The Cattleman (Sons of Texas Book 2) by Anna Jeffrey Read Free Book Online Page B

foot up and hopped to the truck door, grabbing it for balance.
    Oh, hell. No telling what the temperature was on the asphalt. He again bent down and interlocked his fingers. “Look, ma’am. I need to get to town. Let’s just do this. Just put your foot here. I’ll lift you onto the seat.”
    She pulled off her sunglasses and shoved them against the crown of her hat. Then she braced one hand on his shoulder and stepped into his hands with a small slender foot.
    The edge of her hat brim tangled with his and caught his sunglasses, shoved them to the side and gouged his eye. Pain jerked his head back reflexively.
    He grabbed for his own hat with one hand, trying to hang on to her foot with the other. She teetered and hooked him around the neck with one arm, her breast pressing against his nose and smarting eye. To keep from dropping her, he had no choice but to scoop her up and into his arms.
    Her scent surrounded him—hot woman, sultry perfume. Another surge of adrenaline coursed through him and muscles tightened low in his belly. His eye felt as if it had been slashed with a knife—hell, it might be bleeding—but suddenly a critical part of him felt zero concern for an eye injury.
    He lifted her to the level of the seat, but before he could slide her onto it, she looked at him eye-to-eye, mere inches between their faces. “Oh, my gosh,” she said softly. “Your eye is so red. And it’s watering. Are you okay?”
    Her breath touched his lips and smelled of peppermint. Her breast and the beat of her heart rhythmically pressed against his chest. He felt a shift in his shorts and his world turned upside down. He had the damnedest urge to kiss her shiny pink lips.
    A few seconds passed before he came to his senses. He had to untangle from her. He did not like what being so close to her was doing to him. “It’s fine. Just slide onto the seat.”
    At last, she was seated. His eye burned like fire. He dabbed at it with his shirtsleeve as he slammed the door. Cussing under his breath, he rounded the truck’s front end again and climbed behind the wheel, turned the truck around and drove the short distance back to the ranch house in silence, fighting the confusing action and reaction going on behind his fly.
    As he approached the house, his two border collies rose from sleeping on the front porch and began to bark. He came to a stop on the driveway in front of the house and the dogs bounded toward them. The two orange barn cats raced along with them. He scooted out of the truck, rounded the frontend again and opened the passenger door.
    The visitor slid out, landing on the ground with a one-footed hop, hanging on to her shoe and her purse. The dogs barked and danced around them. The cats meowed. Her shoulders scrunched all the way up to her earlobes, one palm flew up and her jaw clenched. Evidently, she didn’t like animals.
    Pic gave a loud whistle. “Frissy! Fancy! Settle down!”
    His dad came out of the house, walking toward them. He whistled, too. “Fancy! Get back on the porch!”
    Both dogs continued to bark and bounce around them. The visitor inched closer to Pic’s side. He glanced down at her, saw a little quiver in her chin. Was she afraid of dogs? He shoved the question out of his mind and amidst the commotion, raised his voice. “Dad, this is—” He stopped. Though she had said her name, he hadn’t understood it.
    She stuck her right hand out to Dad. “Hello,” she said, her voice elevated above the dogs’ barks. “My name is Zochimilka Amiyala McLaren.”
    Pic still didn’t catch her name. In the sing-song way she said it, it all ran together.
    Dad took Miss What’s-Her-Name’s hand with his right hand, bent and grabbed Fancy’s collar with his left and leveled a narrow-lidded look at the visitor. “You don’t say.”
    Dad hadn’t caught her name either.
    “Frissy, c’mere,” Pic said and whistled again. The border collie finally calmed and took a seat on her haunches beside his boot,