Cowboy's Kiss Read Free Page A

Beth had suggested she use. Her throat felt full of travel dust and the late August heat seemed to still be with her in spite of the coolness of the house. Something cold to drink was too appealing a thought to resist.
    Well, she might have resisted it if Jackson Heller had been there. But since he wasn’t, she decided to take Beth’s advice to make herself at home.
    The nearly silent hum of the air conditioner was the only sound in the whole place as she padded down the stairs and across a huge entryway, and stepped into the sunken living room with its three couches in a U around a square coffee table and the biggest television she’d ever seen.
    Through the living room, she went into a connecting dining room and around a table large enough to seat a whole summit conference.
    Then she pushed open the swinging door that led to the kitchen and stopped short.
    Jackson Heller was standing at the refrigerator, one long arm draped over the open door, the other lying across the top as he peered inside. Clearly he hadn’t heard her entrance, because he didn’t budge.
    Until that moment Ally hadn’t realized how big a man he was. Six foot three if he was an inch, divided perfectly between long, jean-encased legs and a torso that grew like a symphony from a narrow waist to shoulders a mile wide, filling out a Western-style shirt better than the designer of it would ever have believed possible.
    Ally considered sneaking out before he realized she was there, but just as the thought occurred to her, he must have sensed her presence, because he turned his head in her direction and caught her with those blue eyes.
    Lord, but he was good-looking! Somehow, even though she’d noticed his eyes in the honky-tonk, she hadn’t realized just how good-looking the rest of his face was. But it wasn’t only his eyes that were strikingly gorgeous. This guy was drop-dead handsome.
    He had thick hair the color of espresso, cropped short on the sides and longer on top. His brow was straight and square, his nose slightly long, slightly narrow, slightly pointed—what the romance novels she read called aquiline.
    The mustache Meggie had noticed was full and well-groomed, not so much hiding his exquisitely shaped mouth as making it seem all the more intriguing. His cheeks dipped into hollows hammocked between chiseled cheekbones and a jawline sharp enough to slice bread, giving his face a rough-hewn ruggedness. And he had the same cleft in his chin that his father had had, the same one she’d noticed in his brother, only on Jackson Heller it was so sexy that every macho movie star in the world would have killed for it.
    But handsome or not, he was no happier to see Ally in his kitchen than he had been to see her in the honky-tonk.
    He slammed the refrigerator door closed without having taken anything from inside and faced her.
    Showdown at the O.K. Corral Kitchen.
    Salad shooters at the ready.
    Oh, Lord, it must be late, Ally thought, I’m getting goofy.
    She stood as tall as she could and met him eye to eye. “I came down for something to drink.”
    He just went on staring at her, his eyes boring into her like spears. “You sure as hell aren’t what we expected,” he finally said. “Never knew old Shag to dabble with a younger one.”
    â€œExcuse me?”
    â€œI just want to know one thing.” He poked his chin toward the ceiling. “Is that little girl up there our half sister?”
    â€œYour half sister?” Ally repeated as what he was alluding to began to dawn on her. “You think Shag and I—”
    â€œYou were the mysterious lady friend he hightailed it to Denver to be with these last ten years.”
    Lady friend —he’d referred to her as that earlier, too, but only now did the meaning of it sink in. “No, I wasn’t.”
    His eyes narrowed at her. “Don’t play coy with me. I’m no ignorant country bumpkin. You slept your