Randall Pride Read Online Free

and assumed she’d accompany him.
    With a sigh, she turned back to go inside. She’d end the engagement. He wasn’t leaving her any choice.
    A sound behind her had her spinning around. In the shadows, she recognized Toby.
    “Where have you been?” she asked.
    He stepped up on the porch, but he didn’t show any enthusiasm about joining her.
    “Out at the barn.”
    “Your horses all right?”
    “Yeah, fine.”
    She couldn’t think of anything else to say. They used to talk nonstop when they were younger. But asshe’d noted earlier, Toby had changed. “What made you decide to drop out of rodeo and come home?”
    “It wasn’t because I was losing,” he said, “like Caroline said.”
    She raised her eyebrows. “Caro was teasing. She brags about you all the time. She has tons of friends because they’re hoping she’ll introduce them to you.”
    His cheeks darkened, just barely visible. It was a charming part of Toby. He was unimpressed with his achievements.
    She watched him shrug his shoulders instead of answer her original question. “Aren’t you going to tell me?”
    “Why should I? We don’t share secrets anymore. You certainly haven’t said why you’re marrying that idiot! I thought you were supposed to get smarter in college, not take leave of your senses.”
    The abrupt attack stunned Elizabeth. “How dare you call me dumb! I have a right to my own choices! You don’t even know Cleve.” Why was she defending the man when she had no intention of marrying him? But it was only fair to tell him first, not Toby. Especially not Toby when he was insulting her intelligence.
    “I know him more than I ever want to. He’s an accountant and he thinks he’s superior to us?” Toby’s scorn was evident.
    “Uncle Brett is an accountant. It’s a perfectly good job.”
    “Uncle Brett is a rancher. He does accounting for the family. That’s different.”
    “So Bill Johnson is—”
    “I’m not arguing this,” he muttered, walking past her to reach the back door.
    “What’s the matter? Afraid you’ll lose?”
    Her taunting had the desired effect. He pulled to a halt and turned around to stare at her. “You’ve certainly changed, Elizabeth. I don’t remember you being so difficult.”
    “I’m surprised you remember me at all, it’s been so long since I’ve seen you. I used to— I guess you’ve been more interested in…other things than your family.”
    He stared at her, his breathing rough. Then, much to her disappointment, he muttered, “I guess I have.”
    Before she could say anything else, he disappeared into the house.
    A single tear escaped her eye to flow silently down her cheek. She remembered a picture in a cowboy magazine of Toby surrounded by beautiful women putting their hands all over him. She’d hated that picture, told herself it didn’t represent Toby’s real life. He probably didn’t know any of those women. They were just models.
    Now she wasn’t so sure.
    Maybe he was biding his time before he brought one of them home as his wife. Or maybe he intended to cut a wide swath through Rawhide and the surrounding ranches with all the single women. She immediately started making a mental list of women he would discover.
    As she went back in the house to go to bed, she didn’t give her engagement to Cleve a thought. What Toby was going to do was much more important.
     
    T HOUGH ALL the male cousins had moved to the Pad, they always ate their meals with the family. Toby figured he wouldn’t have to worry about seeing Elizabeth at breakfast. After all, schools didn’t start until eight in the morning. He’d have been in the saddle for at least an hour by then.
    He came into the kitchen the next morning at six-thirty, the normal time, and discovered Elizabeth helping Mildred to set the table.
    Mildred sang out, “Morning! So good to see you here, Toby!”
    “Hey, now,” Russ called, “no giving Toby more food than us.”
    Mildred grinned. “Might be a good idea. I think