Read Online Tycoon's Tryst (Culpepper Cowboys Book 10) by Merry Farmer, Culpepper Cowboys - Free Book Online Page B

of Rachel’s hair as it wound around the iron. “Unless you consider the Culpepper brothers to be royalty, because it was their great-great-grand-daddy, or someone, who gave their name to the town.” She tipped her head to the side. “So maybe the O’Donnell brothers are just knights in shining armor.”
    Rachel couldn’t help but smile. She liked Denise. There was something hesitant, almost tragic about her, as if she’d gone through a lot of changes in her life recently and was still getting used to it all.
    “Doc O’Donnell rescued me just last-last month,” Denise went on.
    “Oh?” Rachel would have sat straighter, but Denise slipped the iron out of her curl and began piling and pinning curls on the top of her head.
    “Yeah. Okay, well, here’s the scoop. I haven’t always had the best judgement about people, you could say. And…” She hesitated, her face going red as a tomato. “Well, anyone you run into in town will tell you that I…I haven’t always been the nicest. It’s a long story that began in high school with me getting knocked up and ditched by a jerk.”
    “Sorry to hear that.” She was. It sucked to have men jerk you around, whether they were some guy you were dating or your own father.
    “I wouldn’t trade my daughter Destiny for the world. She’s so much better than me.” Denise stopped and lowered her arms, pins in her hands, and looked up at the ceiling. “I am a good person, I am worthy, I am lovable, and can do great things,” she murmured, as if reciting a mantra given to her by a counselor. She then shook her head and went on. “There was this guy in town around the Fourth of July for the horse race. He asked me out, and I was flattered. Then he tried to get fresh with me.”
    “Fresh?” Rachel cocked an eyebrow.
    “As a daisy,” Denise answered in a flat voice, meeting Rachel’s eyes in the mirror. “Something bad could have happened, but Doc came along and put a stop to it. Sly was really nice to me too after that whole thing. And the other brother, Arch. They’re all pretty dreamy.”
    “Yeah, I guess so.” Twisting ropes of snakes slithered through her insides. Was she really marrying some guy on a whim?
    No, not on a whim, she reminded herself. So that she could save Korpanty Enterprises. Sly said he was willing to do just about anything for his family and his hometown, well, she didn’t have family worth shaking a stick at, and she didn’t have a hometown, not really. But she had her company, and Korpanty Enterprises had her undying loyalty. So much so that here she was about to marry for money.
    And she was about to get a family as part of the deal.
    Denise fixed a few more curls into place, then playfully swatted Rachel’s shoulder. “Come on, it’s not as bad as all that. Sly is a hunk. And everyone around here gets married fast. It’s sort of become that thing we do. I doubt any of those Culpepper wives knew with absolute certainty what they were getting themselves into when they walked down the aisle.”
    It shouldn’t have, but those words made Rachel feel better. “You’re right. People have gotten married for far stupider ideas.”
    “Like love,” Denise snorted.
    Rachel actually found herself laughing along with the woman. Marrying Sly might mean more than just getting the money to buy our Bev’s half of the company. It might mean spending serious time in Culpepper. If she did, she thought Denise might just be the kind of woman she wanted for a friend. She’d certainly get Denise to do her hair from then on. As Denise sprayed the living daylights out of her do, Rachel turned from side to side to study the woman’s work.
    “That looks amazing!”
    Elvie O’Donnell took the words right out of Rachel’s mouth as she rushed into the prep room. Elvie wore a nice dress herself and had her dark hair up in a cascade of curls on top of her head. She carried two bouquets, bringing one over to Rachel.
    As soon as Denise was finished, Rachel