Free Tall, Dark and Cowboy by Joanne Kennedy Page A

haven’t had a chance to help anyone.” Pam leaned forward, her expression earnest. “This is it—your chance to do good. You ought to go talk to Chase again.” The smile returned, dimpling her cheeks. “Plus, you and I could be friends. I always thought you were so pretty and cool.”
    Lacey looked down at the table. “I wasn’t a very nice person. If I was, we would have been friends back then.”
    “You were nice, though.” Pam sounded downright defensive, as if Lacey had insulted her best friend. “You were nice to everybody. Half of us girls wanted to hate you, because you were so pretty, but you were sweet.” She cocked her head and met Lacey’s eyes. “You still are. I can tell.”
    “Thanks.” A rush of gratitude relaxed Lacey’s shoulders and cleared her head. It felt good to talk to someone real about real things. Most of her friends back in Tennessee had been “ladies who lunched,” and their conversations were endless rounds of one-upmanship revolving around topics like who had dropped the most money at the boutiques in Memphis, whose kid had made the lacrosse team at the local private school, and who had paid the most for a haircut, color, and highlights. Lacey bought most of her clothes online because Trent didn’t like her to drive into the city, and for some reason they hadn’t had any kids, so those discussions were actually kind of painful. And she was perfectly happy with the reddish glints in her natural brown hair, so hair color was out as a topic of conversation.
    But she felt like she could talk to Pam about anything.
    “Stick around,” Pam said. “You might like it here. And besides, Chase needs you.”
    Lacey gave her a rueful smile. “He doesn’t need me. Not anymore. I needed him.”
    “And he let you down, didn’t he?”
    Lacey shrugged. “He’s mad. I don’t blame him.”
    “Good.” Pam rocked to her feet and shoved the order pad in her pocket as if sheathing her sword. “Then give him another chance.”

Chapter 9
    Lacey turned to the window as Pam headed back to the kitchen, watching as Chase paced the rows of pickups, polishing a fender here, wiping a windshield there. He was wearing cowboy boots and a pair of beat-up Wranglers that stretched taut over his behind as he shoved the rag in his back pocket and climbed the steps to the trailer. Instead of yesterday’s snap-button shirt, he was wearing a light blue T-shirt with a bucking horse kicking up its heels on the back. She squinted. District Ten Rodeo read the lettering under the picture.
    She’d never been to the rodeo back in Conway. It just wasn’t something the cool kids did. Except for confirmed hicks like Chase, everybody she knew back home wanted to shed Tennessee’s redneck cowboy image and be cosmopolitan. A few people wore cowboy hats, but it was a Nashville thing—an act. She’d always preferred the guys who wore football helmets.
    But looking at Chase now, she decided being a cowboy wasn’t such a bad thing. She couldn’t remember his shoulders being that broad, and the muscles that flexed under his shirt as he opened the trailer door were definitely a new development. She wondered again what he’d look like with that shirt stripped off.
    I think you could help him , Pam had said.
    Yeah, right. She could help him. Help him right out of his clothes.
    Oh, Lord. What was happening to her? She’d never been this sex-crazed when she was married. Bedding Trent had been a duty, not a pleasure. He was a good-looking man, but he grunted and closed his eyes once things got under way, absorbed in his own pleasure. He took what he wanted and was so intent on getting it, she suspected it didn’t really matter who was naked in his bed so long as she was female and cooperative. The only time he actually wanted Lacey was when he could show her off to someone else.
    “Hon?”
    Lacey flicked her gaze to Pam, who stood over her with a plate bearing breakfast.
    “Sorry. Daydreaming.”
    Pam gave her a