Read Online The Trouble With Cowboys by Melissa Cutler - Free Book Online

he’s going to have a wife who insists he eat his veggies.”
    “If I ever find a woman lucky enough to snag me as a husband, she sure as hell’s not going to force-feed me greenery. I am not livestock. Pigheaded yes, built like a stallion, absolutely, but there’s a difference.”
    Lisa handed him a cheese-topped cracker. “Try it.”
    Vaughn complied, stuffing the entire cracker into his mouth at an angle. He hummed in appreciation and flashed a thumbs-up to Lisa, then reached for a second cracker. “You think city folks have any idea how gourmet we country hicks can be? I’m sitting here eating some of the best cheese ever produced, about to have a steak dinner grilled for me by one of the top beef purveyors in the nation.”
    Chris snorted. “And what do you add to the party, Cooper?”
    “Entertainment,” Lisa and Kellan said at the same time.
    Kellan chuckled and settled on the sofa to watch the last few minutes of the quarter before he got busy grilling steaks at half-time. Having the gang over on Sunday afternoon was his favorite time of the week. He loved every minute of it—talking football with Chris, Lisa setting up a plate of cheeses from Binderman Dairy, and Vaughn doing his fake-machismo act. He loved Daisy’s squeals of delight filtering in through the window and Rowen’s occasional yawn or hungry cry.
    He never experienced that growing up, not even when his mom and dad had the same day off work. They were too world-weary to do much more than lie around and smoke weed. Holding a family dinner, much less entertaining friends, had been out of the question. Even his brief stint in a foster home, as loving as his foster parents had been, hadn’t satisfied his craving for family, for warmth . It was an absence that registered in his bones more like a loss, one he’d been working to make up for the better part of his life.
    Vaughn rapped Kellan on the knee with his knuckles. “Heard you invited Amy Sorentino here yesterday.”
    Lisa looked up, an incredulous grin playing on her lips. “I saw you two talking at the doughnut table this morning. Her sister, Jenna, told me you gave her a bag of celery. Really?”
    There was going to be no getting around this conversation, Kellan could tell. He could deny an attraction to Amy until his face turned blue, but his closest friends wouldn’t buy a word of it. “Onions too.”
    Vaughn tipped the neck of his beer in Kellan’s direction. “I’m betting he bagged more than her groceries.”
    There was a collective groan from the room.
    “You’re not going to let this drop, are you?”
    “Nope,” all three of his friends chimed in.
    “If that’s the way you’re going to be, then I suppose it’s my obligation to set the record straight.” Kellan leaned his elbows on his knees, cleared his throat, and waited for their undivided attention. “I do not appreciate the implication that Amy Sorentino is anything less than a lady. At all times. That you would besmirch the Sorentino family name with such a flagrant rumor is insulting—”
    “Did you say besmirch? ” Vaughn cut in.
    “Yes, I did say ‘besmirch.’ Weren’t you all in church this morning? Is this any way for good Christians to think? Shame on you all and your filthy minds.”
    Lisa let out a low whistle. “You dog.”
    Vaughn burst out laughing, “I don’t know how you do it, man. You’re my hero.”
    Daisy and Max came bounding into the room. Vaughn snagged her hand. “Daisy, when I grow up, I want to be just like your uncle Kellan.”
    She gave him a bright smile. “Me too. Then I could ride Pickle all the time.”
    Kellan raised his hand for attention. “I don’t want this spread around, but today after church, I asked Amy to dinner.”
    “Against my advice,” Chris added.
    Kellan held his hand up. “Let the record show I asked her out against Chris’s advice. Happy now?”
    “Not really. Did she agree this time?”
    “Not at first. She declined my offer twice. But I