One Texas Cowboy Too Many (Burnt Boot, Texas #3)(50)

She smiled, and he held his breath.

“I can’t do that. Burnt Boot is my home, but I wish I’d been born a Cleary instead of a Brennan.”

“Then you would have grown up in a bar or a general store.” Rhett pulled his hand free from under hers and laced their fingers together. Her hand was so small and delicate that his dwarfed it, but her fingers felt so right curled between his.

“Either one would have been better than River Bend with all the secrecy and plotting and feuding.”

“Did you get anything settled about your mother?” he asked.

She shook her head slowly. “I’m planning to talk to my dad about that tomorrow.”

“Is Leah or Eve going to talk to him?”

Leah squeezed his hand. “Both.”

“Then I’m glad I’m not your dad. You and Eve together will be a formidable force.”

“You think?”

“No, ma’am. I know.” He smiled. “Underneath all that sweet is a core of steel.”

“You keep telling me that, I might start believing you.” She squeezed his hand.

“You don’t have to do what everyone expects of you. You can get out the machete and make a path right off of River Bend if you want to,” Rhett whispered.

Her laughter was as soft as butterfly wings. “You are the only person on the face of this great green earth who believes that.”

“Then everyone else on this great green earth is crazy.” He laughed with her.

“I should go. You are tired and morning comes early for ranchers.”

“Where’s your truck?”

“At the store parking lot. I walked from there.”

“I’ll drive you if you don’t mind dog hair on the seat. I’d offer to take you on the motorcycle, but it’s so noisy, it would wake up Sawyer and Jill.”

She stood up. “I don’t mind dog hair and I’d love a ride.”

When they walked off the porch, hand in hand, he noticed that she was wearing cutoff jean shorts, cowboy boots, and a Western shirt that hung over her shorts. She looked like she was about to stroll onto a country music video set.

“You take my breath away,” he mumbled.

“Ditto.”

“But I’m dirty and sweaty and…”

“Sexy as hell,” she finished for him.

“In that case,” he said as he settled her into the passenger seat of the old truck. He tipped her chin up with his knuckles and ran the palm of his other hand from her jawbone to her neck, where he splayed out his fingers in her blond hair. When his lips met hers in a searing kiss that sent all his senses spiraling up toward the moon, he knew he was falling for Leah. Tanner Gallagher could damn well step down, step aside, and get the hell out of Dodge, because Rhett O’Donnell would fight to the death for Leah Brennan.

“Don’t get out,” she said when they reached the store.

“I’m tired. I’m not dead.”

She scooted across the seat and cupped his face in her hands. “Rhett O’Donnell, one more kiss and Eve is going to take over my body forever. I have to be Leah for a little while longer to get things sorted out. Thank you for the ride, for being you, and for having faith in me.” She gently touched her lips to his and then quickly left the truck.

*

Leah awoke the next morning with a smile on her face. She reached for her phone and there were six messages from Rhett—short, sweet notes that she read through at least a dozen times before she slung her legs over the side of the bed, kissed the mimosas in the bud vase on her bedside table, and headed toward her bathroom.

Noises in the kitchen and dining room told her that dinner was being prepared when she started down the stairs at eleven thirty. Her father shot her a look and a quick nod toward the kitchen when she passed through the dining room.

“It’ll take some getting used to. I didn’t even know she wore fake hair,” Leah said quietly.

“No one did. She’s kept her hair fixed like that since I was a kid,” Russell whispered. “What’s got her in a stew is what Naomi has done with it.”

“Leah, you can set the table for eight, not six. Honey and Kinsey are still where they’re supposed to be.” Mavis’s voice carried into the dining room. “If you’d been with them, this would have never happened.”

“Now it’s my fault?” Leah raised her voice.

Mavis appeared in the doorway, eyes flashing and new, short haircut making her look like a different woman. “Yes, it’s your fault. If you hadn’t wanted to go to the store for a pound of bologna, it wouldn’t have happened. Now I’m humiliated, and Naomi has the upper hand, but not for long. I swear to God, she’ll regret saying that she scalped me.”

“I’m not even going to ask what you’re going to set in motion,” Leah said.

“Good. You’ve caused enough trouble. Ever since that damned Rhett O’Donnell showed up in town, you’ve been a different woman—defiant and willful.”

“And that’s bad? I guess I could start hanging out with Tanner Gallagher. He’s interested in me,” Leah said.

“You’re acting like your mother,” Mavis said, smarting off.

Russell raised a palm. “That’s enough. Don’t lay everything that’s happened in this feud on Leah’s shoulders.”