Read Galloping Hearts (Contemporary Cowboy Romance) (Texas Heat series: Book 2, Mitchell and Moira's story) for Free Online Page B

that at the ranch.”
    He nodded. “I guess I can respect that. Still, it seems almost like it’d be pleasant not being invisible.”
    She laughed. “Until you learn something about your personal business from someone else,” she said. “All through high school, people called me a lesbian snob behind my back because I didn’t sleep around. I was just so worried about getting pregnant. If that’d happened, I’d never have left town. Wouldn’t have been able to.”
    Mitch’s laugh was warm in her ears. “You must have been quite the commodity for them to start those kinds of rumors.”
    “Yeah, something like that. So, tell me about your life growing up.”
    ******
    When Moira asked Mitch about his childhood, all the joy of the morning drained from him. How would he tell her that he’d grown up in the system because his mom had been a drug addled bum? She wasn’t a prostitute but she had schizophrenia.
    Like many schizophrenics, as he’d come to learn later, his mother had an intense paranoia associated with doctors, the system, and her meds. So, she self-medicated with drugs and alcohol. He’d been four when it landed him in the system. Some strangers had seen her strung out, with him playing on a swing nearby, screaming and cursing at someone they couldn’t see. They’d called the police. Apparently, that’s when they saw how bad it was.
    They’d put him in what was supposed to be a temporary foster family. His mother, he learned when he turned eighteen, would’ve been able to get him back if she’d been able to stabilize herself. Unfortunately, for both of them, that’d never happened.
    He spent his childhood going in and out of group homes and hospitals as he was shuffled from foster family to foster family. She would still keep track of him. The one thing she did right. In fact, she’d make sure she kept up on the supervised visits and always brought some kind of present for him around his birthday and Christmas – even if it was just a toy, and later, a book, from the dollar store or thrift shop. He knew she loved him as best she could but for the family courts, it wasn’t enough.
    The last time he’d seen her was his high school graduation. She was proud of him but it was obvious from her disheveled clothes and dirty appearance that she was in one of her homeless stages. He was both embarrassed and proud to have her there that day. He didn’t know which feeling was worse.
    Instead of telling Moira any of this, he shrugged. “I grew up in Austin. Didn’t know much but the city limits until I turned eighteen.”
    “Any brothers or sisters?”
He shook his head. As far as he knew, or was concerned, he was an only child.
    “So what’d your parents do for a living?”He gave a partial truth. “Well, I never knew my dad. My mom did a little bit of this and that growing up.”
    She nodded. “Where does your mom live?”
    This he could answer truthfully. “In Austin.”
    “So why do you stay on campus?”
    He shrugged. “It’s easier to concentrate when you live by yourself.”
    She nodded again.
    They sat in companionable silence for a little while. Finally, Moira looked at him.
    Her voice was quiet and full of a huskiness he wasn’t used to. Sure, he’d heard the tone of voice when his other friends were getting picked up but he’d never heard it for himself.
    Propping on her knees, she looked into his eyes. “Can I kiss you?”
    He felt his eyes pop from his skull. She was asking him if she could kiss him? Was the sky blue? Of course . Because he’d lost his voice, he only nodded.
    When she leaned in, she kissed him gently, her tongue snaking between his lips.
    After a few minutes of kissing, she leaned back again. When she sat on her own backside, next to him, she whispered. “I wasn’t joking last night when I told my brother I’d never been with anyone.”
    He couldn’t help his response. His head whipped towards her. “ What ?”
    She laughed. “Don’t act so surprised.