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Kitabı oku: «Sometimes When We Kiss», sayfa 2
Chapter Two
Jackson stood in the waiting room sucking in the unmistakable odor of antiseptic and sick people as he listened to a white-coated lady doctor explaining Gus Wyoming’s heart condition to Shannon. He’d rather smell the back end of a horse any day than the inside of a hospital.
He shifted from one boot to the other and wished for a dip of snuff, though he’d broken that habit more than two years ago. He hated hospitals. Nearly everyone he ever knew who’d gone into one never came out alive—Jett Garret being the exception. And look what had happened to him. Jackson suppressed a shudder. His poor buddy had gone to the hospital and had ended up losing his dream. Never mind that he was deliriously happy with the cute little nurse he’d found there. Jackson couldn’t imagine anything worse than giving up the dream—especially for a creature as undependable as a woman.
“Your grandfather has some blockage in his carotid arteries,” he heard the doctor say and focused his full attention in that direction.
“Is that what causes his chest pain?”
“Yes. And the blockage also causes the shortness of breath when he overexerts himself.” The doctor removed a pair of wire-rimmed glasses and cleaned them against her coat. “If Mr. Wyoming had seen a doctor when he first began experiencing symptoms…” She stopped and shook her head, apparently seeing the futility in what-might-have-beens. “He doesn’t follow doctor’s orders very well.”
Shannon smiled, though Jackson could see the worry hanging on her like a wet saddle blanket—heavy and miserable. She’d been unfaltering since the moment they tore away from the ranch, her strength and constant upbeat chatter in the back seat of the SUV making the trip into town much calmer for him as well as the old man. There would be no hysterics from this little cowgirl.
Regardless of her sexy, all-woman looks, Shannon Wyoming was as tough as a pine knot. Always had been, but in the years since he’d seen her, she’d grown stronger. She had a set to her chin and steely determination in her blue eyes that said she wouldn’t give up and she wouldn’t give in. Much as he hated to admit it, he admired that. Almost as much as he admired her round little backside in a pair of tight jeans.
Her voice and his own common sense yanked him back into the conversation. Better not let Shannon catch him eyeing her behind.
“That’s Granddad. He doesn’t take orders well from anyone.”
Like his granddaughter, Jackson thought. He shoved off the wall and moved up beside her. “Is he going to need surgery?”
The doctor looked from Shannon to the dark cowboy, her expression questioning.
“This is Jackson Kane,” Shannon said. “Our…He works for my grandfather and me.”
She’d finally admitted he had the job, but Jackson felt no victory in her saying so. If Gus couldn’t carry on as always, she’d be stuck with her new hired hand whether she liked the idea or not. He’d have to deal with her reluctance if his own dreams were to come true.
“Not right now. And if he will do the things I tell him, maybe never. With the right medications we may be able to clear out the blockage or at least part of it. But he needs to make some significant lifestyle changes.”
Jackson knew that wouldn’t set well with a man like Gus, and from the way Shannon fidgeted she knew it, too.
“How can we help?” He didn’t know why he felt compelled to see Shannon through this. Her family, her grandfather was not his business. But the anxiety around Shannon’s mouth gave him the most irrational desire to kiss away her troubles and tell her everything would be all right. Must be a flashback to the good times they’d had when they were randy teenagers.
With a concerted effort, he drew his attention away from Shannon’s mouth and back to the doctor.
The doctor replaced her glasses. “How does your grandfather handle his stress?”
“Handle it?” Shannon huffed. “He doesn’t. He keeps everything bottled up inside so I won’t worry about it.”
Jackson could have told them that. Holding trouble inside was the cowboy way. Although lots of men blew off steam by getting drunk on Saturday night or picking a barroom fight, Gus wasn’t the type. Maybe he had been in his younger days, but not now, not even ten years ago.
“I thought you might say that. While caused by the blockage, his blood-pressure problem is exacerbated by the stress,” said the tiny doctor. “You need to do everything possible to eliminate any areas of tension in his life.”
Shannon frowned, a cute little pucker between her eyes that gave Jackson the strangest desire to slip an arm around her waist and pull her close.
“That is not going to be easy.” She gnawed on her full bottom lip and danged if he didn’t start staring at her mouth again.
“No, I don’t expect it will be. But if Mr. Wyoming is to regain optimal health, he must reduce stress and control his blood pressure. If he behaves himself, he could very well beat this thing. Otherwise, he is looking at some serious complications in the not-too-distant future.”
Shannon swallowed hard, her face blanching. “I can’t let anything happen to my granddad.”
“Nothing’s going to happen to Gus,” Jackson said. “We’ll see to it.”
At his reassurance, Shannon relaxed a little and got that determined jut to her chin. “Okay. You’re right. We are going to get him well. I can handle the business side of the ranch, keep him from seeing any financial problems.” She turned to Jackson. “Jackson, don’t tell Granddad about any problems with the horses or their owners. Okay?”
Lying to a man he respected was not what Jackson had in mind. A man who spent his life working on a ranch, burning his muscles into exhaustion wouldn’t take kindly to two women plotting his retirement to a rockin’ chair by hiding things from him. And if Gus could hear this conversation, he would be one unhappy cowboy.
“Gus’s nobody’s fool.”
“I’d be the first to agree with that. But I don’t want to lose him either. For the sake of his health, we absolutely have to keep him relaxed. So gloss over any problems, only tell him the good things.” She placed a hand on his arm and his pulse rate kicked like a young mule. “Please, Jackson. I need your help.”
When she looked so worried like that, her blue eyes threatening a rainstorm, he was helpless to argue.
“I thought you wanted to fire me.”
She crossed her arms, an action that pushed the front of her tank top up and out. A man could totally lose his concentration at such a sight.
“Don’t rub it in.”
A devilish impulse made him tease. “Admit you’re glad I’m here, and I won’t.”
The good doctor, whom Jackson had completely forgotten, cleared her throat. “If you two will excuse me, I have rounds to make. We’ll talk again before Mr. Wyoming is discharged.”
She bustled away, pager beeping at her waist, nurses armed with charts following her down the long white corridor.
“Seems like a good doctor.”
“She’s terribly overworked, but yes, I trust her.” Wearily she pushed her hair behind one ear. “If Dr. Torrence says Granddad will get well faster if he eats right and isn’t stressed, then I have to find ways to keep him content.”
“We.”
“Pardon?”
“Didn’t you just admit you need my help?”
Her eyes lit up and two parentheses appeared around her full, kissable lips. “You win. I’ll take your offer of help.”
“Wait, I wasn’t finished.” He couldn’t resist the urge to goad.
She cocked an eyebrow. “Well?”
“Admit you’re glad I’m here.”
She rolled her eyes. “Okay, Jackson. I’m glad you’re here. Are you happy now?”
“A little insincere, but it will do.”
Jackson had the sudden thought that he might be in trouble. He didn’t know why he cared, but he wanted her to want him here. And that worried him more than a little.
A few minutes later, Shannon headed to the coronary care unit to see her granddad. Jackson, bless him, made noises about phoning his aunt, but she recognized the effort to give her time alone with her grandfather. Now she wished he’d come along; she needed a referee.
“I wouldn’t mind dying so much if you was settled.” Propped up at a forty-five-degree angle, Granddad had tossed off the oxygen mask the minute she’d walked in. Though he sounded a bit winded, his will hadn’t weakened at all.
How was she supposed to keep him calm when he had such a one-track mind? “I am settled, Granddad. And you are not going to die.”
“Everybody dies, little girl. Even cranky old mavericks like me.” He shifted sideways in the bed, looking old and withered beneath the stark white sheets. “But don’t go changing the subject on me. I ain’t talkin’ about me. I’m talkin’ about you and this problem you have with finding a man and settling down.”
“I have everything in the world I want or need including a good man—you.”
He waved a hand in impatience, dismissing her statement as nonsense. “That ain’t what I mean and you know it. You need a husband, but ever time a prospect comes along, you lope off like a green-broke colt.”
“Men don’t interest me that much.”
“A few of ’em interested you enough to get engaged.” He screwed up his brow in thought. “How many fellers have you run off? I’ve lost count.”
He made her sound like one of those Hollywood types who ran through men faster than cold beer on a hot day. She took exception to that.
“Only three.” Three broken engagements, the last one less than six months ago. Each time, as soon as the commitment was made, she’d gotten cold feet. Instead of a ring on her finger, Shannon had felt as if they’d wanted to put a noose around her neck.
“Seems like more than that to me.” He coughed, a wheezy noise that worried Shannon.
She gave him a drink of water, waited for him to regain his breath before asking, “Are you all right?”
“Won’t be until I know you have someone to take care of you when I’m gone.”
Her voice rose in frustration. “You’re not going anywhere.”
“Yes, I am. Margaret’s been waiting for thirty years and she never was a patient woman. I’ll hear about it for a month once I get over there so I need to quit procrastinating and get on with it. She’s just like you. Once she gets over her snit, we’ll be the happiest pair in paradise.”
Shannon knew he was trying to make her laugh, to make a joke out of dying, but she saw no humor in losing the man who’d loved her and provided for her ever since she could remember.
“Stop it, Granddad. Just stop it. I need you. The ranch needs you.”
“What you need is a good man to look after you, so when I do go I can rest in peace instead of wondering if you’re all right.”
So they were back to that again. All three of her engagements had been as much to please him as to please herself. But every single fiancé had wanted to run her life, as well as her ranch. As soon as the engagement had been announced, they’d expected her to become someone else, to give up her hard work on the ranch and become a lady of the manor. And she wasn’t having any of that. She could ride, rope, train horses and run a ranch better than any man on the planet. She could stand on her own two feet, thank you. Shannon Gayle Wyoming did not need a man.
“Granddad, the doctor says you can live with this heart problem if you’ll only learn to behave yourself better and stop stressing over the small stuff.”
“Small stuff? My granddaughter’s happiness is not small. I likely could get back on my pegs if I wasn’t so all-fired worried about your future.”
Guilt as heavy as a feed truck descended on Shannon. She’d always been Granddad’s first and foremost concern, and she hated being the cause of his worry. To think that she was keeping him from getting well was just too much.
Sitting down on the pristine sheets, Shannon wrapped one hand around her grandfather’s gnarled fingers. “Granddad, I promise you I will seriously consider finding the right man.”
“When?”
She hedged. “Soon.”
“What about this Kane fellow? I like him. He’s a good horseman.”
“Granddad!” Shannon shot a quick glance toward the door, thankful no one, especially not Jackson, was in sight. She could hardly believe Granddad had said such a thing. Why, Jackson had only just arrived and already Granddad was pushing the two of them together. “What are you thinking?”
“Well,” Gus said, feigning innocence. “He ain’t married. I asked him.”
Shaking her head, she laughed. “Did you really?”
“Ah, only in the course of hiring him. I wasn’t trying to fix you up or nothing.”
She breathed an inward sigh of relief. “Thank goodness. I can do that for myself.”
The last thing she needed was a matchmaking grandparent. Especially when it came to Jackson Kane.
Long ago she’d taken that painful summer, locked the memory in a closet inside her mind, and tried not to visit there too often. Occasionally, like today with Jackson so ever present, the memory sneaked out, but she’d learned to skirt around it, not look too close, and shove it back inside as quickly as possible. Remembering what-might-have-been hurt too much.
“Well, he ain’t half-bad is he?” Granddad was rattling on. “I mean, he’s decent looking. He knows horses. And he’s clean.”
“Clean?” Latching onto the silly notion, she giggled. If she were to make a list of characteristics for a potential husband, would this one have made the list? “Clean?”
Gus chuckled and pulled her into the hook of his arm.
At that moment, the door swooshed open, and Mr. Clean himself entered the room. Half-inclined on her grandfather’s side, Shannon looked up and burst out laughing.
With a puzzled grin, Jackson glanced behind him then ambled into the room. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the now familiar Dum-Dum.
Granddad was right. He was definitely clean. The smell of his morning shower swirled in the door with him.
She couldn’t help noticing the strong, dark, clean hands unwrapping the orange sucker or their graceful, effortless movements. She loved his hands, had always admired those hands that could hold a thrashing horse with an iron grip, but could also hold her with such tenderness.
The paper crumpled into his fist and that tiny sound startled her to awareness. Good golly, Miss Molly. What was she thinking? And why?
But she knew the answer to that. Granddad’s silly nonsense had her noticing that Jackson Kane was much more than clean. He was cowboy sexy and more attractive than a man had a right to be.
Looking at him stirred some primal urge Shannon hadn’t felt in a long time. Ten years to be exact.
Her heart thudded in her throat until she wondered if she was the one with the heart problem instead of Granddad.
With his talk of seeing her settled with a good man, and her desperate need to make him happy, Granddad had her thinking things she shouldn’t.
Insanely ridiculous thoughts that she’d never allowed before danced through her mind.
Though the subject had never been broached, what if she had married Jackson back then? What if he’d known about the baby? Would he have asked her to marry him? Would she have agreed?
Pushing up from Granddad’s hug, she turned her back to Jackson and began to straighten the bedside table. Her hands shook and she was acutely aware that her odd behavior created curiosity in the two men.
Shannon had been certain she’d settled this issue years ago, but Granddad’s inadvertent teasing said the problem of Jackson Kane was a long way from being over.
Chapter Three
One month later, life on the Circle W had returned to some semblance of normality. To Shannon’s relief, Gus, though straining at the bit, was trying hard to follow doctor’s orders. Except for the thirty-minute prescribed walk he took each morning, he mostly puttered around in the house, grumbling about old age and bossy granddaughters.
True to his word, Jackson had gone above and beyond the amount of pay he received as assistant trainer. Long after he should have gone home to his aunt Bonnie’s house in Rattlesnake, he worked on the ranch tending to things that he knew would bother Gus if left undone.
“You gonna stand there and stare at me or get acquainted with this new colt?”
At Jackson’s amused voice, Shannon realized she had indeed been staring at him.
Morning looked good on him, she thought, noting that he’d come quickly when she’d called with the news that the mare was in labor. The moisture of his morning shower still glistened on his inky-black hair and the clean, fresh scent of soap and shaving cream amounted to sensory overload.
They were inside a stall in one of the horse barns to do the all-important job of imprinting a newborn foal. Jackson had arrived only moments before the mare delivered the new baby. They’d watched while the tiny bay had suckled and bonded with his mother, then lay down to sleep. That la-la land between sleep and wakefulness was the perfect time to handle a new colt.
The scene of mother and baby was as moving now as it had been the first time she’d experienced it. She always felt softer, more feminine somehow, after witnessing the miracle of birth. For some reason, having Jackson in the stall intensified the feelings.
Shannon went down on her knees beside the animal. “Hand me that brush on the wall behind you. I’ll stroke his withers and sides while you handle his head.”
Petting, rubbing and brushing, Shannon and Jackson worked to imprint the colt so that he would not be afraid of humans. Shannon was acutely aware of the movement of Jackson’s muscular shoulders as he caressed the animal’s ears and face. Longing, totally unwanted, shimmied through her.
More than once in their month of working side by side, awareness had simmered between them. This morning was no different.
“How you doing with Domino?” he asked, voice quiet in the dark, musty-scented barn.
“He’s coming along,” she hedged. What a lie. Domino was not cooperating. After more than a month, he could be ridden, but he had no manners and wasn’t safe for most people to ride.
“Need any help?” Stroke, rub. Touch. Caress.
The shiver went over Shannon again. She had to stop looking at his hands. Still rotating the brush over the brown hide, she looked up at his face instead. Big mistake. Eyes like fudge sauce studied her. Little sparks of lightning shot off beneath her skin.
“No, I do not need help.” To cover her other, less certain feelings, she chose to feign annoyance. “I’ve told you before. I know how to train a horse better than any horse whisperer. Domino has to learn who is boss and I can teach him that.”
“I’d sure like to get my hands on him.”
Pure stubborn pride made her say, “Forget it. You have plenty of other horses to train.”
She probably could use some help from Jackson. He was good, excellent even. And she had grown to depend on him. She looked forward to his arrival each morning and enjoyed working with him all day. And if she felt an extra burst of energy in his presence or if she noticed how clean and masculine he smelled, well, so what. She was a woman. He was definitely a man. And her grandfather was putting irrational thoughts in her head on a daily basis.
Jackson, seeing the futility of arguing with her, changed the subject. “So how’s Gus this morning?”
“He says he’s all right.”
Jackson looked up. “But you don’t buy that.”
“He had to take the nitro pills during the night. I heard him get up and went to check on him.”
“Made him mad, too, didn’t you?”
The man read her granddad well, and Granddad grew more lavish in his praise of the hired hand all the time. They’d traded war stories and Jackson often asked for Granddad’s advice, making the invalid feel needed.
“Let’s say he wasn’t too pleased. He’s been trying to hide the episodes from me, but I counted the pills.”
“What do you suppose is causing them?”
“Me.”
“You?” Jackson smoothed his hands over the horse’s ears and down the side of the long, arched neck. “How so?”
She gave a self-deprecating laugh. “Don’t laugh now, but Granddad has this obsession. He thinks I need to get married, and until I do he won’t stop fretting. He bugs me about “finding the right man” day and night, nagging that he’s going to die and I’ll be left all alone.”
“Do you really think his condition is that bad?”
She shrugged, her hands stilling on the colt’s warm back. “I hope not, but how can we really know for sure? As long as he stresses and frets over me, his blood pressure won’t go down, and he’ll keep having these episodes of chest pain.”
“Scares you, doesn’t it?”
They were inches apart, across the body of the small colt, one on each side, directly facing one another. Shannon saw the compassion in Jackson’s eyes and found comfort in the kindness.
“If his health didn’t scare me, I might see the humor in the whole idea of him trying to fob me off on some poor unsuspecting man. He actually thinks that’s the best thing for me.”
“Guess you’ll have to get married then.”
Shannon jerked her head up, saw he was joking and laughed. But the humor was fleeting.
“I feel so guilty knowing I’m the cause of his illness. If he should…” She couldn’t bring herself to address the idea that her grandfather could actually die. “If something should happen to him I don’t think I could stand it.”
“Maybe you should date more. That might appease him for a while.”
“Yeah,” she said, voice tinged with sarcasm. “Like you see men lined up at the gate waiting to take me out.”
“A woman like you can’t have trouble getting a date.”
“Jackson, I’ve dated, been engaged to and run off every decent man I know. Either they’ve given up, or I’ve lost my charm.”
Did that sound as pathetic as she imagined? Sheesh. She hoped not. The one thing she didn’t want was pity from Jackson.
“Sounds like you’ve been dating boys instead of men.”
“What on earth is that supposed to mean?”
“It means if a man wants a woman bad enough, she can’t run him off.”
Ouch. That hurt. She’d run off all of her former loves, including Jackson.
“Which doesn’t say much for my appeal then, does it, considering no one has stuck around to fight for me.”
“Which proves they were a bunch of snot-nose boys, because there’s definitely nothing wrong with your—” his gaze drifted up and over her “—appeal.”
A skitter of excitement danced in the air between them. Shannon swallowed hard, and Jackson followed the movement, his eyes on her throat and then on her face. Heat, having nothing to do with embarrassment or the weather, flushed her skin.
She patted awkwardly at her chest. “My, it’s getting hot in here.”
Dumb, Shannon. Dumb.
His nostrils flared. “Sure is.”
He let the colt’s head ease gently to the ground. Then he stood and came around to where Shannon knelt, reached down a hand and pulled her up. Mischief in his eyes sent out a warning flare.
“What are you doing?” Her voice was raspy.
He backed her away from the horses, toward the stall door. “Demonstrating.”
“But the colt,” she protested, not sure she wanted to go wherever Jackson was leading.
“We’ll work him again later.” Jackson kept his gaze on her face, studying her as if the instructions for his puzzling behavior were written in secret code on her skin.
One minute she was backing toward the door and the next she was pressed against the hard wood with Jackson’s powerful body holding her there. He slid a hand up over her throat, pressed two fingers into that spot above her collarbone where her pulse rattled like marbles in a tin can.
He was impossibly, wonderfully near, and every cell in her body remembered him. The heat and scent of him mixed with the barn scents of horse flesh and hay.
“Jacks—”
“Sshh.” He laid a finger across her lips as his face came ever nearer. “Hush. Just hush.”
Okay, so he was going to kiss her. And she thought she’d die of suspense waiting for him to get on with it. Instead, he stood there and stared at her, so close they were joined everywhere but the lips. She was vanilla ice cream to his hot fudge, ready to melt and mingle into a sweet, delicious pile.
He moved his fingers over her mouth, around her lips, down her throat to the edge of her tank top.
“Are you going to kiss me or not?” she demanded.
“Tsk. Tsk. So impatient.” His warm, candy-scented breath whispered against her lips.
“Devil.” She grabbed his face with both hands and kissed him.
A jolt of laughter rumbled from his chest into hers. He pulled back. “I’m doing the demonstrating here.”
“Then get on with it.”
He laughed again. Then that sexy Cajun mouth covered hers, and she went temporarily blind.
“What was that all about?” she asked when she could breathe again.
“They call it kissing.”
She punched him in the chest. “Why?”
“Why do they call it kissing? I don’t know. Guess we could look it up on the Internet.”
“Ha-ha. Not funny. Why did you kiss me?”
His black eyes danced with orneriness. “You kissed me first, remember?”
Leave it to Jackson to bring that up. “But you started it.”
He shrugged. “You were worried about losing your charms. I thought I’d check them out for you.” As if totally unaffected by what had just occurred, he nonchalantly unlocked the stall door and pushed it open. A stream of sunlight filled the entry.
“And?” Was she totally pathetic or what? Begging the man to pay her a compliment.
His dimple deepened. “You want to go over to the club tonight? Free dance lessons on Tuesday.”
She blinked at him, baffled. Jackson had always been like this though, so what had she expected? He could tease and please, but he never let his true feelings come to the surface. If she was looking for someone to soothe her ego, Jackson was the wrong man to ask.
When Jackson entered the ranch office that afternoon, he was still thinking about what had happened in the barn. He hadn’t intended to kiss Shannon, but she’d seemed so uncharacteristically uncertain about her ability to interest a man that he’d been unable to resist. He felt sorry for her. Not that he didn’t use any excuse at any time to kiss a good-looking woman, but he was here on business, not pleasure. And kissing Shannon again had certainly been all pleasure.
But he refused to regret the action. He liked her, always had, and looked forward to an evening of scooting a boot with her out at the club. They’d always had fun together, and she knew him well enough to know he wasn’t interested in anything but fun and games.
“You wanted to see me, sir?”
Gus lay back in a brown leather recliner, sock feet sticking in the air. Only Gus Wyoming would insist on moving his recliner into the ranch office. But the room had his stamp all over it, from the mounted bass hanging over the huge fireplace to the old saddle piled in one corner.
Gus popped the chair lever and sat up. “Yep. Sure did. How’s your aunt Bonnie getting along these days?”
“Ornery as ever.” He didn’t add that she was worried sick over her back mortgage payments, and he was going out of his mind trying to find a way to take care of the problem. If he’d lived a normal life, held a decent job he could borrow the money himself, but he had nothing to impress a banker.
“Yep. That’s Bonnie. She and Fergus were quite a match.” Gus rubbed a hand over his chest. “Too bad about Fergus. He was a good man.”
“Aunt Bonnie would never have come to Texas for anybody else.”
Gus gave a wheezy laugh. “I remember that. She followed him home from his trip to New Orleans. And he was smart enough not to let her leave.”
Fergus had been good to Jackson’s aunt in life. If only he’d planned better in case of his death.
Fretting did little good, so Jackson let the subject drop and waited for Gus to get to the point of his summons.
The older man craned his head toward the outside door. His left hand made absent, circular motions on his chest. “Shannon didn’t come up with you, did she?”
Jackson blinked. What kind of question was that? “No, sir. She went to the vet’s to pick up some more medication for Pat Wilson’s mare.”
“Good. We’ve got time then.”
Easing down into the overstuffed chair opposite Gus, Jackson frowned. What could Gus possibly have to say to the hired man that he didn’t want his granddaughter to know?
“When you planning on starting them clinics of yours to teach folks the right way to handle their horses?”
“Don’t know, sir. As soon as I can.”
“Money the issue?”
Talking money made Jackson anxious. “Partly. Well, mostly. It takes money to advertise and to buy or rent a good training facility.” Not to mention the fact that he was spending every penny trying to bail Aunt Bonnie out of foreclosure, but he couldn’t tell Gus that. His great-aunt was a private person and her money woes were his problem, not Gus’s.
“I could let you use my ranch if you wanted,” Gus said. “Fact of the business, I was thinking of making a deal with you.”
So now the old man was getting down to the real reason behind this meeting. “A deal?”
“What do you think of my granddaughter?”
Jackson froze. Whoa. Where did that come from? He frowned. “Shannon’s a…great girl.”
“You think she’s pretty?”
“Only a blind man wouldn’t see that.”
Gus liked the answer. He guffawed. “You got that right, Kane.” He leaned forward. “Tell you what. I’ve been thinking. What with my health being bad and all, I could go at any time. I got this big old ranch and that one little granddaughter. Ain’t right for her to be stuck out here alone with only a bunch of migrating ranch hands to help run this place. A woman needs a good, dependable man.”
Jackson shifted uncomfortably. What happened to their horse-training discussion? “Shannon’s a good trainer, old-fashioned and hard-headed maybe, but she can handle this ranch and every horse on it.”
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