, she could look like an offended queen.
    “Mom puts tin foil between the layers,” he said. “You have to take it out before you defrost it. Didn’t they teach you anything in…” He eyed her. Seeing her like that, with her defenses only half in place and her eyes sleep-softened, took his breath away. Maybe she was royalty. “London?” he guessed.
    She strode toward him. “Colorado,” she corrected. He watched her enter the kitchen and noticed for the first time that she had cleaned it. Well, actually what she had