Read Online Keep It Together by Lissa Matthews - Free Book Online

good food. You should try it sometime.”
    “Next time I’m in town, I’ll let you take me.”
    Chrissie nodded slowly, wary as she studied him, but soon eased back in her chair. “Okay.”
    Colt smiled and took a swallow of his own beer. “This is pretty good.” He was the one person in his family who liked beer. Russ and their father preferred bourbon. Amber preferred wine. And Russ’s mother lived on gin and tonic. Colt, though, liked the earthiness of beer, the warm camaraderie it often inspired. He could walk into a bar in any given town, order a beer, and be treated like he was a long-lost friend. One couldn’t do that in wine bars.
    “It is. You travel a lot, right?”
    “I do. I like to try whatever local flavors in beer or wine or food when I can. Makes the hassle of traveling a little more personal.”
    “Does that include women?” She asked it with such a straight face that he wasn’t sure how to answer her without damning himself, for good or ill.
    “Now see,” he said around a snort of laughter. “I can’t tell if you’re being curious or snarky.” She shrugged but maintained her casual posture in the chair. She sipped at her beer and stared at him, unblinking and unhurried. Something softened inside him even more. She could hold her own against him and make him sweat.
    “Curiously snarky.”
    “No, it doesn’t include women. I’m perfectly content to not have a different woman in each city.”
    “One-woman man?” The tone of her voice said that surprised her.
    “Lately, very much so.” He knew she wasn’t sure of him. Hell, how could she be? She didn’t realize how seriously his brain had taken hold of her innocently made statement, a statement made out of pain and sadness and humiliation. But he wanted her. He wanted to take her to bed. He wanted to keep her there. He wanted to immerse himself in her life, and he wanted to bring her into his.
    He took a sip of his beer. “You said you had a busy night?”
    “Yeah. It’s not hunting season, but sometimes around here it doesn’t have to be. These people stock up year-round.”
    “Do you find it hard to sell to men?”
    “I don’t find it hard, no, but I think some of them find it hard to buy from a woman. They don’t seem to believe I know what I’m talking about. They often want to speak to a manager, and when they find out that I am the manager, that I can load and unload, that I can take apart and put together again any gun we have in stock better and faster than they can, they generally listen.”
    “You’re a show-off.” He hoped she could hear the pride and admiration in his voice, as the statement it was meant as and not a question for her to defend or justify herself.
    “When it comes to something I know, yes.”
    The waitress chose that moment to appear beside their table. Chrissie ordered a basket of fried shrimp with a side of fries, and he followed suit. They each ordered more beer, and Colt settled into his seat a little deeper, relaxing with her in a way he hadn’t with a woman in a long time.
    “What do you do?” she asked. “For work, I mean. You know I work in an outdoor store, but I don’t know what you do. Russ never talked much about you, other than you being a businessman of some sort.”
    “He wasn’t very forthcoming about you either.” Colt had to wonder if Russ had just been going through the motions in his relationship with Chrissie. He didn’t know why that would have been true, but something seemed off in how Russ had handled things. His brother wasn’t stupid nor was he irresponsible. “Oh boy. Now it’s time for me to make you promise not to laugh.”
    “I won’t. I promise.”
    “I’m the CEO of Corners Cookies.” It took a few seconds, but as per the usual reaction of people he told, her eyes widened.
    “Corners Cookies? As in the pyramid cookies with the cream in the center and the sprinkles on top? That Corners Cookies? The soft, chewy cookies with the artery-clogging