City Girl Read Free

two kids.
    He gaped at this invader in his kitchen, slid his gaze over suitcases and boxes, then slowly peeled off his thick leather gloves and unbuttoned his sheepskin jacket. She’d seemed so . . . even-tempered the first time he’d met her. Bending, he lifted the panties from their perch on his dog’s bushy tail and dangled them from one finger. Liss Tremayne, her face as white as the underwear he held, still held a chair in front of her as if she would fling it as she had the suitcase. She’d backed around the table as she’d shouted conflicting orders at his perfectly harmless and undoubtedly confused dog.
    She was dressed in jeans and a thick red sweater. Her nearly black hair tumbled loose around her shoulders, and her almond-shaped eyes were huge with terror, pinned on the dog. When she came up against the counter, she stopped of necessity and stared at Kirk as if only then becoming aware of his presence.
    “Call him off,” she begged, her voice shaking. “Please send him away. Oh, lord, he’s eating my bra!”
    Kirk took the bra from Marsh’s slack jaws and dangled it from the same finger as the panties. “Sit, Marsh.” Obediently, the dog, a cross between a husky and a shepherd, lowered himself onto his haunches, tongue lolling, ears pricked up, head cocked. “Stay,” Kirk added, and bent to pick up the       spilled suitcase, stuffing items of feminine apparel back in it willy-nilly. He set it on the table, put his       snow-damp Stetson on top of the fridge, and slid out of his shearling coat.
    “Send that horrible beast outside!” she demanded.
    “The hell I will. This is Marsh’s home, too, you know.”
    “Yes, sure, and as far as you’re concerned, he takes precedence over me and my children and you want us to leave,” she went on, her voice growing more shrill. “Is that what you expected to accomplish by leaving this mess? Or did you figure you could live like a slob for weeks and weeks simply because I was coming to clean it all up? I didn’t come to be a servant to you, Kirk Allbright! I didn’t come to have my children threatened by a man-eating beast! Even your damned cat clawed at Ryan and . . . and . . . I must have been out of my mind to think this would be a safe place to raise my children, but don’t think your snow or your mean animals or your squalor is going to drive me away! Move!” she added, pushing him hard as her voice cracked and tears spurted from her dark eyes. “Get out of my way! I’m going to bed!”
    Her tears undid his tight control. Dammit, he was tired, and hungry, and cold, and he didn’t need a woman screaming at him the minute he got home from a long and exhausting day. He’d been racing the weather for the past three days, and every one of them had been hell. And now this! The nerve of her, berating him about going out with women, as if it were any of her affair what he did. This was exactly what he’d been afraid of when he’d learned he was to have her and the old bat dumped on him! Mrs. Healey’s behavior since her arrival the previous week had been enough to deal with, and now here came this one, pulling that one female trick geared to turn a man inside out. Well, he’d had enough of women this past week. Hell, the past year!
    He blocked her way. “Now, you just wait one damn minute here, lady. How the hell was I supposed to know you were coming today when you didn’t tell me? I’m not a mind reader!”
    She dashed the tears from her eyes. “I wrote to tell you I was coming today.”
    “Yeah? When?”
    Liss had to think about it. The past weeks had been a whirl of activity, of getting packed, of saying good-bye to friends, of one last, horrendous battle with Johnny’s folks. She felt tears well up again and held them back with a conscious effort of will. “On—on Monday, I think.” Or had it been Tuesday before the letter got mailed?
    Kirk stared at her. Her chin trembled! It honest-to-God trembled. How many hours had