Love Inspired August 2014 – Bundle 1 of 2 by Allie Pleiter and Jessica Keller Ruth Logan Herne Read Free Book Online Page A

caution.
    Maybe?
    She hauled in a deep breath. She would use more caution and maintain a distance from
     Jack. Too much too soon, and she had no desire to make herself the talk of the town
     or mess up her life again. Therefore, she resolved to keep things to “friends only”
     status with Jack McGuire. She’d been taught a tough lesson by her baseball-loving
     ex-boyfriend years back. It was time for her to smarten up. Read the pitches. An easy
     walk to first base was way better than adding to her current strike list. She’d put
     Jack into the “Danger Zone” as she drove into town... Now she needed to keep him there.
    Sitting an hour in the front seat of his pickup, back and forth to Three Forks?
    She made a face into the mirror, because she was having trouble keeping her distance
     with wide-open space around them. How much trickier would it be in close proximity?
    A part of her toyed with the idea of texting Jack to back out.
    The other part?
    She studied the face in the mirror and faced facts. The other part was wishing time
     away, anxious to see Jack again. The rueful expression looking back at her said she
     was in trouble...big trouble... Knowing that trouble concerned Jack McGuire made her
     heart beat faster, and that was a feeling she’d been missing for a long time.

Chapter Four
    T he cheerful whistling trill caught Jack off guard on Friday morning. He straightened
     as the sound approached the barn, then realized he’d been hearing it in the background
     for a while, an old sound, normal and nice.
    Except it hadn’t been normal since his mother passed away, which made the sound of
     his father’s easy tune an even better surprise. He turned as Mick strode through the
     wide doors at the far end. The older McGuire spotted Jack and moved his way. “That
     part came in.” He held out an oblong box, open along one side.
    “Good.” Jack set the box aside and nodded west. “I should have enough time to get
     those hydraulics working again before the rain comes. Then we can bring that hay alongside.”
    “Need help?”
    “I don’t, but I appreciate the offer. And you don’t look like you’re dressed for dirt
     diving beneath a John Deere in any case.”
    “I said I’d help tear off some bad porch planking for a friend,” his father explained,
     but the way he said it, as if helping a friend was slightly uncomfortable, surprised
     Jack. Mick McGuire might be a quiet guy, but he was always willing to help whoever
     needed an extra hand. Although he looked mighty nice to be leveraging old wood and
     rusty nails. “Figured with rain coming, today was as good as any.”
    “Ripping up boards?” Jack cast his father’s clean shirt and jeans a doubtful look.
     “You got cleaned up to get dirty?”
    His father shrugged, but the look on his face, as if he’d just been caught with a
     hand in the cookie jar, made Jack think hard and quick. His father wasn’t just going
     to help a friend.
    He was going to help a woman friend.
    That explained the cologne and the clean-shaven face.
    “Call if you need me.” Mick gave a short wave and aimed for the truck.
    “Right.” Reality made Jack straighten and watch his father leave. “See ya’.”
    Mick strolled out of the barn, his gait easy, the roll of his shoulders a dead giveaway.
     He settled a couple of toolboxes into the bed of his signature red Double M pickup
     truck. Then he climbed into the driver’s seat with the window open, the radio cranking
     Easton Corbin sounding like a young George Strait. As the truck rounded the curved
     driveway, Jack saw his father’s head bob in time with the music...and heard him start
     to whistle along as the truck headed for the road.
    His father. Cleaned up, whistling and headed out for the day.
    The irony of how he planned to do the same thing the following morning wasn’t lost
     on Jack. He’d huffed about all the centennial nonsense. He’d done his best to ignore
     it until the rodeo rumbled into town