One Lucky Cowboy by Carolyn Brown Read Free Book Online

can't help it if they are sorry bastards. Their momma is just as mean as they are."
       "Lizzy!" Griffin exclaimed.
       Jane laughed aloud.
       "Sorry Daddy. It just slipped out."
       Slade set his jaw. "I can't imagine Kristy's little girls saying such a thing."
       "Monkey see, monkey do," Jane said.
       "Don't you have things to do in the house?" Slade growled.
       Jane slid the two kittens she was holding into Lizzy's lap and stood up slowly. She saluted Slade smartly. "Sir, yes, sir. I'll get right in there and do my work, sir, just as you say, sir."

Chapter 3

    JANE HAD NEVER HAD A SINGLE ARGUMENT WITH JOHN. FROM the time he'd walked into her office at the oil company until the day she'd walked out on the marriage, he had been attentive, kind, considerate, and generous with his time and finances. Of course he'd had an ulterior motive, but all the same she'd never fought with him.
       Now it was the exact opposite side of life. Every single morning she awoke wondering how long it would be before she and Slade began slinging verbal mud at each other. They broke the record the day after the birthday party. The argument started before his hind end hit the kitchen chair for breakfast.
       "What you drug home sure ruined your party yesterday, didn't it, Granny? I told you she was bad news."
       "Pass the eggs and quit your bitchin', Slade Luckadeau," Ellen said.
       "I'm stating fact."
       "You are angry and taking it out on Jane, who did nothing wrong. You're going to have your hands full with those little demons Kristy is raising if you decide to stay with her. I always wanted a daughter or a granddaughter, but God was probably looking out for me. If He'd have given me two kids like that, I'd have sold them into slavery. Thank God I got three boys," Nellie said.
       "They're just little girls. They need a father," Slade said.
    "They are clones of their mother," Nellie said.
       "Kristy is not childish. They were just playing kid pranks. Griffin and Andy and I used to play tricks on each other when we were kids."
       "Tricks are one thing. Mean is another," Ellen said.
       "Lizzy is just a little girl who needs a mother, and she doesn't act like that," Jane said.
       Slade pointed at her. "You don't have a say in this."
       Jane's brown eyes danced as she slapped at the air around his finger. "Don't you point that thing at me. Since I was the culprit who was accused of kidnapping and perhaps even child molestation, I will take a say whether I have one or not. Your argument isn't valid. Those little girls are merely mimicking their mother's actions. They see her act ugly and they act the same way."
       Nellie and Ellen both stopped eating and waited.
       "You are wrong and I'll prove it."
       "How? By asking her to marry you so you can spend the rest of your life trying to fix her mess? Go right on ahead and do it. Cut off your nose to spite your face. Now if you'll send the biscuits to this end of the table, I would appreciate it," Jane said.
       He passed the bread basket and then the gravy and watched her routine. One biscuit cut open and covered with sausage gravy. One cut open and filled with butter, then with a fine sprinkling of sugar and black pepper when she got ready to eat it. It was the very same every morning without change.
       "Thank you," she said.
       "I'm not ready to get married and if I were it wouldn't be because you goaded me into it with your smartass remarks," he said.
       "Don't call me a smartass. That would be the pot calling the kettle black," she said.
       "Hey, anyone who puts sugar and pepper on their biscuit instead of honey or jelly has to be a smartass or a dumb ass. You choose."
       "My grandmother came through the depression. She learned all kinds of tricks. One is sweetening the breakfast biscuits with sugar and pepper. Don't knock it until you've tried it."
       He opened the biscuit he'd already buttered