Free Fox, Morgan - Discovering Temptation [Texas Stallions 1] (Siren Publishing Allure) by Morgan Fox Page A

the act.
    “I’m glad. I realized after you left the kitchen last night that you never did get anything to eat.”
    She shrugged her shoulders, not caring that she’d gone to bed so hungry. She was making up for that now. Cooper chuckled.
    “All right, well, while you enjoy your breakfast, I’m going to stroll through these books.” Cooper opened up the last few pages and noticed that the numbers were not adding up correctly. Then he began sorting through the stacks of invoices matching things up.
    She watched him as she finished her breakfast. His eyes scanned the pages quickly, bouncing from the journal, making notes as he went along. His studious appearance was simply arousing. What she wouldn’t give to have a brain that could do math as quickly as his seemed to be doing. She couldn’t manage her own checkbook, let alone the finances for a thousand-acre ranch.
    Finally, he gazed up at her. “Your father’s records are really not that bad. He was good enough to keep everything together, and even though he didn’t enter them here”—he pointed at the journal—“he still kept the invoices together. He left you pretty well off, considering.”
    “Of course he left her well off,” Sophia chimed in from the kitchen. “Duke loved his little girl. He wouldn’t leave her to maintain this ranch without a little financial help.” She leaned around the corner and winked at Abby.
    Abby dropped her fork on her plate. “Sophia, did my father talk about me?”
    “All the time, my dear,” she said with a smile. “He wanted so badly for you to join him on the ranch, but each time he tried to call you or send you a letter, your mother would either hang up on him or return his letters unopened.” Sophia sighed. “Your mother desperately tried to keep you away from Duke. It broke his heart that he couldn’t have you close.”
    “Why didn’t he just come to Dallas to see me?”
    “He did. Your mother said you were away at some camp each time he made the trip up to see you. She wouldn’t even let him in the house.”
    Yep, that sounds like my mother. Even knowing that her mother was guarding her so tightly, she just couldn’t imagine that her father wasn’t able to find a way to have seen her. “Did he not think about getting an attorney to fight her?”
    “Oh, he thought about that, too, but your mother was always one step ahead of him. She threatened to sue him for Paradise Ranch. When they were going through the motion of divorce, she wanted sole custody of you, but he wouldn’t agree to that. So, she threatened to sell off Paradise Ranch to the lowest bidder if he didn’t give her what she wanted. After a long, drawn-out legal battle with her, he agreed to give her custody of you, but only because he wanted to leave this place to you. He had hoped that once you got older and were no longer under your mothers stronghold…you’d come find him.”
    Abby’s eyes watered. “I didn’t think he wanted me.”
    Sophia stepped closer and knelt beside her. “Now that is simply not true. Your father loved you more then you’ll ever know.”
    Abby’s heart broke a little more over her father. She knew her mother was a troll of sorts, but she hated thinking that her father would’ve given her up so easily. Why hadn’t he fought harder? Why did Paradise Ranch mean more to him than she did?
    Sophia rose and moved over to a dark-brown chest in the living room. She hoisted up a box, opened it, and pulled out a stack of letters that were bound by twine. Sophia placed the box and stack in front of Abby. Her eyes swelled at the number of letters addressed to her. Each postmarked letter had “return to sender” written in big block letters.
    “Your father wrote you weekly for nine years, and if he hadn’t gotten sick, I’m sure he would’ve continued. Everything you ever want to know about your father is in those letters.”
    Abby’s heart squeezed in her chest as she stared at the letters written in her