Cutter Mountain Rendezvous by Barbara Weitz Read Free Book Online

buzz in town by tomorrow. “Sorry to barge in here, but the door was open and no one was home. Found what I needed.” He shook the Tylenol bottle. “Lindsay, super to meet you. Eva.” He squeezed between them to escape into the foyer.
    “Colton. Hold up.”
    He turned to face her from his doorway. “You drove the damned truck off with my things in it, and I needed this.” He held up the Tylenol in an attempt to justify his presence in her kitchen and spied his leather bag sitting by the front door. He picked it up. “And this.”
    “If you want to stay here, you’ll have to watch your potty mouth.” Kate made a symbolic pat to the spot where she had been wearing the sidearm earlier. “I wanted to let you know dinner’s at six.”
    “Armed or unarmed,” he growled.
    “Depends on how well you can grill a steak.”
    Colton closed his door. “Jesus,” he muttered, and felt a twinge of guilt to have used the Lord’s name in vain. Just his luck to have rented a room from Mother fuckin’ Theresa. Another zap ricocheted through his conscience that made him send off a prayer of forgiveness to the deceased saint.
    Five minutes inside a locker room and Kate would send the whole damned place up in flames of guilt.
    He shook his head and stepped out of his jeans and briefs in one swift move and into the hot spray of the shower, closing his eyes. Heaven.
    ****
    “That was interesting,” Eva Crockett said as she finished putting away Kate’s groceries.
    “Which? That fact he was almost naked, or that he broke into my house?”
    Eva cocked an eyebrow at Kate. “Both. I don’t think he exactly broke in, do you?”
    “No, but I’d never enter another person’s home no matter how bad the headache.” Kate set the banana nut bread her mother made next to the cat cookie jar and put water on for tea.
    “I suspect it was his shoulder not his head that was aching. I’m not sure which looked worse, his scar or the bruising, although the bruise looked new. Has he told you about it?”
    “No. It’s none of my business.” Kate slid a plate holding apple slices and a piece of cheese with crackers in front of Lindsay. “Eat a snack. Dinner will be later than usual.”
    Lindsay pushed it aside to pull her coloring book toward her. “Col. Train. Col-Train,” she read and looked at her mom. “Colton colored Barbie’s princess dress blue. I like pink.”
    Kate eyed the picture Colton had colored and signed . What an egotistical jerk. “I’m sure Barbie won’t mind. He stayed inside the lines and gave her a pink purse and shoes.”
    “He’s nice.” Lindsay busied herself coloring.
    Eva elbowed her daughter. “Hang on to that. It might be worth big bucks one day.”
    “Not if his career is over.”
    Her mother shrugged and doused two tea bags up and down in the teapot before pouring her and Kate a cup. “I’d keep it. What are you making for dinner?”
    “Steak. Oven potatoes with onion and green pepper and a salad. Something easy so I don’t have to fuss. It’s been a long day.”
    “I don’t like steak,” Lindsay said with her nose in the coloring book.
    “Why won’t you at least try a taste,” her grandmother coaxed. “You need to try new things to see if you’ll like them.”
    “I don’t like it.”
    Eva sighed. “You can’t eat chicken nuggets your whole life.”
    “Yes I can.”
    “Lindsay,” Kate interrupted. “Why don’t you play in your bedroom while I talk to Grandma?”
    Lindsay complained but gathered the remaining apple slices from her plate and headed up the back stairs with Tinkerbelle in tow. The cat was always glad to retreat under Lindsay’s bed into the box of stuffed animals she kept there.
    Eva stirred sugar into her tea. “She’s got your stubborn streak. I couldn’t even get her to taste strawberry shortcake the other day.”
    “I’m not worried about it. She eats plenty of good things. What I’m worried about is today’s phone call.”
    “To think. Tom