Read Online Rancher Rescue by Barb Han - Free Book Online

listen and left anyway. Probably out of spite. We had to go the night without A/C in the middle of a Dallas summer. I’d been in class all day and then worked the afternoon shift as a hostess. I was hot. Miserable. I decided to wait up for her. The minute she waltzed through the door, I blew up. Told her she was a spoiled brat.”
    “You had every right to ask her to pitch in more. It wasn’t like you asked her to gut a hog.”
    “I didn’t ‘ask’ anything. I demanded she stay home. I thought it was my job to tell her what to do with our parents gone, not that she made it easy. She didn’t want to listen and was never there when I needed her. I resented her. I learned pretty fast that I couldn’t depend on her and had to learn to do things on my own.”
    “You should be proud of yourself.”
    “I could’ve been more sympathetic. But Leann did what she did best—disappeared. When she came home, I noticed she’d been drinking. I came down on her too hard.”
    Caleb knew all about self-recrimination. Hadn’t he been beating himself up with worry since his last girlfriend left? Hadn’t the ache in his chest been a void so large he didn’t think he’d ever fill it again?
    Caleb increased pressure, working a knot out of Katherine’s shoulder.
    A self-satisfied smile crossed his lips at the way her silky skin relaxed under his touch, and for the little moan that escaped before she could quash it. “You always this tough on yourself?”
    Katherine hugged her knees into her chest. “A week later when she left, she didn’t come back. I didn’t hear from her for years.”
    Caleb couldn’t imagine how difficult it was for Katherine to say those words out loud. She couldn’t be more than twenty-six or twenty-seven, and seemed keenly aware of all her misjudgments now. A few years younger than him, she bore the weight of the world on her shoulders. The knots he’d been working so hard to release tightened. “Your sister was old enough to know better. You were trying to do what was best. I’m sure she knew that on some level.”
    “No. I had to close myself off because it was too painful repeatedly being disappointed by her. We stopped speaking. I didn’t hear from her again until this year. Noah had barely turned four. I didn’t even know I had a nephew before then.”
    Caleb moved to face her and took a knee, reaching out to place her hand in his. Her skin was finer than silk, her body small and delicate. The point where skin made contact sent a jolt of heat coursing through him. “Life threw you for a loop, too. Besides, you did what any good person would. You stepped up to fill impossible shoes and did your best. Because you weren’t perfect doesn’t mean you failed. You’re an amazing woman.”
    He looked at her, really looked at her. There was enough light to see a red blush crawl up her neck, reaching her cheeks. Her skin glowed, her eyes glittered. The fire in her eyes nothing in comparison to the one she lit inside him.
    He studied the soft curves of her lush mouth and then let his gaze lower to the swell of her firm, pointed breasts. All he felt was heat. Heat and need. Her jeans, balanced low on slim hips, teased him with a sliver of skin between the edge and the bottom of her T-shirt. Damn that she was even sexier when she was hurting. He pulled on all the strength he had so as not to take her lips right there...then her body.
    Caleb needed to redirect his thoughts before he allowed his hormones to get out of hand. She made it difficult to focus on anything but thoughts of how good her body would feel moving beneath his. Alter the circumstances and things might have been different. Last thing Caleb needed was to get tangled up with another woman who showed up at his door with a crisis. He pushed all sexual thoughts out of his psyche.
    “Since there’s nothing here, we’d better go. I’m actually surprised no one’s been watching the place.”
    Her gaze darted around the room. “Where do we