Read Loving You: A Cowboy Romance (Texas Hill Country Romance Book 1) for Free Online Page B

depressing the clutch and getting used to the sounds.
    “Okay, you ready?”
    “Yes,” she said as she shook her head no.
    He laughed. “Relax, you’ll be fine.”
    “Okay, here goes. Please don’t stall, please don’t stall, please don’t stall,” she repeated over and over as she started it up.
    Boom, she stalled.
    “Ugh,” she said and looked to Cord with puppy dog eyes and a pout.
    Cord laughed, shaking his head.
    “Let’s try that again. This time try balancing a light downward pressure on the accelerator while slowly releasing pressure on the clutch pedal.”
    She nodded.
    He watched her concentrate. She looked so cute biting her lower lip.               
    She started it up again and was moving. She looked at him in surprise and smiled.
    He slowly guided her through the shifts.
    When they were on open road and she was comfortable, she said to him with a wicked smile. “Let’s see what this baby can do.”
    “Go for it,” he said. And she took off.
    “She drove doing 65 – 75 and on a curve she glanced over at Cord with a smile.
    “Are you holding the ‘Oh Shit’ handle?” She looked up over the door where his hand was holding the handle.
    He followed her eyes and laughed. “Hah, you call it that, too. I thought it was a country thing.”
    “Nope.” She looked in the rear view mirror. “Shit, there’s a cop behind us.”
    He turned to see the lights of the squad car on.
    “Slow down,” he told her.
    And that was where she panicked.
    “I don’t know how.” She sounded distressed. “What do I do, how do I do it?”
    The cop used his loud speaker. “Pull over, now,” he said.
    Cord calmly talked her through stopping.
    The cop came over to the Annie’s side of the car.
    “License, registration, insurance,” the cop demanded without bending down to see her, so all Annie saw was his mid section.
    She looked through her wallet for her license and Cord rummaged through the glove box for the insurance and registration.
    The cop continued, “Do you know I clocked you going 75 in a 50.”
    “Oh, um, I’m really sorry, sir-”
    “Hey, Jimmy,” Cord said as he handed the papers to him through Annie’s window.
    “Cord McCreedy, that you?” asked the cop, who bent down to see Cord sitting in the passenger seat, and for the first time got a look at Annie.
    “Yep.”
    “It looked like your car, but it being a week night, I thought, nah, couldn’t be.”
    “Are you kidding me?” Annie turned to Cord and asked, laughing.
    Chuckling, he shrugged. “This is Annie. She’s the baker Joan hired at the B&B.”
    “Oh yeah, Calista’s friend from school. How you doing, sugar?” he asked in a typical southern drawl.
    She tried to give him her license as she said, “Good, thank you, sir.”
    He pushed the license back to her and said, “That’s fine, Annie, no need to see it. Just slow down a little. Wouldn’t want to give Cord a heart attack if a deer runs out in front of his car or something, now, would we?”
    “No sir. Thank you, I will.”
    Cord stuck his hand out her window and shook Jimmy’s hand. “Thanks, man,” he said as Jimmy shook it.
    “No problem. Just don’t mention it to Sheriff Landry or he’ll have my badge,” Jimmy said chuckling.
    “Not a word,” Cord replied.
    Jimmy walked back to his squad car and drove away.
     
    “Would the Sheriff really take his badge away?” Annie asked when they were alone.
    “Hell yeah. He’s Jimmy’s daddy and it wouldn’t be the first time he took Jimmy’s badge away,” Cord said as he opened the car door to go around to the driver’s side. “I’ll take it from here, darlin’.”
     
    They pulled into a little, out of the way, honky-tonk he liked. He decided not to go to Roxy’s for a while. Not that he expected those guys he and Rory fought with to be there. Roxy’s was their usual hangout and he never saw them there before. They most likely will never step foot in there again.
    Once out of the car,