The Rancher and the Rock Star Read Free Page A

followed by a second on her head. Her heart sank. She’d let herself get distracted, and now she risked losing the eighty bales of hay still on the rack if they got soaked.
    “Crap, crap, crap.” For half a second she waffled between Gray and the hay wagon. She groaned and chose the hay. “I’m sorry. Can you finish this discussion from the barn?”
    Two more fat drops left splotches on her shoulders, and she hoisted herself back up onto the wagon. Normally, she didn’t mind stacking hay. It taxed her body while anesthetizing her brain. But even if she threw as hard as she could she wouldn’t beat this storm.
    “I worried about him.” Gray’s voice held as much promise of thunder as the storm.
    “I didn’t mean that.” She pulled two stacks of bales into heaps with one movement, and they banged into her legs, nearly knocking her off balance. More rain splashed her cheeks. “At least, I didn’t mean it to sound so harsh.”
    “Let’s just call us even for assumptions. The point is, I flew from Chicago and am missing work to be here. I’m sure this will sound even crasser to you, but I have appointments I can’t miss. My job involves more than just me and a boss.”
    Two bales. Three. Four.
    “So you thought you’d simply grab your son and, what, take him to work with you?”
    “As a matter of fact, that’s exactly what I thought. I’m his father. I have considered what’s best for him.”
    Five. Six. Seven. Abby heaved the hay just far enough to get it into the barn door. She could stack it later. Her arms started to sting from their exaggerated motions, but she knew how to ignore the discomfort.
    “I’m sure that’s true.” She grunted with exertion. “But wouldn’t you like to know why he ran away in the first place, before you haul him off again?”
    “Lady.” His taut voice caused her to look into his angry face. “I don’t know if you think you’re some sort of pop psychiatrist, but I’m not the sixteen-year-old here. I know why my son ran and, frankly, I don’t blame him. But, it’s not your business, and I don’t have the freedom to hang around waiting for him to come back.”
    The drops fell faster, and the breeze picked up. An eerie twilight settled over the farm.
    “Seems to me you do what you have to do where your children are concerned “Sacrifice. Ask yourself what your priorities are.” She tossed harder. The tender alfalfa leaves in the fragrant bundles glistened with moisture. In ten minutes the bales would be soaked deep. The rain saturated her shirt, and the tendrils escaping her loose chignon clung to her cheeks.
    “You’re something, you know that? You warn me about making assumptions then tell me my priorities are screwed up. Who the hell do you think you are? ”
    The knife-blade edge to his voice made her stop and blink. She’d concentrated so hard on fighting the rain that she’d forgotten her actual fight with the person next to her. Lecture mode always seemed to slip out when she multi-tasked, but Gray’s glare of unequivocal anger told her she’d stepped over the line. Although the water beating into her hay made her cringe, she looked him in the eye.
    “I’m sorry,” she began, but something fluttered in her chest, and she caught her breath in surprise. He didn’t look exactly like any picture of him she’d ever seen—and Kim had scrapbooks full of clippings and magazine photos. Three dimensions served him incredibly well. “You’re right.” She reined in her emotions. “I’ve grown fond of your son, Mr. . . . Graham. But I don’t have the right to be protective of him.”
    The anger drained from his eyes, but his body remained a study of sculpted seriousness. Cocoa-colored hair feathered back from his forehead and framed his high cheekbones with thick locks that kissed his collar. A chiseled Adam’s apple bobbed when he swallowed, and Abby’s stomach fluttered again. If the rock-and-roll lifestyle was supposed to ravage a body, Gray