Ride Me Cowboy #2 (The Cowboy Romance Series - Book #2) Read Online Free

easier. Here, it
was going to be practically impossible. I was living with the guy and Mom and
Mark’s dad will expect us to have meals together as a family and who knows what
else.
    “That sounds like fun. I’ll have to meet this stepbrother
of yours. He sounds intriguing.”
    Intriguing he was, to say the least. I looked back
out the window and there he was. He was bringing his horse out of the barn. I
ducked behind the curtain so that he couldn’t see me, but I didn’t move. I
watched him saddle the horse, and I watched him strip down to his undershirt,
and I watched his muscles ripple as he climbed up on its back and ride off. I
sighed. I was going to have to do my best to avoid him no matter what. My
hormones went crazy just at the sight of him.
    “Maybe I can come back to the city this weekend and
we can have lunch or dinner or something?” I told Sam.
    “Will the hot cowboy stepbrother be coming, too?”
    I rolled my eyes. “I didn’t say he was hot.”
    “Well of course not…he’s your brother. That would
just be wrong.” Ugh!
    ******
    Mark was already gone before I got up the next day,
thankfully. I found Mom in the kitchen doing dishes.
    “Where did everyone go?” I asked as I poured myself
a cup of coffee.
    “Rob and Mark went out to move some cattle. They
leave at dawn when they do that. They probably won’t be back until early
evening. I felt bad for poor Mark. I don’t think Rob warned him. He just drug him out of bed first thing.”
    “Oh. What are you going to do today?”
      “I was going
to go into town to do some shopping. Would you like to go with me?”
    I would like to do anything to get out of here for a
while. “Sure, that sounds great. Do you mind if we take my car? I miss driving
her.”
    My mom laughed. “I’m sorry, honey. We have to go by
the feed store to pick some things up for Rob. I don’t think your pretty little
car can handle it.” The feed store? Who is this woman?
    “Oh, okay.” I was disappointed, but like I said, just getting off the ranch will be good. It’ll
give me a chance to spend some time alone with Mom, and I’ll be away from the
ranch so that when Mark comes back, I won’t have to try and find ways to avoid
him. I did find it weird that my mother was running errands to the feed
store…it was very unlike her.
    We took Rob’s big white Dodge Dually to town. It was
funny to see my mother climb behind the wheel of the massive four-wheel drive vehicle.
She seemed to be adjusting to life out here quickly. I never would have
imagined it. When we got out of the dust cloud that followed us from the house
out to the main road, I said “Are you happy, Mom?”
    She smiled. “I am happy. I really like it out here.
The pace is so much slower than in the city and there’s not all of that
competition to see who has the nicer car or the bigger apartment. I got a
little tired of all of that.” I noticed that she talked about the place, but
she didn’t mention her marriage.
    “I’m glad you’re happy here. What about Rob? Are you
happy with him, too?”
    She looked pensive for a minute and then said, “I
am. He’s moody and he’s not as good to his son as I wish that he would be…but
he’s good to me. He doesn’t tell me no about anything and he’s sensitive to my
feelings and needs. It’s a good marriage. I think he and I both made the right
choice. Now that I’m older, social status and all of that aren’t anywhere near
as important as just being happy.”
    I heard “happy,” and that was good. But I still
didn’t hear “love” there. I guess maybe when you’re older “love” doesn’t play
as big of a role as it does when you’re twenty-something. She said that she’s
happy and she seems like she is, so that’s all good. “What about Mark? You seem
to get along well with him.” I had to ask. I need her opinion of him.
    “Yeah, I do. I like him. He’s a good kid. His father
is really hard on him sometimes, and I feel bad because