Cowboy Heart (Historical Western Romance) (Longren Family series #3, Kitty and Lukes story) by Amelia Rose Read Free Book Online

topped anything Johnny Littleton ever even attempted and turned to run to where some of the men were saddling fresh horses, obviously—hopefully—intending to return by supper, and he waved just before he rode out of the stable. 
                  I waved back, understanding exactly how Sarah had felt when she didn't want to go home from Alturas.

Chapter 3
     
                  Sarah wasn't anywhere in the house when I went back in, which didn't surprise me.  Her husband was home.  I wouldn't have been in the kitchen either.
                  I made myself useful for the remainder of the afternoon, made more bread because I figured it would get eaten, and cleaned the corn and chopped apples for the pies I knew she meant to bake.  Later, still alone, hearing cowboys out in the yard and thinking rather more about Robert McLeod than seemed wise, I busied myself dusting my sister's already clean house and thought about writing a letter to my mother, but I couldn't concentrate on anything sensible and I thought about writing a letter to Johnny, but such spite should never be rewarded and, besides, it was too soon to say if anything would come of my instant attraction to Mr. McLeod.
                  Sometime before supper, I went upstairs and cleaned up as best I could, washing and combing my hair and dressing in one of the gowns I'd borrowed from Sarah, then changing because that seemed too obvious, then changing again because why shouldn't I look like I'd taken pains to look nice, and then changing again because, of course, I shouldn't and then sitting on the edge of the bed in my under things, the door securely locked, my own intentions locked just as well.  I was still sitting there, frozen, when Sarah called through the door that she was going down to the kitchen to start supper and asking if I could come and help.
                  I called back that I'd be right there, decided, correctly, that the dinner preparations would make me significantly bedraggled enough that I should start as neatly and completely as I could, and raced through combing and powdering and dressing again, almost decided against it, realized soon Sarah would come up with a skeleton key and drag me downstairs and that, if she had any suspicion at all that I found one of her ranch hands attractive, she'd either tease me mercilessly or send me packing back to Gold Hill in a panic, unwilling to be responsible for me and my behavior.
                  I went downstairs, pleasantly overdressed, unpleasantly over-nervous.
     
                  Preparing supper took over an hour in the sweltering heat of late afternoon.  Sarah talked nonstop, happy to have William home, happy to have the ranch full of people again and happy, as far as I could tell, to have me there.
                  The pies were golden, cooling on the window sill.  "I forgot all about them," Sarah said.  The Sarah I knew would have berated herself nonstop.  This Sarah giggled.  I wasn't too sure about that.
                  I saw William crossing the dooryard, heading into one of the outbuildings, an office of sorts.
                  "He keeps more books than our father did," Sarah said, "every record of every cow, every visit from the veterinarian, every calf." 
                  A shadow crossed the window again and I looked up fast, hoping to see Mr. McLeod but seeing only the tall, dark ranch hand named Mike, who had taken the message to send to my mother.
                  By the time supper was ready, I felt every bit as bedraggled as I had expected.  Men crowded into the ranch house kitchen, laughing and talking, politely greeting Sarah and deferentially smiling at me.  William came in and sat at the head of the table, said a quick grace and began talking to his overseer, Mike, about the pastures and rotating the herd.