Millionaire on Her Doorstep by Stella Bagwell Read Free Book Online

didn’t realize you meant a place of this magnitude,” she told him, her voice filled with awe.
    His wry grin was full of pride as he pulled down the tailgate on Maureen’s pickup. “I told you it was beautiful.”
    â€œThat’s an understatement. But I didn’t expect it to be a...” She paused to wave a hand at the corrals where wranglers were spreading feed into long metal troughs for a herd of steers. “A working ranch.”
    â€œIs there any other kind?”
    She reached for two of her smaller cases. Adam jammed a duffel bag under one arm, then picked up two larger cases.
    â€œSome people buy a house on an acre of land in the country and call it a ranch.”
    He chuckled. “We measure the Bar M in sections rather than acres.”
    â€œYou sound like a genuine Texan now.”
    â€œWell, the states do touch,” he said, excusing his comment.
    She laughed, and Adam realized it was the first
time he’d heard the warm, rich sound or even seen her truly smile, for that matter. He thought he’d noticed everything about this woman. He’d thought her cool aloofness was because of her dislike of him. But he was beginning to think that wasn’t the case at all. It wasn’t him she was unhappy with. It was something inside her. Something she’d carried with her from Houston.
    A man? he wondered, then groaned mockingly to himself. With a woman who looked like Maureen? Of course it was a man. And Adam hated him already.
    Â 
    Tossing the book onto the nightstand, Adam flopped back against the headboard and sighed. He didn’t want to read. Watching TV was no option at all. Neither was lying on the bed staring at the ceiling.
    Absently, he rubbed a hand over his naked chest as his gaze drifted toward the door of his bedroom. Of all the rooms in this house, his mother had insisted on putting Maureen directly across the hall from him.
    Whether she’d done it on purpose or not made little difference to Adam. He’d reasoned the whole thing out with himself. He was going to be polite and hospitable to Maureen. But he was also going to be very careful about keeping his distance. Why put himself through any more temptation than he had to?
    Restlessly, he rose from the bed and walked over to a pair of sliding glass doors leading out to the courtyard. A few yards away, the water in the pool glistened beneath the moonlight. He’d forgone his swim tonight. The idea of parading around in a pair of swim trunks in front of Maureen wasn’t all that appealing to him. Besides, if he’d gotten into the pool
earlier, his parents would surely have insisted on Maureen joining him.
    Coward. Are you a man or a mouse?
    The self-directed question brought a grim twist to Adam’s lips. Whenever Maureen was near him, he was all too aware of which creature he was.
    So what was the matter with him? It wasn’t like him to run from a female. He loved women. Loved everything about them. Their softness and sweetness. Their scents and sighs and smiles.
    He knew he had the reputation of a philanderer. But not one of his friends or his family really understood that deep down he was a one-woman man. And because he’d lost his one woman at the tender age of twenty-two, he refused to consider he might actually be able to find another.
    Losing Susan had taught him that serious love could only lead to pain and loss. From then on, he’d closed his heart and decided that women were to be taken often and lightly.
    In the last two years of college, he’d studied the female anatomy as much as he’d studied engineering, and he’d enjoyed every minute of it. But the older Adam had gotten, the stickier each relationship had become. He wanted no strings—whereas women wanted to tie him down with a damn lariat. And when they couldn’t, there was always a flood of tears, the you-don’t-love-me thrown in his face.
    Hell! Of course he hadn’t