Texas Lawman by Ginger Chambers Read Free Book Online Page A

father to me. Whenever I have doubts, I go to the land. I touch it, I feel it, I rub it into my skin so I can make the connection. Parker land,
    Parker blood. Can you understand that? “
    Jodie shrugged and looked away.
    Mae sighed. “One day you will. At least, I hope you will. I don’t understand what’s happened to you, Jodie. Why you don’t”
    “I really am tired, Aunt Mae,” Jodie cut in. “I should go to bed. So if you don’t mind”
    “I meant what I said about Rio,” Mae interrupted sharply. “That girl could’ ye been you!”
    Jodie shook her head. “I wouldn’t have gotten pregnant. I didn’t get pregnant!”
    “But for the grace of God!” Then, seeming to realize that their discussion had taken an unintended turn, Mae reverted to her previous reflection. “I don’t want you to get hurt again, Jodie, that’s all. That’s why I”
    “It’s like Rare said, Aunt Mae. Rio knows better than to come back to Texas, much less this ranch, because if he does, he’ll have Rare after him, too. Not just Tare and that sheriff up in Colorado.” She paused, searching fora way out of the uncomfortable discussion, and in the end fell back on humor. “And you! Sometimes I think Rio was more afraid of you than he was of anyone else.”
    Her great-aunt’s dark eyes glimmered with satisfaction. “He had good reason,” she said gruffly. “He still does.”
     
    JODIE KISSED her father good-night as they parted in the hallway. While preparing for bed she could barely keep her eyes open, but once she was stretched out between the sheets, sleep seemed a distant hope. Her thoughts continued to churn.
    She’d been “in love” —infatuation, attraction, flirting, having fun–a number of times over the years. Men liked her and she liked them. But only twice had she ever been in what she termed love—where her emotions had been deeply touched—and the first time didn’t really count because she’d been so young. The second had counted, though. She’d truly believed herself ready to spend her life with a manmRio Walsh.
    The youngest of the cowboys living on the ranch, at twenty-two he’d been wild, reckless and bad-boy good-looking, with curly blond hair and light blue eyes. He’d first come to work for them the winter Jodie turned seventeen. Like many of his breed, he was as cocksure of his own attraction for women as he was of his skills working cattle. It didn’t take long for the two of them to notice each other and start seeing each other. On the sly of course, because Mae had been adamantly opposed to any contact between them.
    Jodie’s feelings had gone deeper than rebellion, though. She’d truly believed she loved him. She’d dreamed of marrying him, of having his babies. They’d make a home together, a real home, somewhere faraway from her aunt’s disapproval, where no one had ever heard the Parker name.
    When it looked as if Mae would have her way—she’d wanted Rio dismissed and he finally was—Jodie had run off with him.
     
    Only to be greatly disillusioned. His feelings didn’t mirror hers at all. Her plans that they would marry were hers alone, and when confnted by the irate members of her family, he’d almost tripped in his haste to get away from her.
    What followed was lost in a hazy cloud of humiliation and pain. Everyone had been kind to her, including Mae, but that did little to heal the hurt.
    She knew she should hate Rio, but she didn’t. Because all these years later she could look back and see what she couldn’t see then: she’d been bored to tears on the ranch, as well as rebellious, and at seventeen, she’d been ripe for the kind of romantic adventure he could offer.
    He was everything Mae and the others had warned her about: unprincipled, untrustworthy, a lothario who took advantage and moved on. But—and she was certain of this—he wasn’t the sort of man to beat a woman. Particularly a woman carrying his child. There wasn’t that kind of violence in him. He