Read Marry Me, Cowboy (Copper Mountain Rodeo) for Free Online Page B

really okay?”
    Chet nodded, dabbed at his red eyes some more, and his red nose. “I’ve taken step one. Gotta work out step two. I’m not always going to feel this light and good about it, I know that. But I’m going to live the moment while I’m in it.”
    “We’re here for you, okay?” Jamie said.
    “You guys have been amazing,” Chet repeated.
    I haven’t, Tegan thought again.
    Outside, a few minutes later, Jamie muttered, “I need to get out of here. That was pretty...”
    “...intense,” she finished for him.
    “Yeah.”
    “Chet’s right. You were amazing.”
    He looked at her in surprise. “Well, I don’t know...”
    “I do.”
    He didn’t ask how she would have expected him to behave differently, or what she thought he’d done and said that was so good, and she was astonished at how grateful she was for that. She didn’t want to have to specify, spell it out.
    She was still too shocked, still combing through her own feelings. Chet had talked about honesty and lying to himself, and she wondered if she’d been remotely honest to herself about Jamie’s effect on her, these past few months.
    “Hell, I need to go for a ride,” he said, pressing the heels of his cowboy-hard hands against his eyes and then blowing out a huge breath. “Whew! Shoot, I really do. Just need to get away.”
    “You scratching out for today, then?”
    “Might. Depends. Saddle bronc’s not on till pretty late. It’s only nine, now. If I miss my events, I’m not going to swear about it. Won’t be surprised if Chet misses his, and there’s no team roping at this rodeo, so we won’t be letting each other down. I can get Dawson to be my hazer for the steer wrestling, if I have to.” He looked at her, then said in an almost hostile drawl, “Wanna come riding with me?”
    “Where? Here?” She gestured at the inadequate space that surrounded the rodeo ground. “You and me, Jamie?”
    “What, it’s that bad that I don’t talk about stuff? It’s that much of a deal-breaker? You wanna talk now? You wanna find a girlfriend and chatter about this?”
    “No. I absolutely do not!”
    “Didn’t think so,” he muttered.
    “Okay, you made your point about how much talking sometimes doesn’t help.”
    “So? Coming or not?” He was still looking at her. Dear lord, he had beautiful eyes. “Faro doesn’t like going out on his own.”
    “Depends where,” she said. “Not sure how much Shildara would take to the railroad tracks. Specially if a train came.”
    “We’ll load them up and head out to the ranch. Didn’t you hear me promise my Aunt Kate that I’d visit? But you have to change first.”
    “Oh, I do?”
    “I’m not having you on my family’s ranch dressed like a Las Vegas rodeo queen.”
    Tegan rolled her eyes, but saw his point. “Fair enough,” she said. “I warn you, I’m going to put on the oldest shirt I’ve got.”
     

 
     
    CHAPTER SIX
     
     
    Tegan was quieter than Jamie had ever seen her.
    She’d obeyed his order about changing her clothes, and had taken off the blingy belt, boots and shirt, and put on plain riding boots and a pale blue collared polo shirt with a Pony Club Association of New South Wales logo on the front and the words 2005 State Camp on the back, above a whole list of names grouped into categories - Dressage, Eventing. He found hers under the heading Mounted Games.
    She really had put on her oldest shirt. It seemed wrong that she looked so cute in it. It was faded and thin and hugged the lean curves of her figure. Yeah, those curves. The ones he’d had his hands all over last night in the dream, he remembered suddenly, all bare and warm and soft and wonderful.
    Hell, he needed a cold shower.
    They tracked Kara and Dean down at the coffee stand, still looking very smoky and happy about each other, and Tegan asked if taking the trailer was okay. Kara said yes but wanted to know why.
    “Jamie and I are going out to his family’s ranch. We’re taking the horses