I am Not Your Melody: (steamy cowboy romance) by Shoshanna Evers Read Free Book Online Page B

ruefully. “Are you happy?”
    “No.”
    “I don’t know how long it will take to renovate an entire apartment and bar,” she admitted. “I wanted to renovate the bar first, so we could get it open and start making some money. I have no money anymore, nothing coming in. If I have to spend time renovating the apartment first, so I’ll have somewhere to live, we’re going to lose weeks .” She sank to the floor of the bar, ignoring the gravel and chunks of plaster strewn about.
    “Weeks, huh?” Bill said. “You’d have a point, if you actually knew what the hell you were doing.”
    “Which I don’t.”
    “Nope.” He stood above her, looking down at her from his immense height, and rubbed the stubble on his chin. “I bet we can get the apartment in shape sooner than you think,” Bill said. “It’ll get done. But you were right— the bar needs to be top priority so we can open.”
    “I needed to stay in the apartment here,” she muttered. “None of my planning works if I don’t have a free place to stay until this bar opens.”
    He shook his head. “It’s your own fault — spendin’ every last dollar on this venture. What were you gonna do for income till the bar was ready to go? Can’t buy food an’ gasoline with just a pretty face.”
    Perhaps he’d hoped to soften his words with his backhanded compliment. If so, it didn’t work.
    “I’ve brought lots of food with me,” she said, her defenses rising. “Cans and cereal and stuff. I’ll be fine for a little while at least.”
    “Right.” He grunted in a way that Allie translated as “good luck with that.”
    Great .
    “You could stay in the motel outside of town,” Bill said.
    “No way,” she said. “Even if you paid for it, it’s a two hour round-trip drive to the nearest motel. I don’t even think I have enough gas to get out off Melody Ranch at this point. And I’m not wasting two hours driving every day, fourteen hours a week, when I should be on site, working to make this happen!”
    “Hey,” he said, his voice firm.
    Allie wanted to kick something in frustration. “No income until it does, remember?”
    “Don’t be raisin’ your voice at me.” He pushed his cowboy hat back and rubbed his forehead. “You’ve got no one to blame but yourself.”
    “The bottom line is, I need a place to stay that doesn’t cost any money, and that isn’t detrimental to my health and safety.”
    Bill cocked his head, as if waiting patiently for her to figure out a solution all by herself. It wasn’t right, she was new in town. He owed it to her to set this right, damn it. Why couldn’t he see that?
    If she could email him and ask him for a place to stay, Allie would bet he’d jump on it. But here, outside the realm of the internet, real life got in the way. It made him different.
    Or did it?
    “You have that farmhouse,” she suggested. “Maybe I could set up in there. Surely it has a bathroom if it used to be a proper house, right?”
    “No way,” Bill said sharply. “That’s the main office for Melody Ranch. You can’t stay there — it ain’t some sort of guest house.”
    “Well, since you’re such a ‘big, bad’ cowboy, a few rats and a mattress on the floor shouldn’t scare you,” Allie said. “You can stay in the apartment above the bar, and I’ll trade you for your house.” Sarcasm dripped from every word.
    It didn’t matter if he hadn’t actually ripped her off. She felt ripped off, and she felt broke and stupid for giving up everything for a dream. How fitting that this would be what her dream looked like in reality. Broken glass and cigarette butts.
    “That’s not happenin’,” Bill said. “Don’t stay here if you don’t want to.”
    “So what then?” she asked. Where was she supposed to go?
    But Bill didn’t offer any suggestions.
    “Are you playing dumb?” Allie asked, “or were you absent the day they handed out manners?” She wasn’t sure which was worse.
    “I don’t know what