Nothing Sweeter (Sweet on a Cowboy) Read Online Free Page A

explosive sneeze. The past two hours spent cleaning had paid off. The office was now dust, cobweb, and vermin-free. She looked down. The same couldn’t be said for her. Good thing she’d changed the fancy interview outfit for a T-shirt and worn jeans.
    Sun streamed through the now-sparkling window set high in the wall, lighting a snowstorm of dust motes on its way across the floor to hit her favorite watercolor on the opposite wall. Under the window sat a narrow iron-framedcot that had been delivered by two shy, brown-skinned cowboys. She’d made it up with a Navajo blanket she’d found in a corner. The men had also carted off an ancient footlocker, trash, and other flotsam of her afternoon’s labor.
    At the head of the bed, an ancient gooseneck lamp and her laptop were all that remained on the battered desk. She’d almost left the computer in her mother’s garage, but at the last minute gave in to the siren call of her old life.
    Aubrey fisted her hands in the small of her back and groaned.
This room must have been a dump for every marginally useful piece of junk from the last twenty years.
Kneeling, she gathered a change of clothes from the suitcase she’d stowed under the cot. She had to find a bathroom—
soon.
    Trotting to the main house, she ignored the men who dismounted shaggy cow ponies outside the corral. When no one answered her knock, she cupped her hand around her eyes, and putting her nose against the screen, she peered into the shadowed kitchen. Manners might dictate she wait, but her bladder commanded otherwise, so she opened the door and rushed in.
    “Hello?” Her voice echoed back. Thinking it would be less rude to wander in without invitation than to pee on the floor, she barreled through the door to the entrance hall.
    “Ooof.” Head turned, glancing through doorways, she collided with a solid chest. Bouncing off, she smacked into a hall table, dislodging a china pitcher. Max grabbed her upper arm to steady her, then caught the vase with his other hand.
    He dropped her arm and replaced the pitcher, glaring at her all the while. “Who let you in?”
    She rubbed her stinging hip as she clutched her change of clothes to her chest.
    “I’ll explain everything. But first, for the love of God, where is the bathroom?”
    He stepped aside and pointed to a door down the hall. She ran, hearing what might have been a muffled chuckle as she closed the door.
    An hour later, Max knocked on the doorframe of what she already thought of as her room.
    “Dinner is ready in fifteen min—wow.” He looked around the room, his glance stopping at the cot. “Who’s going to sleep here?”
    Aubrey finished capturing her damp hair in a ponytail, adjusted the bandana at her neck, and turned from the tiny mirror she’d hung next to the door. “I am.”
    The lines of his face morphed into the familiar stony mask. “We’ll see about that.” As his chest expanded, his gaze combed the room. “It smells like a damn beauty parlor in here.”
    “Glade PlugIns.” She flounced by him. “The staple of any woman’s emergency kit.”
    Outside, the sun hunkered at the horizon, washing the yard in soft gold. Several cow ponies stood drowsing in the corral. Aubrey walked a few steps ahead of Max, hoping to avoid an argument over her sleeping arrangements.
    Laughter drifted from the open door of the dining hall, but everyone froze as they stepped inside. Her pulse sped up. Silence fell, and she paused, not sure what to say or do.
    Before she could bolt, Max stepped alongside her. “Men, this is Bree, our new groom.”
    “My name isn’t…” She’d always insisted people useher given name. It was hard enough to be taken seriously as a businesswoman when you looked as wholesome as Sally Field. A flash of pain speared her gut. That world was gone. She’d dusted off her birth certificate to borrow her absent father’s surname, so why not a nickname? “Never mind.”
    Max introduced her to each cowboy as they lounged,