Cowboy Crazy Read Online Free Page B

cleared her throat nervously. He was still staring at her as if he was trying to figure her out.
    She didn’t like being figured out.
    “I’m sure your brother will see to it that the ranch’s historic heritage is preserved.”
    His eyes slid away and he pretended to be absorbed in brushing imaginary dirt off the thighs of his jeans. He was playing casual, but she could tell by the short, vicious strokes that the mention of his brother made him tense. Unfortunately, she was tensing too. The gesture emphasized the muscles bulging beneath the denim and made her conscious, again, of a testosterone aura that glowed with the steady intensity of a neon sign.
    “Dad doesn’t like my view of what it means to be a Carrigan. I always thought the name had as much to do with cattle as it did with oil. But what would I know? I’m just a dumb cowboy.” He tugged at the collar of his blue chambray shirt. “My father hated the color of my collar, and I guess my brother does too.”
    “This has nothing to do with that,” she said. “We’re just saying—”
    “What’s this we shit?” Lane was more than angry now. “You’re not part of we. Unless—are you something more than an employee?”
    “I beg your pardon?”
    “Are you having some kind of relationship with my brother?”
    She felt like she’d been punched in the stomach. “Of course not,” she said, struggling to keep her composure.
    “No, you’re right. He’s not your type, is he?” He gave her that look again, the one that seemed to laser its way right into her mind. “You keep saying we , but you’re not one of them . Where are you from?”
    “That’s none of your business.”
    “Well, it’s the company’s business,” he said. “If you’re going to go to bat for Two Shot, you ought to have some idea what makes a small town tick. But you don’t, do you?” He nodded toward the window. “You try to act like you care, but you’re ten stories above the street while I’m down there in the dirt with the rest of them. I can tell you real people don’t want you and your minions coming in and ruining their land and their towns.”
    She should have defended her position, said Carrigan wasn’t ruining anything, but she was overwhelmed with a rush of relief. He wasn’t even close to figuring out she’d spent her childhood and adolescence rolling around in the dirt he thought was so all-fired picturesque. Even a no-kidding cowboy couldn’t tell who she really was. And that meant she’d succeeded in leaving her past behind.
    “Ever been to Midwest?” he asked.
    Of course she had. Midwest was just north of Two Shot, an isolated outpost in the middle of nowhere that had struck it rich in the last oil boom. She hadn’t been there lately, but she’d heard the boom had subsided. “They had a boom, didn’t they?”
    “And a bust. Now it’s the world capital of substandard housing.” He shoved back his chair and stood, folding his arms across his chest. “All those cheap rentals they put up are falling apart, half of ’em boarded up. Guys came in and worked Monday to Friday, then went home to their families like they’d had their nose to the grindstone all week, when really they spent half their time with a snootful of beer. God only knows where their other body parts ended up. They’re hell on local women.” He shook his head. “Two Shot doesn’t need your kind of prosperity.”
    “Why don’t you let the people make that decision?” she asked. “Ask them if they want to keep trying to raise cattle on yucca plants and cactus, or if they’d rather sit back and enjoy life while Carrigan pumps out black gold, day after day, whatever the weather.”
    “And I suppose you care about what they want.”
    “Yes, I do.” Those were the truest words she’d said since the conversation started. She didn’t have many fond memories of Two Shot, and the few she had were clouded by failure and shame and a lot of uncomfortable truths. But deep down,