Read Part Time Cowboy (Copper Ridge Book 1) for Free Online Page A

told him. “Just to check everything over. You want to meet me back at the barn?”
    “Yeah, sure.”
    Eli mounted his horse again and rode back toward the barn. One of the ranch hands, a high school kid Connor had hired to help with menial stuff, looked up from mucking stalls as he entered.
    “Hey, Mike,” Eli said. “Mind taking care of Sable for me?” He got off the horse and patted her neck.
    “Got her,” Mike said.
    “Great, thanks.” Eli walked around the barn, Connor’s most prized acquisition. They’d poured all the money from their father’s life insurance settlement into it.
    Eli braced one hand on the solid wood wall, arching backward. Damn. He had a hitch in his back. He was too young to get old.
    And he had to work a shift for the force in the morning, which meant he didn’t have time to be sore. Double duty was a bitch. But he couldn’t ever give up either job.
    Connor lived and breathed the ranch, but Eli appreciated the break.
    Because, when it came right down to it, he’d rather chase bad guys than be chased by a damned cow.
    Though, being sheriff potentially meant doing a lot more paper pushing, and a bit less bad-guy chasing. But it also meant the chance to effect some good change in the county. Sure, some of it was down to the fact that he was a control freak, and the chance to take total control of the filing system was almost irresistible, and some of it was even ambition, but mainly he wanted to be sheriff because he loved Copper Ridge and the surrounding areas. And serving in law enforcement was the best way he could think of to show that love.
    He heard a loud crash, followed by several more crashes and a shrill curse word. He started toward the noise without even thinking, because that was what he did. If there was something wrong, he went toward it, not away from it.
    He walked down the path toward the din. Toward the Catalog House. And he already knew that whatever he was going to find there was going to make him very, very grumpy.
    When he came through the trees he saw her, across the driveway in front of Kate’s truck. Sadie was standing at the end of it, holding a bundle of crown molding or trim of some kind that had to be ten feet long at least. And in front of the tailgate, down by her feet, were various pieces of hardware and what had probably been a light fixture before it had met an untimely demise on the gravel driveway.
    And here was the distraction he just didn’t need.
    “What are you doing?” he asked.
    “Oh.” Her head whipped up, her blue eyes wide for a moment, before they narrowed, her expression turning into a scowl. “You have to stop sneaking up on me. I’ve been in town less than twenty-four hours and I think you’ve scared a grand total of twenty-five minutes off my life.”
    “Somehow I think you’ll be fine without them.”
    “Says you. That’s an entire sitcom’s worth of life you just cost me. Now my plans of watching one final episode of
Friends
before I go to meet my maker are completely dashed.”
    “Do you need help?” he asked patiently.
    “Do you ever laugh? Because that was funny.”
    “Rarely. Not as rarely as my brother. But rarely.”
    “Maybe it’s a male Garrett thing. Your sister is more fun than you are.”
    “So much fun that you stole her truck? Are you already adding to your list of felonies?” Eli asked, making his way over to the truck and surveying the small disaster around Sadie’s feet.
    “You of all people should know I was never charged with a felony, Deputy Pedantic, so let’s not be dramatic.”
    “Just looking out for my sister.” And he meant it. Because Kate was too sweet. Too trusting. And Sadie was someone he couldn’t predict. The combination made him nervous.
    “Kate stopped by and offered her pickup truck. Because she’s very, very nice.”
    “Too nice,” he said, still looking over the items that had spilled out onto the ground. “And you figured you’d unload this all by