Read Online Love on the Buchanan Ranch (A Romance Story) by Elizabeth Nelson - Free Book Online Page A

had always helped her do that. The night was beautiful, the moon was big and bright in the sky, lighting her a safe way down the dirt path behind her house. The stars looked so beautiful out here in the country too. Stacey liked living out here. It was so much more peaceful here than it had been in the city. She was angry with Edward again. It seemed like every time she had just gotten over the discovery of the last thing he had done, there came something else to deal with. She was frightened for Victoria. She wasn’t sure what she could do, but she decided to start by calling Grunwald in the morning. If Vicki was supposed to drop off the money there, he had to know something about all of this. She needed him to tell her if these people were dangerous or not, and if she and Victoria should get the police involved perhaps.
     
    Stacey walked towards the beautiful lake that surrounded Buchanan’s property. She could see the lights of the grand house skipping off the water. There was a path that wound around the lake, and Stacey followed it, lost in her thoughts. Before she realized it, she almost stumbled across a man sitting in a lawn chair next to the edge of the lake with a fishing pole in his hand.
     
    “Excuse me,” Stacey said, catching herself before she walked right into him. “I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going.”
     
    The man looked up from under his hat. It was Owen. “It’s okay,” he said, “But you might want to not talk so loud, you’re scaring the fish.”
     
    Stacey couldn’t believe this man. Scaring the fish? “Well, I’ll just be on my way so you can get back to it.” She said.
     
    “You can sit and have a beer with me if you’d like,” he said, surprising her.
     
    “Um, well…I guess I could have one,” she said.
     
    Owen set his pole down and stood up to open another lawn chair for her. She sat in it, and he handed her a beer.
     
    Sitting back down he said, “I guess I’ve never really introduced myself. My name’s Owen.”
     
    “Yes, I know,” Stacey told him, “You’re Mr. Buchanan’s son, right?”
     
    “Yep,” he said, and then proving that he was not much of a conversationalist he took a long swig of his beer, and left it at that.
     
    Feeling uncomfortable in the silence, Stacey said, “It’s beautiful out here.”
     
    “Yep,” Owen said again, and then…nothing. It exasperated her. She took a drink of her beer, and then hoping to engage him in some kind of conversation she said, “Do you live here, on the ranch?”
     
    “Yeah,” he said, and just when she thought that was all she would get he said, “I bunk up in the guest house behind Daddy’s place.”
     
    Stacey looked in the direction of the main house. “Your father’s house is beautiful.”
     
    Owen looked up too. Stacey couldn’t help but notice how handsome he was in the moonlight. His green eyes looked greener out here at night, and in spite of herself, Stacey found the long, thick lashes that surrounded them extremely sexy.
     
    “Yeah, it’s a pretty house. Daddy built it for my Mama. Unfortunately he never realized that Mama would have been just as happy with an old farmhouse. She was a simple lady. As long as her family was happy, she was.”
     
    Stacey could see in his eyes that he still felt the loss of his mother quite deeply. It was the first sign of a human emotion he had exhibited in front of her. “Your father told me he had the diner built for her too,” she said.
     
    Owen smiled, and that was when Stacey saw how really handsome he was. His face changed in that instant, and Stacey was attracted to him in a way she hadn’t been to any man in a very, very long time. “Mama talked about that place forever before he finally built it for her. She cooked for the ranch hands at the house every morning. Daddy used to tell her to let Cook do it, but she did it herself because she loved to. I think he finally built that place just hoping to get all those cowboys