Keep It Together Read Online Free Page A

snack?”
    Chrissie laughed in spite of herself and the strange situation she currently found herself in. “What are you up to?”
    He shrugged, a casual lift of his shoulders, and shook his head. “I’m not sure exactly. I’m not used to this type of reaction. Seems I’m trying to ask you out for a meal, and you are trying to come up with reasons not to accept.”
    “Work isn’t an empty excuse.” Even though Chrissie knew she was using it as one. Something about their ease with one another struck her as odd and sent a little warning flag up inside her head. They were little more than strangers, no matter their near related-by-marriage connection, but she was comfortable around him, with him. She might not be comfortable with her reaction to him, thinking it was perhaps unseemly, though at the same time, maybe it wasn’t. And maybe she was thinking too hard. “Girls in the big city aren’t this difficult?”
    “Not in my general experience. Usually all it takes is a nice suit and a flashy car to tempt most of them. But you country girls? You make a man, rich or poor, work hard for it.”
    “Makes the end result worth it, though.” Chrissie slung the comment as easily as she slung the rifle case over her shoulder by the strap and headed across the backyard up to the house. “Besides, I’m not impressed by flashy or by money, or worried about impressing anyone.”
    “That’s right,” he said as he fell into step beside her. “You come from old family money.”
    Chrissie laughed. “Old family money. Yes, that’s me. My mother wished I’d been able to use my old family money connections and marry into other old money connections or even into new money.”
    “Russ was definitely new money. I’m somewhere in between.”
    “But we’re not getting married.” She would so marry him, though. If for no other reason than the man was hot. Of course, she knew there had to be something more rational than that, but if she had to pick a reason in that moment, his hotness would be it.
    No, she told herself, but the thought wiggled itself into her mind and started to make itself at home. She had to disabuse her wayward gray matter of the notion of him wanting to marry her and quickly…
    Still… No, dammit.
    “Not yet, no. I can’t even get a date with you. I’m sure I need at least one, though it would be nothing more than a formality at this point. I’ve already said yes.”
    He found humor in the situation—and Chrissie wanted to find the same humor—but she couldn’t seem to do it. All she kept thinking about was how much fun she suspected he’d be, both in bed and out. She didn’t feel like she had to hide anything about herself and she couldn’t help but wonder why.
    “Right. Would you like to come inside?” Where the hell was her mental and vocal filter? She normally had one. She could bite her tongue and keep herself out of trouble. Him standing in front of her, behind her, beside her seemed to be the catalyst because she couldn’t keep her mouth shut and she couldn’t take the offer back now. It would be rude.
    She picked up a jar full of water and tea bags from the bottom step of her porch. “Fresh sun tea,” she said with a smile and a completely unauthorized flirty waggle of her eyebrows.
    “As a matter of fact, I would. I haven’t had sun tea in years.”
    Crap. She shoved the jar at him. “Good. You can bring this in with you.”

Chapter Two
    Colt walked into the small white clapboard house behind the woman he intended to marry. He knew she hadn’t meant what she said months ago about having maybe married him instead. She’d been distraught, sad, pissed off, and he couldn’t blame her for feeling any of it, but the second the words were out of her mouth, a switch flipped inside his head and wouldn’t turn off. He’d wanted her before that, when she was still planning to marry his brother, and he’d still wanted her when the wedding didn’t take place.
    She didn’t think he