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Redeemed By The Cowgirl. Silver James
Читать онлайн.Название Redeemed By The Cowgirl
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9781474060875
Автор произведения Silver James
Жанр Современные любовные романы
Издательство HarperCollins
This man was too rich for her blood. Not that Cash would give her a second look if her family hadn’t dragged her into whatever nefarious scheme they were working.
Roxie jumped when Cash touched her chin and closed her gaping mouth. He’d caught her gawking at her surroundings and daydreaming about the man himself. She couldn’t afford to lose focus like that. She had to keep her wits about her. Cash Barron did not like her, and had a real issue with her family. Okay, she took issue with her family, too, but that was different. They were hers. He was an outsider and he was pushy. A jerk. Aggravating. Exasperating. Sexy. Hot. Smelled like heaven.
“Earth to Roxanne.”
“What?” She reacted sharply, embarrassed that she’d floated off again.
“Your dog wants out.”
“You can’t walk across the room, open your door and let him out into your backyard?”
“Not my dog, buttercup.”
Muttering dark thoughts under her breath, Roxie snapped her fingers and marched over to the curtained door. She had to fumble through yards of material before she found the handles for the French doors hiding behind the draperies. The lock took concentration and more than a little finesse to open. Of course, it would. The man was president of a major security company. This entire place was probably wired for sound and video. She froze.
Harley, impatient to get out, used his 150 pounds to push her out of the way and she grabbed the curtain to keep from falling to the floor. Only the fabric ripped, and the whole wall of material cascaded to the floor, pooling around her where she sat on her tush.
* * *
Cash didn’t even try to hold in his laughter. All but slapping his knees, he was learning that a person could laugh so hard they cried. He had to wipe moisture from his eyes and every time he started to calm down, he’d look at Roxanne, and hilarity once again ensued. Once he convinced himself he was under control, he started across the room to help the girl up.
Harley charged through the back door and must have decided that finding his mistress sitting on the floor was a new game. The giant dog pounced, taking Roxanne down, slobbering all over her face. Her shrieks of protest only incited the mutt to more mayhem. The dog fell off Roxie, tangled his feet in the yards of silk fabric and proceeded to roll up in it.
There’d be no salvaging the curtains and Cash admitted to feeling a sense of relief. The condo had been decorated by one of his father’s mistresses and she’d used it as a showroom until Cash came home early from a trip to find her in bed with the guy who’d laid her tile. Glancing around, he discovered the place was sterile and stark. The walls were white, the furniture white, the rugs white. The only splashes of color came from the framed art photography on the walls. Most of the prints were black-and-whites but some had odd dashes of red—an umbrella in one rainy-day photo, lips on the pouting female model in another.
He contrasted his space with the one Roxanne had left behind. Her stuff was what some would call shabby chic, or thrift-store vogue. The place looked and felt lived-in—like the houses his older brothers all shared with their wives. Different styles but the same sense of...home.
Jerking his thoughts away from that quagmire, Cash focused on the situation at hand. Roxanne still sat in the floor—either crying or laughing silently. He couldn’t tell. He edged around the large granite-topped dining table and stared at his houseguests. Harley pawed at Roxie with both front feet, paddling against her thigh. Her red-rimmed eyes didn’t bode well. He clicked his fingers. “Enough, Harley.”
The Newf stood up and shook. Hard. Silk curtains and slug slime flew. Cash refused to laugh, though he had to turn around for a long moment to regain his composure. Not that Roxanne noticed. She’d pulled some of the silk over her head.
“Just kill me now, okay?” Her mumbled words elicited a woof from Harley, then he danced around her, nosing through the material.
“Harley!” This time he barked out the dog’s name and the beast came to sit obediently beside him. Cash glanced down at the woman. She was glaring at the dog. “Need a hand?” he offered.
“No,” she snapped at him, pushed the material off and stood. She craned her head to look toward the ceiling where the valance and jalousies had once hung on a brass pole. She heaved a huge sigh. “Let me guess. Real silk, right?”
Cash lifted a negligent shoulder. “Probably.”
“Criminy. I’m going to owe you my firstborn at this rate.”
Everything stopped for a heartbeat and he stared at her. His rational brain insisted she was simply borrowing a figure of speech to describe her predicament. But that part deep inside he hid from everyone—from his brothers, his twin, even himself—wondered for that brief moment in time what it would be like to hold his child.
“Cash?”
Reality crashed back. “Don’t worry about the drapes, Roxanne.”
“Um...” She stretched a hesitant hand in his direction. “Are you...okay?”
“I’m fine.” Okay, he’d been a little short with her, but whatever. She wasn’t his girlfriend. She wasn’t his houseguest. She was a suspect in an ongoing investigation. “I’ll help carry your junk to the guest room.”
He turned on his heel and headed back to the entry hall.
“What about this mess?”
“Leave it.” Yeah, definitely short.
“If you say so...” She didn’t quite put a period on the end of that sentence.
“I say so. It’s late. I have an early morning. That means you do, too.”
“Well, all righty then, Mr. Sociable.”
With Harley doing his best to trip him, Cash ferried the remainder of Roxanne’s belongings to her room. She managed one load, fell over the dog, then wisely waited in the bedroom to direct him where to put the bags, boxes and luggage. After the last load, he paused at the door. He should have said something to her but he wasn’t quite sure what.
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