One Texas Cowboy Too Many (Burnt Boot, Texas #3)(11)

Then she located Rhett, and his green eyes captured hers. He winked. Did that mean he was entering the Sadie Hawkins race? What would Granny Mavis say if Leah chased him down and brought him home?

She blinked and looked up at the preacher, who was telling them about the old-fashioned ice cream supper that would begin at five at the church and the fireworks that would end the day at dusk. Everyone was encouraged to bring a cake, a pie, or their favorite kind of homemade ice cream. She smiled as she imagined grabbing his ponytail to bring him down in the Sadie Hawkins race and then dragging him back to the ice cream social.

The race didn’t mean that the guy she caught had to marry her like it did in the comic strip from the fifties. It did mean that she had to take him to dinner after church on Sunday. Her head started spinning, thinking about a date with Rhett O’Donnell.

I need to go fishing and clear my mind, she thought. I’ve always been in love with Tanner, and now Rhett is in the picture. I had trouble handling one secret cowboy. Two is one cowboy too many.

Mavis grabbed her arm on the way out of the church and said, “I hear you were flirting with that wild cowboy that Gladys hired down at the bar last night.”

Leah set her mouth in a firm line. “Oh, really? Did the little bird that told you that also tell you that she got drunk and took a man home with her that she met last night?”

“I’m not talking to that little bird. I’m talking to you, Leah Brennan. I’ve got better things in mind for you than to get involved with a hired hand over on Fiddle Creek.”

“And what is that, Granny?” They moved down the aisle toward the door to shake the preacher’s hand before they went back to River Bend for a big family dinner.

“I’m grooming you to run River Bend,” Mavis whispered. “You’ve always known that you’re the kind of woman who will have to run the ranch when I’m gone.”

Leah draped an arm around Mavis’s shoulders. “Granny, darlin’, you are going to live to be a hundred. Besides, you’ve always told us that Saint Peter doesn’t want you and the devil is afraid of you, so there’s no way either party is going to let you die.”

Mavis laughed. “Don’t try to change the subject, Leah. I may be old, but I’m not stupid. I won’t have you ruining your life with that wild cowboy.”

“But it’s my life, Granny.”

“Yes, it is, but you live in my house.”

Leah bristled. “Is that an ultimatum?”

“It is what it is. I’ve never put any restrictions on you, but there’s no place for that drifter on River Bend, and if you take up with him, there won’t be a place for you either. So you better think long and hard about your decisions.”

“I’m almost thirty,” Leah said.

“And that’s old enough to know better.”

*

Leah changed from her church dress into a pair of cutoff jeans and her lucky T-shirt that fell down over her hips. She pulled her honey-blond ponytail through the hole in the back of a River Bend ball cap and stomped her bare feet down into her oldest cowboy boots. Stopping by the kitchen, she loaded a small cooler with bottled water, sandwiches, one bright red apple, and a six-pack of beer. With the cooler and her fishing gear tied securely to the back of a four-wheeler, she headed out to the river for a long afternoon of watching a red-and-white bobber dance on the gentle waves of the Red River.

In places, the north edge of River Bend property was next to the Red River, so all she had to do was open a gate, drive through it, close it, and then drive right to her favorite spot. That’s where the big weeping willow tree was close enough to the water that she could sit under the shade, toss her line out, and wait for a catfish or a bass to bite the bait. That day, she was fishing with chunks of fake crabmeat that Gladys sold down at the general store.

She parked a few feet away and carried her cooler in one hand and her rod and reel in the other. When she parted the limbs to slip into the shade, there was Rhett O’Donnell under her shade tree, wearing cutoff jeans with a ragged edge about knee level, old scuffed-up boots, and a tank top that should have been tossed in the ragbag a year ago. Several hooks and lures were stuck into a straw hat that covered his eyes and he was smiling up at her.

She dropped her things a few feet from him and said, “This is my fishin’ spot. You need to find another one.” She’d go back to the four-wheeler for her tackle box and bait, but first she had to make him move either up or down the river. That shade tree belonged to her.

Rhett pushed his hat to the back of his head. “You’re from River Bend, right?”

She nodded.

“If you will notice, ma’am, this willow tree is right below Fiddle Creek property and a good fifty yards from the River Bend property line. And I do not see a ‘Do Not Trespass’ sign hanging in this tree or a deed to it in your name either. Bein’ as how I am a gentleman and I wouldn’t mind havin’ a fishin’ partner this afternoon, I will share this tree with you, but I will not leave it.”

God works in mysterious ways, she thought as she whipped around and went back for the rest of her gear.

“They ain’t bitin’ right now, but that’s not to say they won’t later on,” he said when she set the tackle box down and opened it. “What are you usin’ for bait?”

“Fake crabmeat from the general store,” she said.