Read Loving Lydia (Atlantic Divide) for Free Online

fork down, picked up his coffee, caught her staring at him, and smiled, his sexy dimples dipping into his cheeks, and before she could help herself, she found she was responding with a smile of her own.
    “I wondered if you’d like to bring the kids down to the stables again this morning.”
    She wasn’t quite sure how she should respond. They hadn’t been alone since he’d told her wanted a kiss, and she wondered if he thought it might be his opportunity to get one.
    “We’ve got a small pony arriving from one of my cousins’ kids. They’ve outgrown her, and I thought Aaron and Rosie might be interested.”
    Jack turned around with his cup in hand and leaned against the kitchen counter with a look of such obvious surprise he made Lydia think it was the first he’d heard about the pony.
    “Mummy, I want to see the lickle pony.” Rosie jumped off her chair and hopped from foot to foot. Sam plucked her off her feet, sat her on his knee, picked up his fork, and put his face close to hers.
    “Rosie, honey, first of all you need to eat your breakfast before you see this pony because you’re going to need all of your strength. Second, I know you like pretty little dresses, but perhaps you can borrow a pair of Aaron’s jeans so that you can have a little ride on the pony.”
    She opened her little mouth wide, and Sam shoveled some of his eggs in. Lydia rolled her eyes as she watched her little girl eat the one thing she claimed she hated.
    “She has her own jeans. I’ll get her changed when she’s finished eating your breakfast.”
    Sam smiled at her over Rosie’s reddish-gold locks, his dimple creased all the way down his tanned cheek, and Lydia felt herself smiling back at him. As she glanced away, she noticed Kate’s cool study of Sam.
    “I’ll meet you down there when you’re ready.” He inclined his head at her as Rosie slipped from his knee.
    * * * *
    Rosie’s jeans were bright pink with beautiful purple and gold butterflies embroidered all the way up the left leg, starting big at the bottom and getting smaller toward the top. The little purple T-shirt she wore matched and had frills all around the neckline and hem. Her sweet pink sneakers made Sam despair that they wouldn’t last long in the yard, maybe until the end of the day if they were lucky. He was going to have to persuade Lydia to take the kids out and buy them hardy little riding boots.
    Aaron wore proper boys’ jeans and a dark blue T-shirt. He didn’t want any of that girly stuff on his jeans. He was a real man. His mother was wearing a pair of faded designer jeans with rips and holes all the way down, showing a little bit of flesh here and there.
    As he watched them approach, Sam thought she needed to get herself a decent pair of jeans and put her own tears in them, instead of paying a fortune for some designer crap that had been beaten into submission way before being sold. His own jeans were dark down the seams, close to their original color, and faded almost white down the front of his thighs and his backside, where he always rubbed the sweat and dirt off his hands. Any rips in the material had been made from honest-to-God work. His boots were thick and battered leather that he rubbed glycerin saddle soap into and oiled a few times a year. The scars on them were evidence of the hard work he did every day on the ranch.
    He looked down at Lydia’s cute little designer ankle boots made of some soft kid leather or something and decided they would probably last as long as her daughter’s sneakers.
    He turned and peered toward the other side of the corral as Carl led the small pony out of the stables. Carl was as old as the Earth, his skin weathered so much that it was dark brown with dry wrinkles covering his entire face. The back of the old man’s hands were veined and as tough as old leather. His legs were bowed with years of hard riding, and he was probably six inches shorter than he had been when he was a younger man.
    Not that Sam