Read Her Lone Cowboy for Free Online Page B

and honor. Even his bouts of grumpiness were understandable under the circumstances. She realized she didn’t truly care if he liked her, but it was important that he respect her.
    “Never mind.”
    “No, I want to hear it. I’m so?” She did want to know what he thought. She’d spent a long time in her mother’s shadow, and people expected her to follow in her mother’s footsteps. Jasmine Germaine always seemed ethereal. Beautiful, wispy, moving with the breeze. She had never seen the need for roots the way Lily had. She’d moved them more times than Lilycared to count when she’d been a child, all the while insisting something bright and shiny was around the corner. All Lily had wanted was some stability. To have the same bedroom more than a year at a time. Time to be a kid.
    It had been her mother who had been popular, and loved, a beautiful and fragile butterfly with a handsome man on her arm. Lily had always faded into the woodwork when Jasmine was around.
    “I was just going to say…”
    She noticed a few spots of color on his neck. Was he embarrassed, for heaven’s sake?
    He cleared his throat. “You’re very pretty, Lily. Your name suits you.”
    She stared out at the highway as heat flooded her cheeks. Noah thought she was pretty?
    But she wasn’t the pretty one. That was her mother. Lily was the practical, steady one.
    “My compliment doesn’t please you.”
    She kept her eyes on the road. “I’m just not used to anyone calling me pretty, that’s all.”
    She could feel his gaze on her and she was resolved not to look away from the pavement.
    “What do they call you, Lily?”
    She took a breath and remembered what Jen had said at dinner. That she looked after people. “They call me handy to have around.”
    Noah’s rusty-sounding laugh filled the car. “Well, you are that.”
    His deep chuckle wrapped around her. Was he flirting? A lightness filled her body, something that felt an awful lot like happiness. Was Noah Laramie actually capable of flirting?
    “So which do you prefer, Noah? The pretty or the practical?”
    Dear Lord, she’d gone and flirted back! What was wrongwith her? When he was around she seemed to forget her common sense.
    The air in the car grew heavy as the question settled. The smile slid from Noah’s lips. “I didn’t think the two had to be mutually exclusive. And what difference does it make which I prefer?”
    “It doesn’t,” she answered quickly, but the words came out clipped. It couldn’t make a difference. They were just friends for the time being. She certainly wasn’t fishing for more.
    But Noah’s gaze bored into her, seeing far too much. She felt him shift in his seat so he was partially facing her. “It’s perfectly allowable to be both, you know. There’s nothing wrong with it.”
    The breath she’d been holding came out in a wisp and she tried to smile. She didn’t want to be judged on her looks, yet knowing he found her attractive sent an expansive warmth through her. “Thank you, then, for the compliment.”
    They drove on for a few minutes more before his voice broke the silence again.
    “Lily?”
    “Hmm?”
    “What do you want me to see when I look at you?”
    Her hands grew slippery on the steering wheel. What did she want from Noah? The answer came back swiftly: nothing. She did not want to get personally involved with him. Friendship was far enough. She thought he was a good person in a difficult situation. But anything more…not again. She’d keep her life ordered and complication free, thank you.
    “Your future sister-in-law’s best friend,” she replied, reaching over and turning up the radio.
    She heard him chuckle beside her, and it made her curious. “What?”
    He leaned his head back against the back of the seat and closed his eyes. “If nothing else, you keep things interesting.”
    The weight that had seemed to hover over the conversationdissipated like a fine mist. She couldn’t help the smile that curved her lips