Crazy for Lovin’ You Read Free

extended throughout all the rooms on the first floor. The house had been built in the 1930s and the land it stood on had been in the family for several generations. The money she’d spent on new furnishings was part of her plan to see it stayed that way.
    â€œHow’s Jen?” he asked.
    She should have known he was remembering the other member of her own generation. Her sister. Before she could prevent it, there was a dull pain right near her heart. “Jensen is fine. She works in Dallas,” she added.
    Best let him know up-front that he wouldn’t be seeing a lot of her. At least not in Destiny. In case that was why he’d come back.
    â€œA lawyer?” he asked.
    â€œShe specializes in family law.”
    She tried like crazy not to let it bother her that he remembered Jensen had always talked about becominga lawyer. No doubt they’d told each other all their hopes and dreams. He’d barely recognized her, but remembered that Jensen had always wanted to be an attorney. Even though she’d broken his heart by eloping with someone else. Did he still not want to see or talk to anyone named Stevens?
    â€œSo what have you been up to for the last ten or eleven years?” she asked to fill the silence.
    His gaze settled on her. “Rodeo. At first.”
    â€œI heard you gave up your scholarship.”
    â€œSeemed like the thing to do at the time.” He frowned and the thundercloud expression on his face took her back to that night by the pool.
    She wanted to bite her tongue. In all these years, she hadn’t managed to activate the mechanism in her brain that would refine or remove anything stupid on the way to her mouth. Or maybe it was Mitch Rafferty who deactivated it. She never could think straight around him.
    Nervously she tucked a bothersome strand of hair behind her ear. “Why don’t we go into the kitchen? Can I get you a glass of iced tea?”
    â€œI’d like that.”
    She held out her hand for him to go first and he found his way as surely as if he’d been there only yesterday. She hated herself for noticing that the back of him was almost as impressive as the front. Broad shoulders tapered to his trim waist. His backside, hugged by impossibly soft and worn denim, was practically a work of art. And that was strictly objective female appreciation for an above average looking man. Because she had no feelings for him whatsoever.
    But when her hormones subsided, she noticed that he limped slightly. She recalled reading a small blurbabout an injury, but the celebrity magazine articles mostly proclaimed that his playboy points matched his impressive rodeo stats. Was there more to his story? Probably. The fact that he was acting commissioner of the high school rodeo association was a clue.
    The fact that she wanted to hear every last detail just made her a candidate for crazy. She needed him to look at the ranch and tell her it would work just fine for his purposes. Then she prayed that he would go away and never come back. But she’d opened her mouth and offered him iced tea. Taking back the offer probably wasn’t the best strategy to win friends and influence people.
    The kitchen was arranged in a large U, part of which formed a bar with stools. Instead of sitting on one of them the way he’d always done, he invaded her work space inside the U, parking himself with his back propped against the beige ceramic-tile counter. She felt his gaze on her as she pulled the pitcher of iced tea from the refrigerator beside the stove and opened the cupboard above to retrieve a glass.
    More memories came flooding back as she poured the amber-colored liquid and handed it to him, not easy to do with trembling hands. She’d poured him iced-tea all those times she’d kept him company while he’d waited for Jen to come downstairs. She tried to clamp the lid tight on the details but failed miserably at forgetting how she’d pined for him,