Love Under Two Jessops by Cara Covington Page B

living.
    Chloe sat up. Then she turned and gave him a sweet, and far too brief, kiss. “Yeah, I’m ready to go. If y’all are interested, I could make dinner for us tonight.”
    Andrew got to his feet and lifted Chloe up. She got his message and kissed him, too.
    “How about if we help you make dinner?” Grant asked. “Think you’d like that?”
    Andrew had set her on her feet. She was such a tiny little thing, she barely came up to mid chest on them.
    Grant grinned because she got a little miffed anytime either he or his brother picked her up, but they really couldn’t resist. She’s just so damned cute .
    He also knew that she seemed to think she needed to lose weight. He wasn’t really sure how to handle that. He—and Andrew for that matter—thought she was perfect, just the way she was.
    They’d never really cottoned to skinny women who had hip bones sticking out. Chloe’s curves turned him on so damn much, swear to God he didn’t know sometimes how he managed not to come in his pants when she was near.
    He met her gaze, and the heat he felt must have shown. Chloe’s eyes brightened, and she licked her lips. Then she reached up, her touch delicate, and caressed his cheek. “Yes, I’d like that. I’d like that a lot.”
    If he wasn’t convinced the words would send her running away, he’d tell her right now how he really felt about her. A quick glance at his brother told him Andrew felt the same way.
    They’d have to put their heads together, he and Andrew, and see if they couldn’t come up with some way to speed up this whole courting process.
    He knew they had her body. But they wouldn’t be content until they had her heart and mind and soul, too.

Chapter 8
     
    It took him a little while to find just exactly the right spot.
    There were, these days, great swaths of land that belonged to either rich bastard individuals, or rich bastard corporations. The day of the family ranch, of the small-stake homestead was nearly done. But there were a few, and he had to be careful to avoid such a spread.
    The last thing he wanted to do was inflict loss or pain on an innocent, hardworking man or woman.
    He just needed to find a place that belonged to some soulless entity. Preferably, a piece of land that had belonged to a hardworking family and been stolen from them by the Goddamned banks and capitalists. That really wasn’t so hard to do, at all.
    Acre upon acre of ranching or farming land stretched out in all directions, land where houses were so few and far between anymore, that one could almost believe families had become extinct.
    For the most part, he thought, such a belief wasn’t so far from the truth. As far as he could see, ordinary families didn’t seem to matter the way they once did. Everything in this new century was about the almighty dollar. The only people who mattered were those whose sole purpose it was to amass great green gobs of cash.
    In their minds, ordinary Americans were just dirt under their feet.
    He recalled a day when neighbor helped neighbor simply because it was the right thing to do. There was a time when a man could count on the people around him, in his community, in his county, hell, in his state , to either lend him a hand or at least cut him some slack when the hard times hit.
    Folks used to be eager to help, because everyone had hard times now and again. A man would reach out and lift his neighbor up, help his neighbor out, because he never knew when he, himself, would need that lift up or that help. The Golden Rule used to mean something special.
    Now it just meant that the ones who had the most gold ruled, and to hell with everyone else. If you didn’t have mega cash in the bank, then you were nothing—just a body, just someone to do the menial work, but not someone who mattered—not someone who counted .
    If a man stumbled, if he had a few bad years, if, damn it all to hell , beyond his control the bottom fell out of everything, well, then he was on his own. A man