For Love and Family by Victoria Pade Read Free Book Online Page B

It was a tall man with coal-black hair and a bushy mustache.
    â€œWhere’s my coffee, woman?” he demanded playfully of Carla, wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her up against his side.
    â€œI’m pouring it right now. Behave yourself,” Carla chastised, nodding toward Terese before she said, “This is Terese. Terese, this is my Willy.”
    â€œWilly works the ranch with me,” Hunter explained then. “Carla comes over when she has a little time on her hands and helps out with things around the house.”
    Never had Terese felt the kind of relief she did at that moment.
    â€œIt’s nice to meet you, Willy,” she said, her cheeriness genuine this time. And probably out of proportion to the simple introduction of the ranch hand.
    â€œJohn Paul Coltrane, get yourself down here now,” Hunter called in a booming voice as he set a platter laden with scrambled eggs, bacon and sausages on the table.
    â€œHe’s doing something with his hair to look nice for Terese,” Carla confided.
    Hunter grimaced. “Not that slicking up the front with soap again?”
    â€œI think so.”
    â€œHe did that last night, too.”
    â€œWell, I’m going up to clean the bathroom and I’ll send him down,” Carla said. Then, as she headed out of the kitchen, she added, “If I don’t see you again before I leave, Terese, it was nice meeting you.”
    â€œYou, too,” Terese said with more enthusiasmnow that she knew the other woman wasn’t Hunter’s girlfriend.
    â€œI’m headin’ out again, too. I’ll take this coffee to the barn with me,” Willy added, retracing his steps through the mudroom.
    And suddenly the whirlwind that Terese had walked in on had passed and she was alone with Hunter.
    And much happier than she’d been moments earlier.
    Of course Hunter was oblivious to the turmoil she’d just induced in herself, and he merely motioned toward one of the barrel-backed chairs for her to sit down.
    â€œWe might as well get started before everything’s cold,” he said, not taking the chair across from her until she was seated.
    Terese had been so enmeshed in imagining a romance between Hunter and Carla that she hadn’t taken much of a look at Hunter before. But now she did, surreptitiously making note that ranch-wear was pointy-toed cowboy boots, jeans that fitted him to perfection, and a chambray shirt with the sleeves rolled up to just below his elbows, exposing muscular forearms and wrists that seemed sexier than mere forearms and wrists could possibly be.
    â€œSo Willy and Carla are married?” Terese heard herself say without considering—until after the fact—whether she was being nosy.
    But if Hunter thought she was, he didn’t seem to take offense. He just answered her question.“They’ve been married for a long time now. Since we all graduated from high school.” He handed her the platter of food and then added, “I was best man at their wedding and they were best man and matron of honor at mine.”
    â€œYou must be very good friends,” Terese said as she took some of the eggs and a piece of bacon.
    â€œWilly’s more than a good friend,” Hunter amended, putting some of everything on Johnny’s plate and then serving himself. “Will’s closer to me than my brother. We work together every day. Spend time together when we aren’t workin’. We own a boat together. We fish and hunt and watch every football game together. He’s Johnny’s godfather. I’d give him the shirt off my back if he needed it, and I know he’d do the same for me. And Carla… Well, Carla was my wife’s best friend and she’s Johnny’s godmother. I don’t think Johnny or I could have made it through the last two years without them both.”
    Which left Terese feeling all the more ridiculous for the conclusion