Wrangling the Cowboy's Heart Read Online Free Page A

head after she read that. “I don’t know why that bothers me,” she said. “It’s not as though he wanted us there, either.”
    â€œNo editorializing,” Lauren said with a wave of her hand.
    Jodie cleared her throat and continued.
    â€œâ€˜But it was your first home. That’s why you’re getting it when I die. This cancer is gonna kill me one way or the other. And I know you’re gonna sell the ranch as soon as you get it. But before you can sell it, I want each of you to spend two months on the ranch. I talked to Drake Neubauer, and he said I should change my will officially, but until I do that, consider this a condition of inheriting the ranch. You girls never appreciated it like I knew you should. So this is what I want you to do before you can sell the place. If you don’t want to stay, you lose your part of the inheritance. If none of you want to stay, then I made other plans. Drake will let you know what happens if that’s the case. Dad.’”
    Jodie clutched the paper, stifling her annoyance. “This is so typical of Dad. Has he ever given us anything without a proviso attached? It seems as if every job or chore he wanted us to do was issued as a nonnegotiable decree.”
    â€œYou might be reading more into this than meets the eye,” Lauren replied, ever the peacemaker. “You and Dad always had a volatile relationship.”
    Lauren knew only the half of it. When she and Erin turned eighteen, they’d stopped coming to the ranch. Both had gone to college and took on summer jobs, leaving Jodie to spend two more summers alone with their father. They’d fought at every turn, Jodie often on the receiving end of his anger.
    She tamped down the memories, as she always did when they threatened.
    And how are you going to keep them at bay for two months if you stay?
    â€œI always figured Dad and I never got along because I was the only one who got to see the big fight that changed everything,” Jodie said, fingering one edge of the letter.
    Jodie had been in the barn loft, playing with kittens, when she’d heard her parents’ raised voices below her. She’d come down to see her father yelling at their mother to leave the ranch and take her daughters with her. Jodie, shocked and defensive of her mom, had yelled at him not to talk to her that way. But he’d ignored her, walking away. Her mother and sisters had left the ranch the next day and Jodie had never forgiven him. She was only seven at the time.
    â€œIt didn’t help that you always egged him on,” Lauren continued.
    â€œIt also didn’t help that he never believed me when I told him I’d just been out with friends, and not partying like he always accused me of.”
    â€œWell, you were partying, toward the end.”
    â€œOnly because I figured I may as well do what he always accused me of, and have fun.”
    â€œWas it fun?”
    Jodie caught the unspoken reprimand in her sister’s tone and looked down at the letter.
    It was an echo of the one she’d voiced whenever Jodie had tried to tell her sisters about what had really happened those summers alone on the ranch. They’d often questioned her, citing the steady antagonism between Jodie and her father as the reason. So she’d kept her mouth shut, endured her father’s alternating stony silences and spewing anger.
    And, increasingly, his physical punishment.
    â€œSo what do we do about this?” Jodie said, resting her elbows on the scarred Formica table.
    â€œI’m too busy to take two months away from work,” Lauren said, clutching her coffee mug. “Things are too iffy with my job. Would it stand up in court if we don’t agree to the terms of the letter? Could we still sell the ranch and get the money?”
    â€œThis document was verified by the lawyer...” Jodie let the sentence fade away as she skimmed the letter again. Her father’s