Read Online Cowboy Take Me Away by Jane Graves - Free Book Online Page A

he could hold on to a spot in the top ten. The very idea that a self-important little bastard like Carter Hanson could take the title instead of him made his blood boil.
    “So where are you staying?” Mary Lou asked.
    “I’d just as soon keep that to myself.”
    “I could visit. Help you recuperate.” Her voice dropped an octave. “I could do all kinds of things for you.”
    “No, thanks,” Luke said. “But I do appreciate the offer.”
    “I could give the term ‘physical therapy’ an entirely new meaning.”
    “Sorry. Can’t.”
    “Come on, Luke,” she said, her voice slipping from sexy right down into carnal. “You and me…we go way back.”
    “I said I can’t. Not right now.”
    “Then you just say when, honey, and I’ll be there in a heartbeat.”
    “Actually, Mary Lou, by ‘not right now,’ I mean ‘not ever.’”
    There was silence on the line, and when she spoke again, her tone was icy. “Well, then. Maybe I’ll give Carter a call instead. After all, I hate losers. If you don’t get your ass back on the circuit, that’s exactly what you’re going to be.”
    When the line went dead, Luke tossed his phone aside, trying not to let Mary Lou’s call affect him. And it might not have, if only she hadn’t spoken Carter Hanson’s name.
    Luke flipped on the TV. Watched a little sports news. His mind drifted, and pretty soon his gaze went back to that newspaper. A week ago he hadn’t even wanted to stay overnight in Rainbow Valley, and now he was considering staying for months?
    No. No way.
    He ignored the issue through the whole Rangers game, but by the time it was over, he was thinking about the caretaker job all over again. He’d be getting paid just enough to put food on his table and gas in his truck to get to and from Austin for physical therapy. And he’d have a place to stay that didn’t cost him a dime. It could keep him afloat until the World Championship, at which time he intended to beat the crap out of Carter Hanson and then laugh all the way to the bank. It was the perfect solution.
    Except for the fact that Shannon was in the mix.
    But he had no feelings for her anymore. None at all. Eleven years had passed. Water under the bridge. This would be a business arrangement, nothing more. And the shelter was big enough that he could probably steer clear of her most of the time.
    But Shannon wasn’t the only resident of Rainbow Valley he wanted to avoid.
    He did a Google search. In what passed as the society section of the online version of the Rainbow Valley Voice , he found an article about a recent charity event. Apparently Shannon’s mother, Loucinda North, was still fulfilling her role as a warm, sympathetic, philanthropic pillar of the community.
    Funny how deceiving looks could be.
    The odds of Shannon wanting to hire him were exactly zero, but he had no intention of letting that stand in his way. The longer he thought about it, the more certain he became that it was his best option. Maybe even his only option.
    He decided when he was able to drive again in a few days, he was going back to Rainbow Valley. And one way or another, that job was going to be his.
     
    Dr. Russell Morgensen finished examining Vernon Taylor’s teeth, thankful he didn’t have more patients like him. Vern was in his sixties, but he had the teeth of a twenty-year-old. Fortunately, the rest of Rainbow Valley didn’t have Vern’s devotion to dental health, so Russell’s practice had a profitable future ahead.
    He walked out of the exam room and went to his office, leaving Velma to clean Vern’s teeth. At first Russell hadn’t been too sure about hiring a sixty-year-old woman, but that turned out to be a nonissue where her ability was concerned. What he hadn’t counted on, though, was the fact that she was virtually mute. If he’d hired a mime he’d have gotten more verbal interaction. But in the end, she got the job done, and that was all he cared about.
    His office manager, Cynthia, was