Cowboy Candy Read Free Page B

first tumbled out of bed; especially his bed.
“Don’t even think about it Maddy. You have sworn off men for a
reason. They can’t be trusted. Haven’t you had your heart broken
enough?”
Nevertheless, she couldn’t help it. No man ever had that kind of
magnetic effect on her.
He was tall, at least six feet two. His hair was coal
black and his eyes, well; his eyes were blue like nothing she had ever seen
before. He was clean-shaven and smelled like fresh soap and after-shave.
His skin was tanned, and his bulging biceps and chest defined who he was.
He was a cowboy. He was grade one hundred percent beefcake.
“Oh Lord, I’ve got to stop thinking like this,” she whispered.
As she went about taking her shower, she could not get his image out
of her head.
He had lips that begged to be kissed. He had teeth that
practically sparkled. He was polite and sweet and those dimples of his.
He was positively the hottest cowboy she’d ever laid eyes on.
“Oh, this is just crazy,” she said to herself as she began to imagine how
his kisses must feel. “I’d better go for a drive and clear my head today.”
Still, she made a mental note.
She would ask Mabel, who the
mysterious cowboy was. If anyone knew who was who in this town, you
could be sure it would be Mabel.
CHAPTER 6
    Jack Carter sat in his dilapidated recliner and chugged a beer. He was
not sad, only extremely pissed off. Who did Maddy think she was?
Miss
high and mighty? She’d left him. He couldn’t comprehend why. Sure, he
might have yelled at her a little too much. He might have put her down.
Hell, he even slapped her around a few times. Nevertheless, he still could
not believe she had upped and left him.
    He looked around his dumpy little house. Take-out boxes, empty beer
cans, and cigarette butts littered the floor, and she'd only been gone for two
days. Maddy had always taken care of him and the house. He picked up
the note and re-read it aloud for the tenth time that morning.
    “Jack, by the time you get this note, I will be long gone. It should come
as no surprise, should it? You’ve managed to keep me down all these years.
I can take the name-calling and the drinking. Hell, I can even take the
slaps. Even so, somehow, I cannot forgive you for cheating on me. I’m
only taking my clothes, my personal belongings, and my car. You have hurt
me for the last time. It stops today. I hope you have a nice life. Whatever
you do, try to treat the next gal a whole hell of a lot better than you did me,
Maddy.”
    He crumpled the note into a tight little ball and threw it across the
room. Who in the hell did she think she was talkin’ to? Nobody spoke to
him that way. He’d let her stay with him out of the kindness of his heart.
He didn’t expect much, just a clean house, a good meal, and a woman who
obeyed him. Shit, he’d even agreed to let her get two jobs to help pay the
bills; now what? Well, he wasn’t gonna’ take this lyin’ down.
    He decided to give her some time to come to her senses. He was sure
that she'd miss him and come runnin' back once she realized what a big
mistake she had made. Course, she was gonna catch a beating for what she
did and that piece of shit Mustang of hers would be history.
“I always warned you. If you ever tried to leave, I’d hunt you down and
kill you,” he fumed.
     
CHAPTER 7
    Dusty leaned on the shovel and surveyed his work. He had just put in
the
last of
the
new
irrigation lines
and decided to take
a
breather.
Everything looked good so far. All he had to do was attach some spinners
under each tree. That was gonna take some doing. He didn’t quite know
how his mother had managed to amass fifteen hundred trees, but she did.
She planted four varieties that matured year-round. There were Mexicolas,
Fuertes, Zutanos, and her prized fruit, Hass.
    It seemed that every tree had its own personality and was more
temperamental that a mare in heat.
He had learned the hard way that the
trees had surface roots.
Each tree