Sun Kissed Read Online Free

be worth it,” Tucker flung back. “Where I come from, manhandling a woman doesn’t fly.”
    The drunk called the lady a filthy name. Tucker was tempted to knock his teeth down his throat. He settled for kicking sawdust in his face. Then he turned away to check on the woman.
    She was sitting up but still looked dazed. Tucker hunkered beside her. “Are you all right?”
    She blinked and swatted sawdust from her hair. “I think so. He knocked the breath out of me.”
    Tucker thrust out a hand to help her up. She studied his outstretched fingers for a moment. Then she glanced up to search his gaze before placing her hand in his. Tucker got the oddest feeling—like maybe she was afraid of him or something. And then the moment passed.
    After allowing him to pull her to her feet, she laughed shakily and dusted off her jeans. “That’ll teach me, I guess. Never kick a guy where it hurts and then turn your back on him.”
    Tucker couldn’t see the humor. The arrival of a bubble top saved him from having to reply. He turned to watch a pencil-thin deputy in a khaki uniform push through the crowd. His pocket badge flashed in the sunlight. A pair of green aviator sunglasses and the shadow cast by the bill of his cap made it difficult to make out his features. He strode swiftly toward the older man and bent to help him up.
    “Are you all right, sir? What in the Sam Hill happened here?”
    “Hell, no, I’m not all right!” The drunk jerked his arm from the deputy’s grasp. “They attacked me, and I’m pressing charges. I want them both arrested!”
    The officer sent Tucker a questioning look. “Is that so, sir?”
    Tucker opened his mouth to say the other man was lying, but that wasn’t precisely true. “It’s a little more complicated than that,” he began.
    The deputy raised a staying hand. “Before we get into explanations, just answer the question. Did you or did you not attack this gentleman?”
    “The son of a bitch isn’t a gentleman,” Tucker shot back.
    Tucker’s temper had always been his downfall. He couldn’t remember exactly what he said after that, only that the woman jabbed him twice with her elbow, signaling him to shut up.
    The next thing he knew, he was being read his Miranda rights and escorted to a patrol car.

Chapter Two
    C uffed and stuffed. In Tucker’s profession, having a bad day was commonplace. He had been kicked by horses, waded through polluted ponds to reach mired patients, fallen face first in fresh cow manure, gotten his arm stuck in the vaginal passage of a bovine, and had once even been trampled by panicked pigs. With over four years of veterinary practice behind him, he had experienced just about every pitfall of the profession and usually laughed about it later.
    But arrested ? He couldn’t frigging believe it. With the help of two fellow officers who arrived shortly after he did, the skinny deputy had handcuffed both Tucker and the drunk, shoved them into the backseats of different patrol cars, and was now taking Tinkerbell’s statement while his colleagues spoke with people in the crowd.
    At least the woman was getting a chance to tell her side, Tucker reasoned. It was a cut-and-dried situation, the drunk clearly in the wrong. Once the deputy heard the story, he would apologize, turn Tucker loose, and haul the intoxicated instigator off to jail.
    Not. Watching through the rear passenger window, Tucker saw the woman put her hands behind her back and turn to allow the deputy to handcuff her. Incredulous fury had Tucker’s blood throbbing in his temples again. She was getting hauled in, too? Why? It made absolutely no sense. She’d tried to help a defenseless animal, and this was the treatment she received?
    To Tucker’s surprise, the woman was led toward the vehicle he sat in. The deputy opened the opposite rear door, cupped a hand over the top of her head, and pushed down as she swung onto the seat beside Tucker.
    “I can’t believe they’re sticking you in here with