Accidental Cowgirl Read Online Free

it towed back tomorrow. No way am I getting in that thing again.”
    “I didn’t even know they had rattlesnakes out here.” Hayley took a deep breath and patted Kyla’s knee. “Okay, so we’ll consider this a minor blip in my master plan. The point is … you met a cowboy! Already!”
    Her auburn curls bounced as she shifted on the couch. Ever since they’d met at freshman orientation, Hayley’d been trying to corral those curls while Kyla had envied them. And though Kyla had learned to be content with the fact that her five-foot-three frame would never be able to reach the top shelves at the grocery store, she still wished sometimes for hair that wasn’t a dull, straight brown. Next to Hayley and Jess, she felt like the plain-Jane friend who always got killed off first in horror movies.
    She’d made it to the ranch just in time to find their cabin, shower off the hideous day, and change for the first evening’s meet-n-greet at the main lodge. She looked around at the living room, which was three times as big as her apartment. But with the logs crackling in the fieldstone fireplace, flickering wall sconces, and soft brown leather couches arranged in conversational groupings, it was as cozy as could be. The soft lighting and wide pine floors were soothing in a way she couldn’t quite define, and she swore she could smell chocolate chip cookies.
    Jess floated down to sit on Kyla’s left, tucking her peasant skirt around her legs. When Jess had arrived in the dorm a week later than the rest of the students, Hayley and Kyla had been wary of her exotic looks and southern upbringing. By second semester, they’d moved Jess into their tiny corner room, turning their double into a triple. The three of them had been inseparableever since.
    Her cinnamon tea smelled heavenly as she leaned closer to Kyla. “So, sweetie, tell us about the cowboy.”
    “There’s nothing to tell, really.”
    “Then why are you blushing?”
    Kyla pressed her fingers to her flaming cheeks. Oh, to not be so damn Irish. “Seriously, there’s nothing to tell. Car went screech , cop went walk the line, lady , and cowboy went bam !”
    Hayley grinned. “I still can’t believe he thought you were drunk. Did he think you’d done shots at the airport bar, or what?”
    Jess pulled her legs up under her in a yoga pose Kyla wouldn’t be able to make her body do with ten years of practice. “After the morning she had, I’m surprised she didn’t do them in Boston before she left.”
    “I was sorely tempted.” Kyla cringed, remembering the closing moments of the trial earlier that day. She’d been called to the stand one last time, and though she was prepared for the questions—had practiced for hours with her attorney, for God’s sake—she’d still had a panic attack right in the witness box, in front of the jury, the press, and Wes’s family. Only desperation and a nonrefundable ticket had gotten her on the plane afterward. She would have much preferred to stumble back to her apartment and hide for the rest of the foreseeable future.
    “Sweetie, I think this place is going to be just what you need.” Jess patted Kyla’s knee. “Just think—no trial, no city, no Wes, no press.”
    No real job, either, unfortunately. Her accounting agency had felt it in their best interests to “maintain some distance from her situation,” so despite her MBA from Princeton and her stellar reputation prior to the Wes debacle, they’d given her a six-week severance package and had FedExed her personal belongings to her at home. Now she was doing piecemeal voiceover work for an ad agency she’d interned with during her senior year. Instead of advising multimillion-dollar companies on their investment portfolios, she was recording television commercials for couples-only resorts and antacid.
    She rubbed her right thigh in a motion that had become almost automatic over the past year. After six hours on a plane, three in a car, and forty-two jumping