Her Summer Cowboy Read Free

“Just my family’s songs.”
    “I get that.” He truly did. Her legacy was one of the legends and tragedies. He’d listened to Keith Wells’ last CD about a million times growing up. Sweet Baby Girl was one of his favorites and in it he heard all the fears that Keith had about watching his daughter become a teenager and get ready to leave home.
    Emma .
    He knew the story of her life, as did anyone who’d listened to any of Keith’s songs or even Alan’s. Yet for her they weren’t just country hits, they were chronicles of her life, reminders of her past. Songs he’d listened to when he’d been lonely on the road and missing his momma and home.
    “So you’re the bodyguard?” she asked.
    “I am.”
    “Does Gramps really need protection?” She shifted her position on the chair curling one leg underneath her body. “Should I be worried?”
    Hudson shook his head. “Nah, we’re friends and he invited me to come along this summer since I was planning to head back to Montana.”
    “What’s in Montana?”
    “My family.”
    “Why aren’t you there now?” she asked.
    “That’s a little personal.”
    “Fair enough.” She rocked and the sound of the wood rockers against the porch soothed her.
    “The real reason he wanted me along was to be a horse wrangler for him. I grew up on a ranch and have done some amateur rodeoing in my day. Alan’s got it in his head that when he sings Lonesome Range I should ride across the stage.”
    “That will be interesting. I hope you don’t ride anywhere near me,” she said.
    Clearly, she was good at keeping people at arm’s length. But he was good at sneaking in and when he was ready he’d make his move.
    “Um…I think Alan plans to have you riding at some point too.”
    She groaned.
    “Not a big fan of horses?”
    “Not really. They’ve always seemed too big and more than a little scary,” she said.
    “I guess to a little bitty thing like you that would be the case,” he said. “But the horse your grandfather has is gentle. You’ll do just fine.”
    “Of course I will. I’m not going to be the reason Gramps’ farewell tour fails. I mean of course it won’t fail. But I will do whatever I have to—”
    “Do I make you nervous?” he asked. She was rambling and from what he’d observed earlier that wasn’t her normal way.
    “A little.”
    She wrapped her arms around her waist and tipped her head to the side to stare up at him. She had eyes that were sort of cinnamon brown colored.
    “Why?”

Chapter Two
    S he stared at him. He was the epitome of everything that she’d run away from when she’d been eighteen. He was a cowboy who lived the life. Not like her neighbors in Nashville who’d like to play the part. He was tied up in this tour that made her feel like she was losing control of her tightly capped emotions. And there was something about the cut of his jeans and his broad shoulders that made her want to jump him, pin him down and have her way with him.
    But that was an escape. A harmless fantasy she could use to distract her thoughts from the fact that she was worried about Gramps, and nervous about singing back-up on the old classics.
    “I don’t know,” she said after a few minutes. He had a strong, clean-shaven jaw and there was something very solid about him.
    “Ah, I see how it’s going to be,” he said in that laconic way that she wished she didn’t like.
    “How what’s going to be?”
    “You and me. We’re going to be fibbing to each other and pretending for the next six weeks.”
    She pursed her lips together and shook her head. Mr. Cowboy over here thought that he could read her. Hell, he probably could. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that once she’d agreed to sing with Gramps and go on this tour that she’d lost a little of the inner peace she’d found over the last ten years.
    “I’m not fibbing,” she insisted. “I really can’t define what it is about you. Maybe it’s just that you seem so