Texas Tango: Texas Montgomery Mavericks, Book 2 Read Online Free Page A

instead Mamie asked about him on every visit, with every call.
    “Well, I’ll look forward to seeing you tomorrow.” Mamie’s years as a judge had groomed her voice into a strong, authoritarian tone. The whispery, weak voice on the other end broke Caroline’s heart. It didn’t sound anything like Caroline’s robust grandmother.
    “Bye, Mamie. Love you.”
    Caroline dropped her cell onto the coffee table. Guilt gnawed at her. Lying to her grandmother about dating Travis was so wrong, but the idea of her beloved grandmother on her deathbed worried about Caroline’s love life—or lack thereof—sliced and diced Caroline’s heart. How many times had Mamie said she wanted Caroline to love and be loved by a man worthy of her affections?
    Caroline pressed the back of her head into the softness of the sofa. The deception had started so innocently. When her grandmother kept asking about Caroline’s life in Texas, Travis had been standing outside her office door talking to Lydia, and his name had rolled off her tongue before she could stop it. Once the idea was planted, her mind refused to let go. It was as though gasoline had been poured on her tiny spark of crush on him, exploding it into an inferno attraction.
    Unfortunately, Travis hadn’t expressed any interest in her, so she’d never acted on her feelings. Besides, she had no plans to settle down with anyone, much less settle in Texas.
     
    Mamie had never mentioned anything about bad blood between her brother and the Montgomerys. She’d questioned Caroline at length about Travis and how he treated her, but when Caroline had continued to sing Travis’s praises, her grandmother had seemed pleased—and relieved—that Caroline had found her true love. God, she’d felt so guilty when her grandmother used the phrase true love , but luckily it’d been on the phone and Caroline had been able to hide her remorse at the lie.
    She dipped her chin to her chest and rolled her head from side-to-side to stretch the stiff muscles in her neck. An elephant-sized tear rolled down her cheek and Caroline swiped angrily at it. She might have overdone the “sell the idea of being in love with Travis” to Mamie. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to fall in love, but she was nothing if not realistic.
    Mamie and Grandpa Richter’s kind of love didn’t happen often and certainly would never happen to her. Besides, she wasn’t sure she had the capacity to produce that degree of emotional attachment to anyone other than her grandmother. Attraction to a man was a long way from love, right?
    The gratitude she felt for her grandmother had no bounds, just like what Caroline would do for Mamie had no bounds. When Caroline let herself stew over the past, her guilt about crashing into Mamie’s life unannounced and uninvited made her nauseous. She never doubted for a minute that her grandmother loved her, but Mamie had had to give up so much of her personal and professional life to raise Caroline and then Noah. There was no way Caroline could ever repay her.
    When Caroline’s parents had dropped her on Mamie’s doorstep to raise, freeing them up to return to their missionary work, Mamie had greeted Caroline with more hugs and kisses than Caroline could remember in all of her five years of being alive.
    Then Mamie had stepped up again to take in Noah.
    She’d been more than a grandmother to both of them. She’d been their lifeline, their anchor. At least Caroline had been blessed to be raised to adulthood by her grandmother. Noah had had only nine years with Mamie.
    The reality of losing Mamie swamped her. She stood and went to the bathroom for a tissue.
    Get a grip, Caroline. All this navel gazing about her life wasn’t solving the problem. Her problem was how could she convince her grandmother that she was in love and happy when the exact opposite was true?
    She glanced at her cell phone to check the time. Right now she didn’t have the time to worry about her love life—or lack