Read Online Blackbird Lake by Jill Gregory - Free Book Online Page B

everything that went on in the neighborhood—she’d probably seen that Denny’s truck wasn’t in the driveway when Karla took off, and had wondered who was home with the kids.
    She opened the door, expecting to see Willa’s inquisitive, wrinkly face—and froze.
    It wasn’t Willa Martin standing on Karla’s front porch.
    Oh, not by a long shot. It was Jake Tanner, the rodeo champion baby daddy himself.

Chapter Five

    For one crazy moment Carly wished desperately she’d drifted into sleep on the sofa and this was just some unnerving dream jolting through her brain. It wasn’t really happening. No, she was sleeping…waiting for Karla and Denny to come home with Sam….
    Then she felt the chill of the night air on her skin, saw the sliver of cool moon glinting in a pure black sky burning with stars. She heard the faint hoot of an owl in the distance and sensed the almost tangible warmth and strength of the man standing two feet in front of her on Karla and Denny’s front porch.
    This was no dream.
    This was her nightmare.
    She was five foot seven but she had to look up—way up—to meet Jake Tanner’s eyes. Eyes such a vivid shade of midnight blue a woman could easily get lost in them.
    She felt her stomach tighten as surprise and hearty male appreciation flashed instantly back at her from their gleaming depths.
    He looked every bit as amazing as she remembered fromthat one incomparable night, yet even in that first instant, she saw subtle differences. He actually looked even handsomer than the cocky, red-hot cowboy she remembered—if that was possible. A little older, but in a good way, even more rugged, and somehow even tougher than he’d looked that night in Houston.
    He wasn’t a man other men would want to tangle with. But he was a man women would always notice instantly. Tall and rough and muscular, a faint scar on his tanned left cheek. Dark, sexy as hell three-day stubble on his jaw.
    But it was his eyes that held her spellbound just as they had that night she’d spent with him in Houston. They were an unflinching cobalt blue, locked on her now like lasers. She remembered the way they’d warmed when he’d slowly kissed her and slid her out of her clothes in that hotel room, and the way he’d grinned as she’d torn through the buttons on his shirt, nearly ripping it from his chest….
    She remembered all that, along with the laughter and need and heat that had raced through them both and left them spent in each other’s arms by dawn. But she couldn’t seem to remember how to talk.
    She just gaped at him.
    “I’m looking for Denny McDonald. Or Karla. They around?” His voice was deep, polite, but puzzled. “I have an appointment with Den—” Suddenly his gaze changed, sharpened. Then a smile broke across his face.
    “Hey, I
know
you.” As his eyes warmed, a small treacherous spark bloomed inside her.
    “Houston, right? A few years back…you’re—Carly. Carly…uh…something.” A slow, adorably sheepish grin touched his lips, a grin that was at once warm and pleased and held a hint of apology.
    The whole effect would make any woman’s knees melt, she reflected in dismay, even as he shrugged broad shoulders encased in a flannel shirt. “I don’t remember your last name, I’m sorry to admit, but I
do
remember you. And that night.”
    Oh, yeah, well, you’re not the only one,
Carly thought.
That was me, all right.
The good-girl Carly who never leaped before she looked—until that one night….
    A single thought flew through her mind. She had to stop gaping at him and get rid of him. Fast. She had to close this door. Emma was sleeping only a dozen feet away…oh, God…
    “Look,” she said in her chilliest tone, hoping it would cool him off fast. She was feeling hot enough for both of them. “It’s Carly McKinnon, and I remember you, too, but I can’t talk right now. You’ll have to come back to see the McDonalds. I’m babysitting their kids. There was an emergency—an