Looking For Trouble Read Online Free Page A

other things.
     
    "Yeah, I don't know what happened there, she
won't talk about it, but I think it's over," Karlie told him, then
added with a shake of her red head, "Hell, it never even really got
started, I don't think."
     
    Wade grinned then said, "Now, that is
interesting, sugar. I think me and Miss Katie will have a fine time
tonight, then...guess I'd better go get that shower."
     
    Karlie might have broken his heart by
marrying Gabe Kelley, the Chief Deputy of Bowie, but her identical
twin sister was still available. Not that that mattered to him
really, because, although the two beautiful redheads looked exactly
alike, inside they were as different as night and day. Karlie was
sass and brass, and Katie was sugar and spice. He'd almost fallen
for Karlie, because she was his kind of woman, but sweet Katie
wasn't, although she would do for a distraction tonight, one he
sorely needed.
     
    Wade glanced at the clock on the wall and
blew off getting a sandwich, he didn't have time now, so he headed
back out the front door, and then hurried to the bunkhouse.
     
    ***
     
    Swiping a hand over her forehead, Jess
grabbed her bottled water off the stool and downed it, letting the
cool liquid soothe her throat. The band had finished setting up and
done a sound check, but still had an hour or so before people would
start showing up, so Jess told everyone to hit the food tent, and
she went too, although there was no way she'd be able to eat.
Seeing the handsome cowboy she'd had the fling with last year on
her birthday again had her stomach churning with a mixture of
emotions, fear and lust topped the list, but she was determined to
overcome both.
     
    That cowboy, Wade Roberts as he'd told her
earlier, didn't know it, but he'd given her more than a good time
for her birthday present. He'd given her something precious that
she has no intention of sharing with him. Wade was a complication
that neither she, nor her daughter Angel, needed in their lives.
They were doing fine without him, and would continue to do
fine.
     
    Jess wondered what the hell he was doing
here anyway, she'd thought he was a wandering rodeo cowboy, and a
random guest at the wedding last year. Evidently, she'd been
mistaken, in more ways than one. Lifting the silver cover on a
warming plate, the barbecue pork smell hit her wrong and she
gagged. It wasn't that it didn't smell and look delicious, her
nerves were just humming like a ten-thousand volt electric line and
her stomach felt like someone was stomping grapes in there.
     
    Quickly, she put the cover back on the
chaffing dish, then turned toward the bar instead. Maybe a beer
would help settle her down. Before she could move though, her
brother Travis came up behind her and put his hand on her back and
rubbed, then he asked, "You okay, sis? You look pale, did that guy
up at the house upset you that much? You know him?"
     
    Boy did she know him, in the biblical sense
even, but there was no way Jess was going there with her brother.
He didn't know who Angel's father was, and she wasn't telling him.
Only she and Jazzie knew, and they were pinkie sworn to secrecy.
"Nobody special, just some guy who gave me a hard time the last
time I played here," she told him with a nonchalant shrug.
     
    "Well, let me know if he does it again,
because I'll have Denver, um, talk to him," her brother told
her, speaking of the brick wall that was their drummer. The guy
looked like a professional wrestler, but was like a big teddy bear.
Den had been with her since they started the band, and thought he
was her personal body guard. Although it gave her a measure of
comfort to have him watching her back, sometimes he went a little
overboard with it.
     
    "You need to head back to Henrietta, Trav,
so Jazzie can get here, or she won't be here for the opening
number. It's an hour drive there and back." Jess had picked a low
budget hotel in the nearby town, because she couldn't make herself
stay at the bed and breakfast again, the place