Read Online Counterfeit Cowgirl (Love and Laughter) by Lois Greiman - Free Book Online Page A

beneath his parka.
    The sound came again, a scraping, mewling noise. Going to the door, she peeked through the window.
    A scrawny cat stared up at her. One ear was half the length of the other, and he held one paw carefully out of the snow. He was the color of swirled marmalade and had an attitude like Sean Connery, well aged but alluring.
    Hannah opened the door. “Come on in,” she said. “Breakfast is cooking.”
    The cat entered with wary slowness, watching her the whole while. She noticed now that his tail was truncated barely five inches above his back.
    “Cold?”
    The cat didn’t answer.
    “Hungry,” she corrected herself, then scowled. What to feed a stray cat in the wee hours of the morning? When she was small, she’d always wanted a cat. But her mother thought them dirty.
    This was a cat—kind of, and certainly not too dirty for this place.
    “I know just the thing,” she said, and smiling, hurried to the kitchen to take the colostrum from the refrigerator.
    In a few minutes, Hannah had set a bowl on the kitchen floor, but the cat only looked furtive.
    From the living room, she heard Daniel stumble to his feet, so, taking the bowl with her, she went to greet him and set the colostrum there for the cat to eat when he got up the nerve.
    “Just a few minutes, Daniel,” she said, and pattered back into the kitchen to heat more milk.
    She was soon holding a bottle to his mouth.
    Daniel, stood, arched back, tail lifted as he lowered his charming head and sucked the bottle dry.
    “Good boy,” Hannah crooned.
    Just then the door opened. Ty stepped in. Hannah lifted her gaze, ready to share her success. It was then that all hell broke loose.
    Pans clattered. Nate shrieked, a cat yowled, and suddenly the smell of singed fur permeated the house.
    Hannah flew into the kitchen only to find a frenzied cat scrambling over the refrigerator and onto the curtain, from which he launched himself, claws spread, over Nate’s sprawled body and away.
    Ty crossed the living room slowly, his boots squeaking on the floor until finally he leaned his weight against the doorjamb.
    “Tell me, Ms. Nelson…”
    She turned slowly toward him, fully aware of Nate on the floor, the eggs on Nate, and the pan on the eggs.
    “Yes, Mr. Fox?” she said, raising her chin and forcing herself to meet his eyes.
    For a moment his gaze skimmed her—the pink cable knit cardigan with the tiny pearl buttons down the front, her hips, her legs, her stocking feet. But then he fastened his attention on her eyes. “Did you come here simply to make my life difficult, or is that just a side benefit?”
    She pursed her lips. “As a matter of fact, Mr. Fox, that’s my sole purpose in life.”
    “Really? I’m so flattered.”
    “As you should be.”
    “Where’d you find the cat?”
    “He found me.”
    “Your usual type?”
    “Better than most I’ve met.”
    He snorted. “You’re from California then?” he guessed.
    “No. Still Colorado, I’m afraid.”
    “Uh-huh. Nate,” he said, turning his attention to his brother who was still on the floor, “we got a calf coming backward.”
    “I think I broke my tailbone.”
    “Well, get off it and come help out. She’s been at it awhile.”
    “First calfer?”
    “You got it.”
    “God help us.”
    “You had breakfast?”
    “I watched the eggs fly past my head. That count?”
    “You bet. Hannah, I need you to go to town.”
    “What?” she managed.
    “The 4240 won’t start. Can’t feed without it.”
    “Forty-two-four-oh?”
    “The John Deere. Go to Ellingson’s in Valley Green. Tell them I need a new hose.”
    “Ellingson’s?”
    “Yeah. Here,” he said. Digging around in the overflowing laundry basket, he pulled out a scrap of paper and the stub of a carpenter’s pencil. “I’m writing down the number of the part I need. Ellingson’ll know what to do. Take the Jimmy.”
    “Jimmy?”
    “My black pickup.”
    “Pickup?”
    “You know how to shift it into four-wheel