A Cowboy's Touch Read Online Free

worked. He’d received more than his share of knots and bruises when they dragged calves. “Not this year, Maddy.”
    Her sigh filled the quiet house. “You say that every year. I have friends at school who’ve been holding down calves since they were seven.”
    Wade knew it was true. His neighbor’s kids, younger than Maddy, helped every year. Still, it only took once. One kick to the head, one blow to the face. “You can watch.”
    Maddy pursed her lips, her gaze sliding down to her food.
    Was he overprotective? Maybe so, but he wasn’t taking any chances with his daughter. She was all he had.
    “Can we go somewhere this summer, Dad? Just you and me? Everyone at school is going somewhere.”
    He shook his head.
    “Just for a long weekend? Wouldn’t have to be far . . . just someplace else, like Seattle or Salt Lake City—”
    “You know we can’t, Maddy. We might be recognized.” It broke his heart to say it, to see the light in her eyes go dim. But what could he do? They were trapped here, like it or not.
    She looked down at her food, moved the roast beef around with her fork. A minute later she pushed her plate back. “I’m going to bed.”
    He should insist she finish. A growing girl needed nutrition, and her height was stretching her out, making her skinny. But she was already putting her plate in the sink.
    “Get a shower first,” he said.
    She turned at the doorway, one hand on the wide woodwork. “Dad. I’m almost a teenager. You don’t have to tell me that anymore.” She said it with more patience than he probably deserved.
    “Sorry.” He watched her turn the corner, heard her bare feet padding up the wood stairs, heard the shower kick on, and wondered if he knew anything at all about raising a teenage girl.

    Wade found the number on a scrap of paper in his desk drawer and dialed the old phone. The mammoth computer hummed on his desk, and outside the open window Maddy encouraged her horse.
    Charlotte answered on the second ring.
    “Hi, Charlotte. Wade Ryan from Stillwater Ranch, just checking in to make sure you’re arriving on Tuesday or Wednesday.”
    “Oh. Hi, Mr. Ryan.”
    Something in her tone of voice troubled him. Maybe he’d caught her at a bad time.
    “Listen,” she continued. “I’m afraid I have some bad news. Well, I mean, good news for me, but not so much for you.”
    He didn’t find her chuckle amusing.
    “Thing is, my boyfriend, he’s like from Billings, and he asked me to move in with him. I mean he only asked me Friday night, and I should’ve called you right away, but I spent all day yesterday moving and—” She muffled the phone and spoke to someone else. “Sorry about that. And sorry I didn’t call yesterday. This probably leaves you in a lurch with Marley.”
    “Maddy,” he said absently.
    “I’m really sorry about quitting last minute, but he—my boyfriend— lined up a job for me at a day care in Billings, and well . . .”
    Wade wanted to tell her she was inconsiderate, rude, and irresponsible. Instead he sent up a silent petition for patience, then cleared his throat. “I understand. Don’t suppose you know of another teacher needing a summer job?”
    “Sorry . . .”
    He could hear the cringe in her tone. Well, so what, he was cringing too. Cringing because he had two days to find someone to keep tabs on his daughter.
    He wished Charlotte good luck and hung up the phone. Two days. He glanced out the window and watched Maddy set her boot in the stirrup and swing her leg over her horse’s back.
    Maybe she could manage without a nanny. He tried to think back to eleven. He’d made plenty of extra trouble for his parents, he was ashamed to admit.
    No, eleven wasn’t old enough. In another summer or two, maybe, but not yet. And he knew better than to ask Greta. He planted his elbows on the desk and scraped his fingers through his hair. Two days to find someone responsible, trustworthy, and available.
    Where am I going to find a woman like that in