One Texas Cowboy Too Many (Burnt Boot, Texas #3)(33)

“No, I can order room service,” Leah answered.

“And talk to Rhett while you eat it, right? Darlin’ Cousin, you are about to get into more shit than you did when the Gallaghers blew up the school.” Honey laughed.

Kinsey opened the door. “Did y’all know there’s a meeting tonight at River Bend? What do you bet something happens while we’re gone?”

“I’m not losing my money. I won’t wait up for either of you,” Leah answered.

She heard them laughing as they left. She’d already sent a text telling Rhett that they had arrived and settled in for the week. He’d replied that he’d be at the bar until closing but maybe they could Skype after he got home that evening.

Leah opened her email account to find one from Wanda at the Burnt Boot school informing her of the newest development. With the Brennans and the Gallaghers both entering the school, they’d decided to make it as fair as possible; they would put all the fourth-grade students’ names in a jar, shake it up, and draw out a child for each of the three teachers, repeating the process until all the names were gone. That way there could be no screaming from either feuding family that there had been discrimination.

She groaned when she got that news. “So I’ll be teaching both—probably doing less teaching than settling arguments among the boys and listening to the girls whine. I might need some of your sass, Eve.”

There was a message from her dad, telling her to have a good time and to be sure and take in at least one play, and more than a dozen emails from various sites where she’d bought school supplies. They were offering all kinds of discounts on bulletin board art, stickers, and crayons.

She deleted most of them and clicked over to her Facebook page. It was then that she got the bright idea of finding her mother. Lots of people did it that way. They made a sign and held it in front of them, and two weeks later, they posted that they’d found their sibling, their birth mother, their long-lost cousin, or sometimes even their cat.

Since she didn’t have a sign, she opted to type in “Eden Wright Brennan,” but nothing came up that resembled her mother, so she dropped the last name. An Eden Wright Massey flashed on the screen the minute she hit the button, and there was no denying that was her mother. Right there in front of her eyes—older but still with thick, blond hair and green eyes—was a picture of what Leah would look like when she was in her mid-fifties. On the left side, it said that she lived in Abilene, Texas, and that she was a high school English teacher. According to the profile, she was married, and from the pictures, Leah figured out that her mother must have lived on a ranch in some capacity, that she wore reading glasses, and that her husband still owned a motorcycle. There were no pictures of children or grandchildren. Did that mean Leah and Declan were her only kids?

“Wow! I wonder why I never even thought about searching for her before now,” Leah whispered. But she couldn’t make herself hit the message button—not yet, not until she had time to think about it.

*

An ill wind had blown in Burnt Boot all week, and when rumors spread like a Texas wildfire, the folks flocked to the bar. The parking lot was already half-full when Rhett opened the doors. It was well after nine when things slowed down enough that he could step outside for a minute and call Leah.

“I’m so sorry that I’m just now calling,” he said. “But it’s crazy here. The Gallaghers are guarding Wild Horse twenty-four hours a day and plotting about something. The same with the Brennans. Something is about to blow even worse than the school did.”

“Good for business, isn’t it?” Leah said. “So no Skype tonight?”

“I don’t think so, but it’s sure good to hear your voice. Am I talking to Leah or Eve?” He chuckled.

“This would be Leah, but Eve did come out to play a while ago. I found my mother with a couple of clicks on the Internet,” she said.

“You didn’t know where she was?” Rhett asked.

“She left when I was four. I wondered about her a few times but knew better than to go investigating. Granny would have had a heart attack,” Leah said.

“She didn’t like her?” Rhett asked.

“That would be the understatement of the century,” Leah said.

“So what are you going to do about it now that you’re a grown woman?”

“Eve wants me to send her a private message, but I’m scared,” she answered.

Hearing her voice created delicious little quivers down in his insides. “Are you and Eve arguing? Who’s winning?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Tell me about your mama. How old were you when she left?”

“I’ve only got a few clear memories. One is of her and Granny fighting, but the others are good ones. I think I loved her very much. I asked Granny about her yesterday, and she told me her side of the story—Mama cheated on Daddy, and Granny paid her to leave without me and Declan. That’s the short story, anyway.”

“What’s your mama’s name?”

“Eden.”

He laughed out loud. “So that’s where you got the Eve. Very good choice of a name for this new woman you’ve found living in your body.”

“Thank you. I thought so,” she said.

“I could listen to your voice all night, darlin’. I love the softness of it, but I’d better get back inside. What’s on your agenda for tomorrow?” he asked.