Texas! Chase #2 by Sandra Brown Read Free Book Online Page A

or two. Spicy food like that probably isn't the best thing for you right now."
    "Don't nag me about my food."
    He plopped down on the stool and spooned a few more bites into his mouth. Raising his head, he signaled her toward another of the barstools. She slipped off her jacket and sat down.
    After scraping the bowl clean, he pushed it away. Marcie got up and carried it to the sink. She conscientiously rinsed it and placed it in the dishwasher, along with the pan he'd heated it up in. Then she moved to the coffee table, got the flowers, placed them in a large iced-tea glass, and set them down on the bar in front of him.
    "No sense in letting them die prematurely just because you're a jerk," she said as she returned to her stool.
    He snorted a wiseass laugh. "You're going to waste, Marcie. You'd make some man a good little wife.
    You're so—" He broke off and peered at her more closely. "What's the matter with your eyes?"
    "What do you mean?"
    "They're red. Have you been crying?"
    "Crying? Of course not. My contacts were bothering me. I had to take them out."
    "Contacts. I didn't realize until I saw you in your glasses that you usually wear contacts now. Your looks have improved since high school."
    "That's a backhanded compliment, but thanks."
    He looked down at her chest. "You're not flat-chested anymore."
    "It's still nothing spectacular. Nothing like your ladylove."
    The muscles in his face pulled taut. "Ladylove?"
    "The woman last night."
    He relaxed. "Oh. She had big boobs, huh?"
    Marcie cupped her hands in front of her chest. "Out to here. Don't you remember?"
    "No. I can't recall a single feature."
    "You don't remember the silver hair and magenta fingernails?"
    "Nope." Looking her straight in the eye, he added, "She was just an easy lay."
    Marcie calmly folded her arms on the bar.
    Her eyes remained steady as she leaned toward him. "Look, Chase, let me spare you the trouble of trying to insult me. There isn't a single insult I haven't heard from being called Four Eyes and Bird Legs and Carrot-top and
    Goosey. So you can act like a bastard when I
    bring you flowers and it's not going to faze me.
    "As for off-color comments, I've worked with and around men since I graduated from col lege. I could match every dirty joke you can think of with one even dirtier. I know all the locker-room phrases. Nothing you say can offend or shock me.
    "I realize that your virility didn't die with your wife, though you might have wanted it to. You have physical needs, which you appease with whatever woman is available at the time. I neither commend nor criticize you for that. Sexuality is a human condition. Each of us deals with it in his own way. No, it's not your behavior that confounds me, but the women who let you use them.
    "You have people who care about you, yet you continue to scorn and abuse their concern.
    Well, I won't allow you to do that to me any longer. I've got better, eminently more satisfying ways to spend my time."
    She stood and reached for her jacket, pulled it on. "You're probably too stupid to realize that the best thing that ever happened to you was that damned bull named El Dorado. It's only unfortunate that he didn't give you a good, swift kick in the head. It might have knocked some sense into it."
    She headed for the door, but got no farther than his arm's reach. He caught the hem of her jacket and drew her up short. "I'm sorry."
    For reasons he couldn't understand, he heard himself say, "Please stay awhile."
    Turning around, she glared down at him.
    "So you can make more snide remarks about my single status? So you can try to shock me with vulgarities?"
    "No. So I won't be so damn lonely."
    Chase didn't know why he was being so baldly honest with her. Perhaps because she was so honest about herself. In everyone else's eyes, she was a successful, attractive woman.
    When she looked in the mirror, however, she saw the tall, skinny, carrot-headed bookworm in glasses and braces.
    "Please, Marcie."
    She put up token