A Cowboy's Woman Read Free Page A

morning.”
    Shane nodded grimly but did not argue.
    Tillie turned to Greta. “Perhaps you should come home with me now.”
    Before Greta could answer, Shane put a staying hand on Greta. “No. Greta and I have some things to work out. But you needn’t worry, Mrs. Wilson. I’ll be every inch the gentleman from here on out.”
    Lilah McCabe seemed reassured by her wayward son’s promise.
    Tillie Wilson, however, was not. So Greta jumped in
and said soothingly, “It’s all right, Mom. There are two bedrooms here. And Shane and I do need to talk. I’ll see you and Dad first thing in the morning.”
    Lilah turned to Tillie in a consulting manner. “Maybe it’d be best if we all—six of us—met at our ranch before work. Say around 8:00 a.m.?”
    Tillie nodded. “We’ll be there.”
    Â 
    THEIR MOTHERS LEFT IN UNISON, just as they’d come in.
    Greta waited until the cars had driven away, then sighed. “Talk about a disaster!”
    â€œTell me about it,” Shane grumbled. As he stalked, naked and unashamed, to the bureau, Greta saw what she’d only felt before.
    Shane yanked open a dresser drawer and pulled out a pair of briefs. He stepped into them and tugged them up long, muscled legs covered with golden brown hair two shades darker than the halo of shaggy, sun-streaked hair on his head. “‘Course, I didn’t figure everyone in the entire dam bridge club would end up in the bedroom with us.” He strode to the closet, pulled out a pair of faded jeans and yanked them on. “I assumed just one of our mothers, at most both, would witness that kiss.”
    As much as part of her would have liked to blame him for the entire misadventure, Greta knew she was just as responsible for the calamity. She’d wanted to kiss him for years. And the truth was she’d jumped at the opportunity to do so. She could hardly blame him for that. After all, she could have said no to his game plan from the get-go, and that would have been that, but she hadn’t.
    â€œYou couldn’t possibly have known how this would turn out,” she said. “Neither of us could have.”
    Shane turned to face her. “We’ll just have to fix it.”
    â€œHow?” Greta asked. She swallowed hard, unable to
even bear thinking about what it was going to be like to face her father’s wrath.
    Shane ran a comb through his still-damp hair, restoring order to the rumpled mass. He slid the comb into the back pocket of his jeans and turned to face her calmly. “By getting married, of course.”

Chapter Two
    â€œ M arried,” Greta repeated, absolutely sure she had not heard right.
    Shane nodded. Grabbing a red-and-blue Western shirt from the closet, he continued to dress. “It’s the right thing to do.”
    â€œReally,” Greta said dryly, looking into Shane’s handsome face. “And how do you figure that?” Long-considered the runt of the McCabe litter, at six-one, 180 pounds, Shane was the smallest as well as the youngest of the four sons of John and Lilah McCabe. He was also the scrappiest, as was reflected in the. jagged, quarterinch, scar on his right cheekbone, a half-inch battle scar just left of center on his chin and an eighth-inch half-moon scar above his left eyebrow. He was also in need of a shave, and judging by the length of the stubble lining his jaw, had been for several days. Yet none of that detracted from his rugged appeal one bit.
    â€œBecause, as much as I hate to admit it, our moms were right.”
    Shane quickly closed the pearl snaps on his shirt and tucked it into his jeans. “If the word gets out tomorrow, and it will, that we were found in bed together on a whim, then your reputation will be trashed.” Shane
strode out into the hallway, zipping up, and came back with a leather belt sporting a championship buckle. He threaded it through the loops on his jeans and