Tina Leonard - Triplets' Rodeo Man Read Free

reason to leave young children without a father when we have plenty of resources in the Morgan family. If you have a magic wand, wave it and make it snappy, say, in the next twenty-four hours, before they bring in that infernal kidney I’m getting. Grandchildren are what old horses like me live to see.”
    â€œJosiah,” Cricket said faintly, “you’re asking for a miracle, not a magic wand.”
    â€œDon’t you do miracles? Isn’t that your thing?”
    She paused. “Certainly I believe in them, but Jack hasn’t been…I mean, I know nothing of his personal life. He could already have a girlfriend.”
    â€œThat would make your job easy.”
    â€œIf she had children already,” Cricket reminded him. “Just getting him to the altar would be incredibly difficult, but fixing him up with a single mother who would suit him is likely beyond impossible.” Cricket tried to ignore her own racing heartbeat. There was no way she could honestly match make for Jack Morgan—not with the way her heart jumped every time she saw him. Ever since January, when she’d seen him in the bull-riding ring at the rodeo, she’d known she had the man in her sights who could undo everything rational she thought about men and marriage. A rodeo cowboy could never be the perfect man for her, and yet, her heart was drawn to the devil-may-care in him. “I can’t do it, Josiah. It’s not my place to do so.”
    â€œHell’s bells,” Josiah complained. “A family would settle my son down, and that would be best for everyone.”
    â€œWhat if he met a woman he fell in love with and then made a family? Wouldn’t that be better?”
    â€œNo,” Josiah said stubbornly. “Because Jack will never marry unless he has to. It’s kind of like visiting his old man—it’s costing him a kidney. Whatever woman catches him is going to have to rope, drag and throw my son to the altar, and he’ll yowl like he’s trussed on a Fourth of July grill.”
    That was probably prescient. And she didn’t want Jack “yowling” if she was the one tying him down—what woman wanted to catch her man that way? “I’ll just finish the drapes for your house that you’ve been wanting, which Suzy and Priscilla and I promised you months ago. How about that? Wouldn’t new drapes give you a reason to come home healthy?”
    He shook his head. “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. You are no good at negotiating, Cricket Jasper, particularly as I know you have a thing for my son. However, you’ll never catch him if you’re planning on wrapping yourself in drapes like Scarlett O’Hara, my girl. No, to catch Jack, you’ll have to be willing to lay body and soul on the line. He’s not exactly the curtains type, more like cots and coyotes, if you get my drift.”
    Cricket did, indeed, get Josiah’s drift, and considered herself well warned.

Chapter Two
    Jack hesitated outside his father’s door, realizing he was the topic of conversation between the pretty deacon and his father. He heard his father sneakily trying to get Cricket to romance him; he heard Cricket backing away from the idea and offering up her services as Martha Stewart instead. Part of Jack wanted to snicker at his father’s failed attempt at matchmaking, the other part of him was seriously annoyed Pop couldn’t just give the whole family-expansion thing a rest. But that was typical of the old man. He couldn’t be happy knowing he had a chance to get well. It had to be the family and kids and happily-ever-after for Pop—as if Jack and his brother’s had ever had that for one single day in their lives.
    Thankfully, the good deacon was too angelic for Jack—and too crafty for Pop. Still, it shocked him that Pop thought the deacon had the hots for him. Then again, Pop was entitled to a delusion