Crazy for Lovin’ You by Teresa Southwick Read Free Book Online Page B

distance between them. Because, as surely as death, taxes, and Texas, Taylor Stevens tripped his warning signals. She was trouble—with a capital T.
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    Two days after Mitch’s visit, Taylor was in town at This ’n That, the shop owned by her high school friend Maggie Benson. The interior of the shop was filled with an eclectic assortment of antiques, gifts, crafts and hand-embroidered items. Maggie was an artist in her own right.
    â€œSo you’re not going to tell me how it felt to see Mitch Rafferty again?” the petite redhead asked. She stood behind the high counter that held her cash register.
    Taylor shook her head. “It didn’t feel any way at all,” she lied. “And I have to see if my truck bed is full of oats now.”
    â€œYou can run, but you can’t hide,” Maggie said.
    â€œMy priority is making a success of the dude ranch. I want Mitch—”
    â€œI knew it,” the other woman said, her voice filled with triumph.
    â€œYou didn’t let me finish, Mags. I want Mitch to pick the Circle S for the championships. Then I think I’ve got a shot at success.”
    â€œThen I hope he does. Because you’ll buy more stuff from me, and you can send customers my way. Everyone wins.”
    â€œYou’re already doing a good steady business,” Taylor pointed out.
    â€œYou can’t be too rich or too thin.”
    â€œI’m not going to debate that with you. And first I have to get the okay from Mitch,” Taylor reminded her. She glanced across the street at the tractor supply. “I need to go get my oats.”
    â€œSo you can sow the wild ones?” Maggie asked, her green eyes sparkling.
    â€œYou’re not funny.” Taylor opened the door making the bell above it tinkle.
    â€œYes, I am.”
    Taylor laughed and waved just before she closed the door behind her. She stood on the wooden walkway and looked up and down Main Street, Destiny. Several years ago the town council had approved a plan to give the businesses a facelift—a Western motif. The wooden buildings had the look of the Old West made new again. As she left Maggie’s, she passed Doc Holloway’s office with his name etched into the front door’s oval glass. Next door was The Road Kill Café with its wooden crossbar hitching post and metal rings for looping a horse’s reins.
    Across from it, standing all alone, was her destination. Charlie’s Tractor Supply—a sort of one-stop shopping for ranchers. She’d left her truck by the dispenser so the long hoses could fill the bed with oats, like a filling station for horse feed.
    She walked across the street and Dev Hart joined her.
    â€œHowdy neighbor,” he said. “Long time no see, little T.”
    â€œHi, yourself,” she said, smiling at the good-looking rancher as well as the nickname he always used.
    He stood beside her and folded his arms across his chest as they watched the white bed of the truck disappear beneath the oats. Dev was at least six foot two and had the sexiest indentation in his chin. His brown eyes and hair were nothing to write home about, but as a whole, he made female hearts under the age of sixty beat fast and furious.
    All except hers. Because she’d learned the hard way.
    Mitch had been her first lesson. Her broken engagement to Evan McCoy had been her last. The only love she would ever again permit herself would be for her land. If her heart got broken somehow, at least it wouldn’t be personal. Unless Mitch had lied to her. If he wasn’t fair, square and completely objective about a choice for the rodeo, then it would be very personal if her ranch went under.
    It had been two days since she’d seen him and she was about to go crazy wondering when he would make up his mind. He was worse than a kid trying to pick one thing from the candy store case. Then she remembered that Dev was the one who had roped him into the acting