One Texas Cowboy Too Many (Burnt Boot, Texas #3)(27)

“Bring another shirt with you and you can change when we get there or wear one underneath and you can take off the long-sleeved one,” he said. “I missed seeing you tonight, Leah.”

She liked the way he said her name—she also liked the way he looked at her and the honesty in his smile when they were together. They didn’t have to talk over a secret phone even if her Granny disapproved, and she didn’t have to worry about whether she was a pawn in a Gallagher game.

“Me too,” she said. “See you tomorrow night then.”

“Six at the schoolhouse. It’s written on my heart.”

“That’s a pretty good pickup line.” She laughed.

“It’s not a line, Miz Brennan. It’s the truth. Can’t wait to see you.”

The call ended on that note. She slipped her phone back into her purse and picked up the one she’d thrown across the room. It was in two pieces with the battery pack and SIM card showing. She removed the card and tossed it in the trash can, then ripped the phone apart and threw it in behind it.

Tanner might always have a little corner of her heart, but she couldn’t make herself start something that she couldn’t finish.

*

Leah was super nervous the next night. She liked the reflection in the mirror a lot better with her hair down than she did with it slicked back. “But if it’s down, it’ll blow in my face and I’ll spend the whole ride trying to keep it out of my mouth.”

She twisted it up one more time and flipped an elastic holder around it before she slipped her feet down into a pair of cowboy boots and picked up her purse. The clock in the foyer rang out one time, which meant it was five thirty. As usual, she was ready fifteen minutes early, and she would have spent it in her room pacing if she’d known that her grandmother was sitting on the porch swing.

“Granny, it’s awful hot for you to be out here,” Leah said.

“Little hot weather is good for the heart. Come on over here and sit beside me. You don’t have to be at the school yard for another thirty minutes, which means you’ve got fifteen or twenty to spare right now,” Mavis said. “You think those jeans and shirt are tight enough?”

Leah sighed. Nothing was a secret in Burnt Boot. She might as well have crawled up on top of the bar with a megaphone and shouted that she was going for a ride on the back of Rhett O’Donnell’s motorcycle that evening. She crossed the porch in a few long strides, dropped her purse beside the swing, and sat down beside Mavis.

“I’m not going to change my mind about that man,” Mavis said.

Leah nodded. “Neither am I.”

“You’re leaving tomorrow for a week. Have you told him? And I do insist that you go on this trip, Leah! Honey and Kinsey have planned it for weeks.”

“I’m not changing my mind about going. I have not told Rhett, but I will before the evening is over.”

“I wish you would’ve had a rebellious streak when you were sixteen, like Honey and Kinsey did.”

“So do I,” Leah said.

“I stand by my word. This is the final night you get to see him and still live in my house.”

“Why? What’s the matter with Rhett?” Leah asked.

“I don’t like him. That’s reason enough,” Mavis said.

“No, Granny, it isn’t.”

“Child, sometimes an older person can see things clearer than a younger one. Why won’t you listen to me? You’ve always been so obedient and easy to get along with.”

Her words grated against Leah’s nerves. Good old, obedient Leah who did what she was told without any sass. Nice, easy Leah who never veered off the pathway that had been laid out for her. Sweet, little Leah who paid attention and made good grades. Smart Leah who had graduated valedictorian of both her high school class and her college class.

Maybe if she was a good girl, Granny wouldn’t see signs of Leah’s mother in her. That had been the ultimate goal her whole life: keeping Mavis from seeing Eden every time she looked at Leah. There were no pictures in the house, but from what Leah could remember of her mother, she’d been a short blond with light green eyes. In Leah’s mind, Eden had smelled good, looked pretty, and always read to her before she tucked her in with a kiss at night. Leah’d been four when Eden had left and never returned. She’d cried for her mother for weeks but her father, Russell, had read to her and tucked her in at night and kept saying that everything would be all right. And eventually, she’d stopped crying and life had gone on without her mother.

A faint memory surfaced as Leah sat on the swing with her grandmother that evening. It had to have been from right before her mother left River Bend, because it was on Leah’s fourth birthday. She was hiding under the dining room table with a piece of cake, licking the icing off her fingers. Mavis and Eden were only a few feet away, and they were arguing—again. Leah hated it when they yelled at each other, and she usually put her hands over her ears, but that evening, she had icing on her hands and it would get in her hair.

“I’m not leaving without my kids,” Eden said.

“You don’t have a choice. Russell should have never married you in the first place, but your children are Brennans, and they’ll stay on River Bend. You will be gone by morning.”

As hard as she tried, she couldn’t hold on to the memory to find out why her mother had had to leave the ranch.