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

it. 
    It was clear their reunion had taken its
toll on Hank.  She gave him a kiss and left him in the living
room to rest.  As soon as she left his side and pushed through
the screen door to the front porch, anger boiled up inside her like
a pot with a lid on it.
    Work side by side with Beau Gentry?
 Every day and every night until. . .when?
    What was Uncle Hank thinking? Mandy fumed as
she paced the wide porch.  He knew about her past with
Beau.  He had to have known this would be hard on
her. 
    Maybe his health had gone so far that he
wasn't thinking clearly about anything at all, let alone the
surgery or what he was asking of her.
    She was stunned.  But not Beau. 
She'd seen his face while Uncle Hank made his request.  And he
wasn't the least bit shocked.
    After Mandy paced a worn path up and down
the porch a few times, Beau pushed through the screen door and
stepped outside.
    "You knew about this," she accused.
    Beau didn't deny it.
    "What, don’t you even have the slightest
stab of guilt?  Do you figure you’d used me again to get to my
uncle, as you did all those years ago?  This is my uncle’s
ranch, Beau Gentry.  No matter how much your father wants it,
you don’t have to do his dirty work to get take it from a dying
man."
    "I won't even respond to that," Beau
said.  His face was fierce.  The hard line of his jaw
told her she'd hit a nerve.   
    Beau stood in front of her, blocking her
from pacing anymore.  "Didn't you hear a thing in there? 
Didn't you see him?  I mean really look at him?"
    "Of course I did.  I just can't figure
out what's in this for you?"
    His eyebrows furrowed.  "What are you
talking about?"
    "You mean to tell me Hank just dreamed this
up all by himself?  You didn't plant this little idea in his
head?"
    "No," he said resolutely.  "You ought
to know by now Hank is not a man to be swayed easily."
    "He's not himself."
    "He's still the same man."
    She folded her arms across her chest and
dropped down into the glider, forcefully rocking backward. 
"It seems a little convenient to me.  You being here on the
Double T.  Hank being as sick as he is.  You're in the
perfect position to get what your father couldn't get himself all
these years."
    "You couldn't be more wrong," he said. 
"I'm here for one reason and one reason only.  Hank asked me
to come.  He asked for my help.  And whether you want to
be a part of this or not doesn't concern me.  You do what you
have to." 
    Beau propped his straw Stetson on his head
and launched himself off the porch, leaving Mandy to swing in the
breeze.
    She watched him amble across the barnyard to
the paddock as she'd done hundreds of times that summer they spent
together, wondering if she'd ever known Beau at all.
    Maybe he was telling her the truth. 
Regardless of Mike Gentry's influence, Beau seemed to genuinely
care about Hank.  Maybe he'd come back to the Double T for the
very reason he professed.
    She sighed, feeling like a complete idiot
for actually being disappointed that she didn't fit into the
equation at all.
    She was an idiot.  Beau may be a
lot of things, and at one time, she'd accused him of being all of
them, but right now he didn't look like a man who was bent on
stealing this ranch out from under a dying man.  He seemed as
brokenhearted as Hank. 
    If Hank could trust Beau, why couldn't
she?
     
    # # #
     

Chapter Four
     
    Sleep.  Who needs it?  Mandy had
done without sleep so many times before that it had become a normal
part of her existence to be sleep deprived.
    In the earlier days of college, she'd pulled
all-nighters to keep her grades up.  More recently, it had
been because she needed to meet a strict deadline at the ad
agency.
    But it had been a long time since she'd been
disturbed so badly by the memory of Beau Gentry that she just could
not sleep.  As she toss and turned in her bed it was hard not
to let old ghost creep into the room and remind her of how much
they'd loved each other.  Correction,