The Cowboy's Girl Next Door: A BWWM Cowboy Romance Read Online Free Page B

began to blend with the strains of the song on the radio.
     
    When he reached the orchards, he parked beneath one of the apple trees, their fragrant flowers bearing the promise of sweet ripe fruit in the coming months. He sauntered over to the berry bushes, his boots soft on the lush green grass. It was twilight, and the softening dark gave the whole area an almost mystical glow.
     
    This had been his mother’s domain and was one of the oldest parts of the ranch. She loved horses, but she loved growing things even more. Bella had embraced the ranch life when Randy brought her to Kerrville from the life in Jackson that she had known. She got involved in the life of the town, never intrusive, always giving and nurturing.
     
    Bella welcomed the local folk to their orchards when fruit was in season, letting people take as much as they wanted from the abundance there. Randy thought they should charge, but Bella wouldn’t hear of it. “Randy Hardy, we are blessed with more than we will even need! Don’t you dare ever think of keeping our neighbors from this orchard.”
     
    If young Jess was in earshot during one of these discussions, she’d look at him and add “when you’re in charge, remember that you have everything you could ever want, and that means you have a responsibility to give as much as you can.”
     
    Cancer had taken her too soon. Jess was ten and Lacey seven when she passed away. She had insisted on hospice at the end, wanting to die at home surrounded by those she loved best.
     
    Jess baked his first pie for her, wanting her to taste the sweet abundance she’d so lovingly cultivated her entire life. It was an ugly mess of a thing, but she had oohed and aahed over it when he proudly presented his work, and she ate a piece, declaring it was the best gift he could ever have given her.
     
    He kept working on his pie making skills after she’d died, pestering Janice, the housekeeper his father brought in to help with the kids, to show him how to make the perfect crust and filling. If Randy Hardy thought his son’s interest in baking was strange, he quickly learned to keep his mouth shut about it when Lacey told him that Jess “was making pies for Momma.”
     
    Jess squatted and plucked a ripe strawberry from the patch. He took a bite, savoring its tart sweet juices. These were ready. He went back to the truck and retrieved a bushel basket and a helmet with a lamp on it to help him see in the growing dark. He worked quickly, selecting the best berries until the basket was full and his back and legs ached.
     
    By the time he returned to the house, the kitchen was cleaned and the house was quiet. He rinsed the berries, dried them carefully, and set to work making a pie. It had been a while since he’d done this, and he wanted to make sure his skills were as strong as they had been before. A new neighbor deserved the best.
     

Chapter Four
     
    It was finally move-in day. Claire left the house movers under the watchful eyes of her mother, Carmen, who was something of a tyrant when it came to getting her money’s worth from anyone she hired.
     
    As she walked toward the newly refurbished stables, she chuckled at the scene she had just left. Carmen was on the porch, directing the movers as they brought in the antique cherry dining set, threatening to “send them back to their Mommas with their tails between their legs” if they so much as left a mark on the freshly painted porch or the precious furniture.
     
    “I’m going to have to give them a big tip,” Claire muttered as she made her way down the gravel road.
     
    The horse transport team she hired were already busy getting her girls out of their box moving stalls and settled in their new home. Thalia was in her new stall enjoying a post travel meal.
     
    Claire spoke to her soothingly. “Welcome to your new home, baby girl. You’re gonna love it here. Lots of space to run and play for you and Calliope, and we’re gonna have great