How to Marry a Cowboy (Cowboys & Brides) by Carolyn Brown Read Free Book Online Page A

piano lessons this summer. I want to play the fiddle like Grandpa did,” Lily said.
    “No one around here can teach you, and I’m not driving to Dallas for fiddle lessons every week,” Mason told her, crossing his eye-candy arms over his gorgeous chest.
    “Grandpa’s fiddle is here. You could hire someone to come to the ranch and teach us,” Lily said.
    “You got a fiddle in the house?” Annie Rose shouldn’t stay, not with the way Mason Harper affected every sense in her whole body, mind and soul.
    Mason nodded. “We have my grandfather’s, and his banjo too.”
    Gabby threw up her hands then quickly grabbed for the ribbon around Djali’s neck before the goat took off. “Don’t look at me. I don’t want to play anything. I want to be a rancher and raise cows and sing. Lily is going to grow up and play the fiddle, and I’m going to sing in the band. We aren’t going to let Damian play the drums, though. He’s not any good. And if Lily don’t have to go to piano, then I don’t have to either, right?”
    Annie Rose smiled at the girls. They were going to be a handful, but she’d been taught by the best. Her mama had been a damn fine teacher when it came to discipline and raising an ornery child.
    “I could give Lily a few fiddle lessons, just for the summer, and then if she didn’t like it, she could go back to piano lessons, but that’s your decision, Mason. I’ll make the one for the goats. You have to make the one for the music lessons.”
    “You play?” he asked, raising his eyebrows and looking at her appreciatively.
    “Since I was four. Not the violin, the fiddle, as in country music,” she said.
    “Like Alison Krauss. You play like her?” Lily’s cute little bow-shaped mouth formed a perfect O.
    “Honey, I’m not nearly that good, but I could probably teach you the basics,” Annie Rose said. “And, Gabby, I don’t sing, but maybe you could practice your singing while Lily is learning to play. If that’s okay with your dad.”
    Mason thought about it long enough that both girls grew impatient; forgot about the goats, and threw their arms around his waist and begged in unison, “Please, Daddy, please, even if it’s only for the summer.”
    Just when her heart had resumed its normal thump, he winked over the top of the girls’ heads at her. Where was her resolve to never let another man charm his way into her heart? Had it sunk to the bottom of that farm pond along with her car?
    “Okay, but only if you really practice hard. Your mommy wanted you to play the piano like she did, but if you want to take three months off, I’ll let you,” he said.
    Annie Rose fussed at herself. She really needed to learn when to keep her mouth shut and quit trying to fix every problem. Talk about what goes around comes around; now it was her turn to listen to the screeching whine of the fiddle during practice sessions like her mother had to when Annie Rose was a little girl and wanted to play like Charlie Daniels.
    Gabby took a deep breath. “Okay, Daddy. I’ll make her practice every day.”
    “And you have to practice your singing, too,” Mason said.
    Now that was double-damn-duty punishment. One playing. One singing. At least Annie Rose’s mother only had to listen to the one playing, but then she’d told Annie Rose that she’d have to pay for her raising someday and it would be with high interest.
    “Can we start tomorrow?” Lily asked.
    How could a woman get so drawn into a family in one day? She’d vowed after the fiasco with Nicky that she would never trust another soul, and she’d already offered to give lessons, clean house, and cook for less money than she’d ever made in her entire life. That involved trust, didn’t it? Trust that Mason wasn’t another Nicky who would wind up mistreating her. Trust that she could actually corral those two little feisty blonds and teach them something at the same time. Trust that she could still read people enough to know that these were good