Free Cowboy Heart (Historical Western Romance) (Longren Family series #3, Kitty and Lukes story) by Amelia Rose Page B

a boy on engineering that would see him down in the ground when even my uncles had chosen to leave that life behind."
                  He smiled at me, holding the reins loosely and letting the horses choose their own speed.  "Left school, actually.  Headed to Nevada briefly, didn't like that much, apologies, ma'am, but it was too dry."
                  I laughed.  "And this isn't?" I asked, waving a hand at the drought-ridden land around us.
                  "Not supposed to be."
                  He'd worked a couple ranches before finding Big Sky and said he liked the trail, being outside, working with cattle and the dogs, and being on horseback as often as not.
                  We drew into town then, into laughter and loud voices, singing from the saloons and music from the hotel where we were headed.  It seemed every person on the street knew Robert and greeted him, and I saw a lot of the ranch hands moving in and out of bars and restaurants, dancing in the street with women whose dress seemed a bit scandalous to me, showing too much skin and not covering quite enough. 
                  Robert escorted me in quickly and it wasn't until we were inside, finding a table and looking to see what was on offer for the evening, that I realized he hadn't asked anything about me.
                  The hotel didn't hold a candle to The Faro Queen, but it's possible I'm prejudiced, given it's the Longren's hotel.  The food was simple and hot and I didn't have to cook any of it, all of which I enjoyed. 
                  During the meal, Robert more than made up for any inattentiveness that had preceded the meal.  He asked me about Nevada and about my parents, listened with sympathy about the loss of my father, and I wisely didn't tell him a thing about Mr. Overton's plans to marry me off.
                  Having a man listen to every word should have caused me no end of fretting but, for once, I didn't trip over my words or forget my sentences halfway through.  I made him laugh a few times, telling him about my adventures and Sarah's, which probably wouldn't make it any easier for Sarah to tell the ranch hands what to do, but I liked the way his eyes shined when he laughed.
                  When the dishes were collected and the dancing started to the fiddles and the guitar player and one lone and somewhat lost looking girl with a flute, who everyone else instantly drowned out, I tried to resist.  I'm light on my feet running a race or climbing a foothill or scaling a cottonwood, but I'm heavy on everyone else's dancing.
                  Robert didn't take no for an answer, he simply stood, took my hand in the most courtly manner that set my heart spinning and my breath short, and took me out to the dance floor.
                  Where I spun like moonlight and swept into footwork I couldn't possibly have known; light as a feather and light on my own feet, never on his.  For the first time I could remember, since the days I'd been small enough to dance with my stocking-clad feet on my father's shoes, I enjoyed dancing and left the hotel breathless and flushed rather than tongue-tied and blushing.
                  Robert McLeod was handsome and charming and I had daydreamed about this night since the moment I'd first seen him, when I had no way of knowing such a night was even possible.
                  I didn't want that, though.  Did I?  So soon after Johnny, it truly felt like the path to another broken heart and I didn't have the spirit for it, or any more sisters to run to.
                  My steps off the dance floor as we left the hotel were far more cautious.
     
                  Redding's main street boasted grocers and a telegraph office, a feed store that was also the other grocer's, the hotel where we had dined and where people sometimes