Read Her Heart for the Asking (Book 1 - TEXAS HEARTS) for Free Online

ropes from someone else."
    "Well, you can teach me what I need to know
and whatever you can't do, Aunt Corrine will do.  She's been
living on this ranch long enough to know how it all runs."
    Hank laughed, a twinkled lit his eye as it
always did when he talked of his wife.  "She's spent more time
picking out the color of paints and clay to pay any attention to
the way things are run around here.  And that's just the way
it should be.  She's not a ranching woman by nature."
    Hank looked at her squarely and Mandy's
heart squeezed.  "Mandy, darlin', I know you don't want to
hear this but you have to.  I'm going to die eventually and I
need--"
    "No!  You're not going to die," she
said, shoving herself to her feet.  She was surprisingly
steady for a woman who felt as shell shocked as she did. 
"You're a young man.  Too young."
    "A young man with a bad ticker," he said
quietly.  "And I'm not messing with any doctors or surgeons
who want to poke and prod me just to give me a few more
months."
    Tears filled her eyes again, but she
remained steady, holding them back.  It would do no good to
break down.  "So you're just going to give up?  On all of
us?"
    Hank smiled then.  She'd seen that
smile before and knew the depth of his feelings for her. 
Instead of bringing her comfort, it made what was happening that
much harder.
    "I'm doing no such thing.  I'm
preparing for the future.  And that means teaching you all you
need to know about the Double T."
    "But if you're not going to teach me, then
who?"
    His eyes lifted to the man who was still
silently standing at the far end of the living room.  She
followed his gaze until her own eyes settled on Beau.
    "You're looking at him."
    * * *
    She couldn’t breathe.   What was
he thinking?  What was he doing?  Learning all the ins
and outs of the Double T would require her to be in Beau's back
pocket the entire time she was in Texas.
    "How long can you stay?"  Hank was
talking in some far away voice.  Had he really asked her to
work with Beau?
    She glanced at him, pushing past the sudden
panic that gripped her.  His face was paler than it had been
even a few minutes ago, as if the stress of this conversation alone
had taken years off his life.  But even with its gray color,
his expression was still hopeful.  This was important to him,
for whatever reason, she realized.  Very
important .  He wanted it badly enough that her mother
insisted, yet again, that she drop everything and move into
action.
    As annoyed as she'd been with her mother's
insistence about coming to Texas, she realized this wasn't her
mother talking.  It was Uncle Hank and Uncle Hank didn't
demand things of her.  Ever.  He asked.  How could
Mandy refuse?
    "I'll work something out with Dad.  I'm
sure I can stay as long as you need me to.  I can even work
here and Fed Ex my work to the office.  It isn't a
problem." 
    She would make sure it wasn't a
problem.  Oh, her father would give her grief for being gone
so long.  Probably give her that standard lecture about having
to pull her own weight, that he wasn't about to let anyone think he
gave his daughter special privileges just because she was his
daughter.  If he got his gander up, she may even lose her
place in the agency and have to start at the bottom again.  No
one would accuse Damien Morgan of nepotism.
    But it was doable and by God, she would do
it. 
    "You can count on me," she said
resolutely.
    Hank's smile shined bright through his
ghostly face and told of his pleasure.  It also gave the
shadow of a dying man.  She didn't have that much time to
convince Uncle Hank to have surgery.  He was truly coming to
the end.  Why had they waited so long to tell me?
    It broke her heart.  And yet she knew
she was partly to blame for not knowing sooner.  She should
have stayed in touch, she silently admonished herself.  No
matter what happened between her and Beau, she shouldn't have let
her relationship with her aunt and uncle suffer for