Read Online The Littlest Cowboy by MAGGIE SHAYNE - Free Book Online

began again, “you might want to drive into town with me.”
    “And why would I want to do that?”
    “April first was a weekday. I ought to have something at the office to prove I wasn’t in New York City.”
    “So make me a copy.”
    She was one ornery creature! “And have you accuse me of doctoring it up to cover my tracks?”
    She met his eyes, and he felt heat. Only it wasn’t from anger. And it had nothing to do with the sun already blazing down from the wide Texas sky. This heat was searing and electric. It sort of rushed up from his toes and made him a little bit dizzy. He had to look away first.
    “What about Ethan?” she finally asked.
    The screen door creaked, and Jessi stepped out onto the porch, wiping her hands on a checkered dish towel. “I’ll take care of Ethan.”
    Garrett nodded, but Chelsea turned a wary gaze on his little sister.
    “Don’t do me any favors,” Chelsea said.
    Jessi had never had what Garrett would call tolerance. Her temper flared quicker than a sparkler on the Fourth of July. Hotter, too.
    “Don’t worry, I wasn’t offering. I’ll watch him for my brother. For you, I wouldn’t cross the road, and if you think I–” Jessi stopped suddenly and bit her lower lip.
    Garrett was perplexed. He’d never seen Jessi cut herself off in mid-tirade before.
    Jessi shook her head, took a deep breath. “Sorry.”
    Sorry?
    “Truth is, I just adore little Ethan. I’d love to take care of him this morning.”
    Garrett almost fell down in shock, and a quick glance at Chelsea’s puckered brow told him she was as surprised as he was.
    Chelsea waited a moment and finally nodded. “All right, then. I’ll need a few minutes.”
    Jessi came forward and took the baby from Chelsea’s arms. She propped him on her slender hip. “You can use the shower in my room if you want.”
    Chelsea’s eyes narrowed, but she nodded, got to her feet and walked into the house without another word.
    Garrett tilted his head, fixing his baby sister with a questioning glance. “Why the change of heart, Jes?”
    Jessi looked through the screen door into the house, and Garrett sensed she was waiting until Chelsea had moved out of earshot to answer him. When she finally turned back to him, she looked worried.
    “Jes?”
    She pressed her cheek to the baby’s. “Garrett, I think somebody’s hurt that woman. I think somebody’s hurt her bad.”
    Garrett frowned. “Course she’s hurt. She just lost her sister.”
    Jessi shook her head. “No, Garrett. I mean
really hurt
her. Physically.”
    Her meaning became clear, and Garrett felt a dark cloud settle right over his soul. A thundercloud. “Maybe you’d better tell me about it.”

    H e kept looking at her. Not
just
looking, though. He kept searching her face as if trying to see something there, and it was making Chelsea damned uncomfortable.
    She rode beside him in the oversize pickup truck, over dusty roads and finally paved ones, into the small town of Quinn. The truck was big. One of those kinds that needed two sets of wheels in the back just to push it along. Seemed everything about Garrett Brand was big. His home, his truck. Even his speckled horse had been huge. Then again, she supposed it would have to be to support a man of his size.
    He pulled to a stop in front of an adobe-like structure with no curtains in the windows and a sign over the door that read Sheriff’s Office.
    “Here we are.”
    He got out and came around as if to open her door for her. She beat him to it. But then he took her arm to help her out, getting the best of her anyway.
    Chelsea stepped out, stumbling a little because of her heels and the long reach to the ground. Garrett’s big hands circled her waist surely and firmly, and he lifted her right up off her feet, setting her down again on the small stretch of sidewalk in front of the building.
    But his hands remained for a second or two, even after her feet touched the ground. She felt every one of those fingers pressing