The Texan Way by Diana Palmer

Author:Diana Palmer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2022-05-30T15:26:49+00:00

CHAPTER ONE

THERE WAS A muffled crash from the living room and Tom Walker let out a weary sigh as he turned from unpacking the few small kitchen appliances that had come with him from Houston.

“Moose!” he grumbled. He got up from the floor and left the box sitting to see what latest disaster his pet had caused.

It had all started with a rainstorm and a tiny, frightened little ball of fur hiding under a metal mailbox in downtown Houston. Somebody had abandoned the puppy and Tom had been unable to leave it there on the side of a busy street. But the act of compassion had repercussions. Big ones. The tiny puppy had grown into a gorgeous but enormous German shepherd mix whom he had named Shep, but who was later rechristened Moose.

As he stood watching the huge animal settle himself among the remains of a once-elegant antique bowl on the big coffee table, he reflected that the new name was appropriate. It was like having a moose in the house.

“Kate will never forgive you,” he said pointedly, remembering how happy his sister had been when, newly married, she had given him the bowl as a Christmas gift. “That was a Christmas present. It was handmade by a famous Native American potter!”

“Woof,” Moose replied in his deep dog voice, and grinned at him.

The vet had said that Moose was still going through his puppy stage.

“Will he outgrow it?” Tom had asked plaintively, having taken the big dog to the vet after Moose had gone swimming in a neighbor’s outdoor goldfish pond.

“Sure!” the vet had assured him, and just as Tom began to sigh with relief, he added with a wicked grin, “Four, five years from now, he’ll calm right down!”

Resigned, he took the big dog back home and hoped he could adapt to living among pottery shards and disemboweled furniture for the next few years of his life.

One of his neighbors had offered to buy Moose who, while a walking disaster, was absolutely beautiful, with a black coat of fur that shone like coal in sunlight, and stark white markings with medium brown eyebrows and facial markings.

Tom had replied that he liked the man too much to sell Moose to him.

He gave the coffee table one last look, shook his head and went into the kitchen to make coffee. Just as he started the coffeemaker, he heard a crunching noise and turned to find that while he’d been occupied with coffee, Moose had overturned the kitchen trash can and spread the contents all over the linoleum floor. He was munching contentedly on an apple core amidst coffee grounds, banana peels and empty TV dinner cartons.

“Oh, Lord,” Tom prayed silently. He took the apple core away, set the trash can upright and went to find a broom. What a good thing that he wasn’t entertaining thoughts of marriage. No woman in her right mind would put up with his canine companion.

He was thirty-four. He should have been long-since married, but he

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