Read Online How to Rope a Real Man by Melissa Cutler - Free Book Online Page B

it had his whole life without fail, his internal alarm clock woke him at almost precisely the correct time, no matter what time he needed to get up.
    Tara had insisted on setting the alarm on her phone anyway because she and Matt had both been born as stubbornly independent as cats, way more than any of their other siblings. Their mom swore it was an inherited trait, passed from their pioneer ancestors.
    Now that he thought about it, Jenna had a stubbornly independent streak in her too. She’d blown him away last night with her confession that she was about to graduate college and leave her family home in pursuit of her dreams, in Santa Fe, of all places. That took gumption, big-time.
    The more he learned about her, the more he found to love. He couldn’t remember ever wanting a woman more. But he already had three pictures in his wallet of smiling, precious kids he’d thought he was going to have the privilege of fathering until he and their mothers had broken up. The pain of those breakups had dulled over time, which was probably why he’d let himself get so close to Jenna and Tommy. But now, with her snuggled against him, he fought to remember the heartache.
    He forced himself to evoke the pain of saying good-bye to each of those kids, knowing he’d never see them again. That’s how it would feel if he and Jenna didn’t work out. One more chance at having a family slipping through his fingers.
    The truth closed around his heart like an iron fist.
    Jenna would have to go on haunting his dreams because his spirit couldn’t survive another loss. What he needed to do, what he would do as soon as the wedding was over, was go hunting. Take his horse and a shotgun into the mountains for a long weekend to clear his head. He’d always called it hunting, as his father had when he’d gone off in the mountains alone, though Matt rarely did much shooting, and even less killing. But it was as good an excuse as any for beating it out of town and allowing the solitude of nature to settle his soul.
    After that, he really ought to get serious about opening his legal clinic. Jenna was moving to Santa Fe, so Matt’s best move was to relocate to Catcher Creek. He could buy Vaughn’s old house, open his clinic in the heart of New Mexico’s oil country, and maintain a three-hour buffer between him and the most tempting woman he’d ever known.
    The tinny peal of a rap song sounded from Tara’s phone, rousing her. She smeared her hands over her face, then turned off the alarm. Jenna squirmed, nuzzling her face deeper into his arm, but slept on.
    Tara offered him a sleepy grin across the top of Jenna’s head. “Hey.”
    “Morning.” He tested his left knee by straightening his leg. Despite standing on it all night, it wasn’t any stiffer than it usually was at the start of the day since that truck had plowed into his bike eleven years ago and turned him into roadkill. He bounced his foot in a small, controlled rhythm, careful not to jar Jenna as he loosened the joint.
    “Those three hours of sleep went fast,” Tara said through a yawn.
    “Thank you for doing all this. Losing sleep and being away from the kids. I appreciate it, and I know Kellan and Amy do too.”
    “You’re welcome, even though I’m positive we’re not doing this for Kellan and Amy.” She worked a frog out of her throat, blew her nose, then leveled a way-too-serious stare at him. “I like her, Matt.”
    Right. Of course. Because six in the morning, in Jenna’s presence, on a day they were going to need to work their asses off, was the perfect opportunity for Tara to lay into him again, as if they hadn’t beaten this particular dead horse a million times over the past few years. Well, he didn’t have to play along.
    “She likes you too,” he said instead, wishing he didn’t sound like a snarky teenager.
    The remark earned him a belabored sigh. “You’ve got to get over—”
    “I’m not talking about this. Not here. Not now.”
    Tara lifted her