To Court a Cowgirl by Jeannie Watt Read Free Book Online

the word.” Inwardly he was fairly certain she wouldn’t say that word. She was doing this to save money.
    â€œNo. It looks like you got a good start.” She brushed her hand over her cheek as if to push her hair back from her face, even though there’d been no hair in her face, and tilted her chin up to look him in the eye. “We’ll give it another day.”
    He let out a soft snort. “Another day.”
    She nodded as if working day-to-day on approval was a normal business practice.
    â€œI assume then that you’ll be paying me daily?”
    Her eyebrows lifted as if she hadn’t considered that. “That does make sense,” she said slowly. “Will you take a check?”
    He exhaled. “Yes...you can pay me for two days tomorrow. Unless, of course, you wanted to go wild and hire me for an entire week.”
    â€œDo you think it will take that long?”
    He was about to explain to her exactly how long he thought it would take when he realized that she was kidding. “Why the day-to-day bit, Allie?”
    â€œSo I don’t overspend.”
    â€œYou’re just going to shut down demolition when you hit the end of your budget?”
    â€œSomething like that. I can’t afford to go into debt. Not when I have student loans.”
    â€œYou’re paying for this yourself?”
    Her expression started to frost over. He was edging too close to personal. “Never mind. If you want to work day-to-day, fine by me. You can pay me at the end of the time.”
    â€œI made up a time sheet.”
    â€œOf course you did.”
    She shot him a look, which he met with an innocent look of his own.
    This was kind of fun.
    * * *
    A LLIE WAITED UNTIL Jason had driven away before checking on her stubborn calfless cows and found to her surprise that calf number one had been born. The adorable little black heifer peeked at Allie from the safe side of her mother, who was placidly grazing near the edge of the herd, so Allie assumed that all was well.
    â€œSee that?” she called to the other cows. “That’s what I want to see—healthy calves on the ground when I get home from work.”
    Talking to the cows. No sign of insanity there.
    Allie grimaced as she headed back to the car to get her purse. After the wild day in the library, staying home and talking to cows didn’t seem like a bad idea.
    Be grateful that you have a job .
    Allie was grateful, which made it all the more difficult to deal with the growing doubts she had about whether she’d trained for the right career. One week in and, while she enjoyed parts of her temporary job, she was becoming painfully aware of her shortcomings as a future elementary-level teacher. She liked little kids, found them entertaining and charming, but she had no experience managing them and no natural talent in that arena. High school kids...they were different. After completing a double major in elementary education and secondary art, she’d done her practicum teaching in high school, where she’d had no problem with discipline. Smaller children... Dani and Jolie would laugh their asses off if they knew that she was being taken advantage of by six-year-olds. Oh, they’d started off sweet and shy, like new puppies, then, the next thing she knew, they were practically chewing on her shoes.
    Allie pulled her purse out of the car and shut the door again. She’d get better at managing the kids as time went on. If her friend Liz could do it, so could she. She just needed practice holding the hard line and ignoring the cuteness factor. Or pray that the impossible happened and the high school art teacher quit, something Liz assured her wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.
    The next morning Jason showed up early, just as she’d stepped out of the shower. Jolie had taken her dog with her, so Allie had no warning system, and she might have to rectify that. She’d only known that Jason had