Read Online When Love Comes by Leigh Greenwood - Free Book Online

don’t want to go to jail. I would urge you to investigate the question of this debt very thoroughly. I can’t help feeling there’s something you don’t know.” There was definitely somethingstrange about the whole situation. How could anyone be unaware of owing seven hundred dollars?
    “My father told us he got the money to buy the ranch and the bull from the sale of his share of the saloon and diner. It’s as simple as that.” She stood. “You’d better go before Gary comes back.”
    How to make the only woman he’d ever been genuinely attracted to hate him in one easy lesson. Oh well, it would save him from a good deal of unnecessary heartbreak later. Heartbreak seemed overly dramatic, but he had a feeling more than his freedom from jail had slipped beyond his control.
    Eddie followed him outside. “Are you really a crook?”
    Broc smiled reluctantly. “No, I’m not.”
    “Then why did you say we have to pay that lady money?”
    “Because a judge ordered me to.”
    “Why?”
    “I assume the lady showed him some evidence to support her claim.”
    “Is the lady a crook?”
    “I don’t think so.”
    “What does she look like?”
    Why did everyone, including little boys, think looks had anything to do with character? “I don’t know. I’ve never met her.”
    “Then how do you know she’s not a crook?”
    “I don’t, but there are laws against people trying to take money that doesn’t belong to them. There are also laws that force people to pay debts they owe.”
    “Who makes these laws? Do they get the money?”
    Having younger brothers of his own, Broc knew Eddie’s questioning could go on until nightfall. Amanda wouldn’t be happy with that, and Gary was likely to start a fistfight.“Ask your brother or sister. I’m sure they’d do a better job at explaining.”
    “I don’t ask Gary nothing,” Eddie declared, “ ’cause he don’t know nothing unless it’s about the saloon.”
    Broc walked down the steps and prepared to mount his horse. “I’m sure he knows enough to explain that. Now I’d better be going.”
    “Will you come back?”
    Standing there small, alone, and forlorn, Eddie reminded Broc so strongly of his own brothers, he wished he could give the boy a reassuring hug. “You just heard your sister tell me not to.”
    “She doesn’t mean it. She likes you.”
    She might have had a liking for him at first, but not any longer. “Nevertheless, I think it’ll be better if I don’t come back.”
    “They won’t let me go into town by myself.”
    “Why would you want to do that?”
    “You promised to teach me how to rope like you.”
    Broc had forgotten a promise he made when Eddie was showing him the horses yesterday. Eddie had said the bull was always getting out, and Broc had said he’d teach the boy how to use a rope so he could help Amanda catch him. “Why don’t you ask your brother or Leo?”
    “They can’t rope as good as you.”
    There was only one way to get around this. “If your sister will let me come out here someday, I’ll be happy to teach you how to rope.”
    Eddie beamed. “She will. I know she will. I’m going to ask her now.”
    Broc decided it would be best to leave before Amanda came out. She was bound to think he was using Eddie as an excuse to return to the ranch. He would come back. Somethingwas wrong here, and he was determined to find out what it was.
    Amanda found it difficult to understand the extent of her disappointment in Broc. If he wasn’t a crook, he’d allowed himself to be duped by one, and she couldn’t admire any man foolish enough to fall into such a transparent trap. The difficulty lay in the fact that she couldn’t really believe Broc was either a crook or foolish. The way he accepted his wound and blamed himself for losing his temper were both characteristics of a man of integrity as well as maturity. Her brain and her emotions were in conflict over him, a situation she wasn’t accustomed to and one she didn’t