Cooking For Cowboy (Stampede Sizzlers) Read Online Free

his face redden and he avoided her eyes
    “Okay. Okay. Drive me home,” she whispered, sounding defeated.
    Chad noticed the tears that welled in her eyes before she ducked her head. Those beautiful, troubled eyes were almost his undoing. He yearned to wrap her in his arms and hold her close. Gently brush his lips across her bruised forehead. Possess her mouth, kiss all the worries and hurt away. But wisely he controlled himself. Considering how pissed at him she was, he might receive a knee to his groin.
    “I have to call a tow truck and get my car…”
    “After the paramedics drove away with you in the ambulance, I called a tow truck to haul your car to the body shop at the Honda dealership. There was a sticker beside your vehicle’s license plate.”
    “The dealership? Do you know how expensive…”
    “I told the tow truck driver to get someone to sign for it if possible at this time of night. Maybe a security guard is there. Doesn’t matter. I left a note on the windshield that you would contact them in the morning, and they won’t start any work on it until the insurance people look at it. Besides, judging by the vehicle’s age, my guess…it’s a write-off.”
    “Oh, my God.” Fresh tears welled in her eyes.
    “Come on. Let’s get you out of here,” he insisted, removing the strap of the heavy knife case from her shoulder and slipping it over his own.
    Sierra nodded her head in resignation, appearing too exhausted for further argument. She clutched her purse to her chest and accompanied him through the sliding glass doors. A gentle drizzle had started to fall and she paused just outside the door. Her eyes closed, and she inhaled the rain-freshened night air, perhaps to cleanse her lungs of the antiseptic hospital smell. She’d argued about the ambulance trip and insisted on leaving as soon as the doctor saw her. Chad decided, for some reason, she had an aversion to hospitals.
    They hurried toward the parking lot, and Chad couldn’t stop himself. He settled his arm around her shoulders, drew her against him, and led her toward his pickup which hadn’t sustained a scratch during the parking lot mishap. As he tightened his hold on her, he felt her entire body shaking. She couldn’t be chilled from the rain already. “Are you certain you shouldn’t have stayed overnight in the hospital?”
    Sierra raised her head, met his eyes. “I hate hospitals. I insisted on coming home.”
    “I suspected as much. The doctor was okay with that?”
    “I told him I lived with my mother.”
    “That’s good.” Chad blew out his breath. He was genuinely worried about her, he admitted to himself. And then he noticed the strange expression that flashed across her face. “You don’t live with your mother, do you?”
    “Well, I did for the first fifteen years of my life. The doctor just assumed I still lived with her.”
    “You’re a bad girl, Sierra.”
    “Nothing short of being in a coma would keep me there overnight.”
    “I’d wager there’s a story that would explain your decision, but I won’t pry.” Chad unlocked and opened the passenger door and helped Sierra inside. He hurried around to the driver’s side and climbed in.
    “I live in the Southwest near the Lake Bonavista Recreation Center on Acadia Drive,” she informed him while clicking her seatbelt into place.
    “House or apartment block?”
    “Basement apartment in a house.”
    “Who lives upstairs?” he inquired while fastening his own seatbelt and starting the truck.
    “My best girlfriend, Diane, her husband, and their little girl.”
    “Are they home?”
    Silence.
    “Are your friends going to be home tonight?” he continued to push.
    “Not...exactly.”
    “What does that mean, Sierra?”
    “Diane and Neil are in Vegas for another few days. Catherine is staying with her granny.”
    “So, who’s at home to watch over you tonight?”
    “Barney,” she answered without hesitation.
    Chad noticed she’d turned and stared out the