Teaching the Cowboy Read Free Page A

the same clothes they’d been wearing since breakfast. Only Landon looked like he’d tried at all. He’d combed his hair back from his eyes with aid of some kind of product.
    John groaned. “Would it kill ya to polish up even a little bit?” he asked as he spun on his sock heel and headed toward the back door where his boots were stowed.
    “Why?” Pete asked predictably. Why seemed to be the only word the kid used between ages three and four. Hadn’t gotten much better at twelve. “It’s just the Ericksons and some lady and some guy. How’s that any different than any other dinner?”
    John shoved his feet into his boots and took a bracing breath before turning around to eye the kids. “That lady’s going to be your teacher this year, Peter. Try to be nice. Don’t scare her off. Maybe she’ll straighten you out enough that you get through reading the back of a cereal box if you were so inclined.” He turned his scrutiny to Landon.
    Landon put up his hands. “Hey, I play nice.”
    “I know you do. I’m just telling you, you been thinking about college out east? She’s your prepaid source of information. You make sure you find out what tests you were supposed to have taken last year and didn’t.”
    Landon blew out a breath, and John cringed. He couldn’t place the blame squarely on Landon’s shoulders. After all, wasn’t it John’s responsibility as a father to light that fire under his children? Landon had missed the S.A.T. and A.C.T. when they were offered in Laramie because ranch shit happened, and he hadn’t seemed so hot about taking them in the first place. From what few conversations they’d had about the subject, John discerned Landon was ambivalent about going to college at all. After nearly a year of arguing, John finally convinced him he was too smart not to go.
    Landon would make a hell of a vet and the ranch needed modernizing. Maybe he could find out what Southeastern farmers were doing to sustain their lands during periods of heavy production and bring that information home. It was something that wore heavily on John upon realizing that Lundstrom Enterprises was now in possession of six thousand heads of cattle and God knew how many rodeo stallions. The five hundred thousand acres they were sitting on was certainly enough to bear them all, but his gut nagged him to diversify.
    “You need to make sure you get those applications in on time, do you hear me?”
    Landon gave him a long blink. “Dad. I’m a grown-up. Remember? I deflect lectures.”
    John groaned. “Let’s go.” They were nearly out the door when John stopped and turned around once more. He looked down at Liss and then at Landon.
    “Lan, you can birth a calf but you can’t figure out how to put a rubber band in your sister’s hair?”
    Landon cocked one eyebrow up and scoffed. “Neither can you.”
    “Damn it.”

    Ronnie thought Phil looked a little overdressed for a simple ranch dinner, but she didn’t call him on it. He’d put on flat-front black slacks, a dark gray button-up shirt, and polished black brogues. His chin-length dark hair was slicked behind his ears, and he’d even plucked a few stray eyebrow hairs. Why had he even packed tweezers in the first place? He was flying home in the morning.
    She looked down at her own attire. After showering, she’d changed into a little sleeveless knit shell and a pair of white linen shorts she suddenly felt very stupid for bringing to such a dusty environment. She took a long sip of the iced tea Becka had offered her and whistled long and low when she realized the savvy feminine head of household had spiked it with something at least eighty proof.
    “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” she muttered.
    “Honey, you’re Baptist like me. We don’t do saints,” Phil said as he crossed one ankle over the opposite knee and leaned back against the cozy wingback chair he’d claimed in the formal library.
    Library. The Ericksons had a goddamned library. There were a few good