One Texas Cowboy Too Many (Burnt Boot, Texas #3)(70)

“Then I’ll build you a house anywhere you want on the ranch.”

“That’s it. I don’t want a place on the ranch. I want outside of it so I can breathe. This place is smothering me to death. I’m going to talk to Polly tomorrow evening about renting her house. She’s not living there, and if she won’t rent to me, then I’ll live in Gainesville and commute to work.”

Mavis stomped her foot, but it didn’t make much noise. “I forbid it. If you move away, you’ll fall into bed with Rhett, and I won’t have it.”

Leah stood up and stretched. “Daddy, you will come see me often, won’t you?”

“Yes, I will, and you know you can always come home if you change your mind,” Russell said.

She dropped a kiss on top of his dark hair and hurried up the stairs to call Rhett.

Mavis called after her, “Leah, you better rethink this. It’s a bad decision.”

Leah’s phone was ringing when she reached her bedroom, and she raced across the floor, grabbed it, and said, “Hello.”

“Hey,” Honey said. “What in the hell happened today? I want to hear your story about how in the devil Tanner caught you.”

“Easy. He knew where I was meeting Rhett. Betsy caught him by putting goat head stickers on the pathway, and Tanner waited for me in the barn, stole my cuffs, and the next thing I knew, we were together,” Leah said. “I told Granny I’m moving out on Monday. I’m going to see if Polly will rent her house to me.”

“You can live with me, or with Kinsey and Quaid.”

“I want to be totally away from River Bend,” Leah said.

“Granny will fight you tooth, nail, hair, and eyeball. Get ready for it. She’ll cut you off completely.”

“I’ll be okay, Honey. I’ve got a savings account from my teaching, and my first paycheck from the public school will come in September.”

“It won’t be pretty. You’d better think long and hard about it,” Honey said seriously.

“Want to help me pack tomorrow afternoon?”

“Hell no! I’m not even going to sit beside you in church tomorrow or she might throw me off River Bend right behind you,” Honey answered.

Leah shifted the phone to her other ear. “Some cousin and friend you are. I’ve got a beep. It might be Rhett. I’ll talk to you later.”

She switched over to the next caller to hear Kinsey’s voice. “Granny called and she’s hotter than she was when the Gallaghers blew up our school. I’m supposed to talk you out of what you’re fixing to do. Come live with me until this blows over. You know you are welcome here.”

“I want off the ranch, not in a different place on it,” Leah said.

“Good luck, darlin’. She’s going to roast you before this is over. Who would have thought you would be the one to cross her?”

“Daddy offered to build me a house of my own. He told me that he’d come see me if I did move away, and I don’t think Declan will disown me. It’s her loss if she wants to play hardball. Want to come help me pack tomorrow afternoon?”

“I’m not coming near the big house for a week, maybe a month. Besides, she says the only thing you get to take out of the house is your clothing and personal items. You don’t even get to remove your bedroom furniture like I did,” Kinsey said.

“She gave me that furniture for my sixteenth birthday.”

“And she’s takin’ it back from what she says. Got to go. Honey is calling,” Kinsey said.

Leah pushed end and dialed Rhett’s number, but nothing happened. She checked the phone to see if she needed to recharge, but a message floated across the black screen saying that the service had been disconnected.

She tossed the phone on the bed and wondered how in the world her grandmother had managed that in so short a time. Her first thought was to tattle to her father, but she stopped on the landing. She was an adult. She’d handle this on her own, without any help. There was a landline in the kitchen, one in the living room, and one in the office.

Somehow, she wasn’t surprised to see all three phones had been disconnected from the walls and removed. Her grandmother probably had them in bed with her to be sure that Leah couldn’t make a phone call that night.

“There is more than one way to skin a cat,” Leah mumbled as she took the steps two at a time. She grabbed her purse, stomped into the first pair of boots she found in her closet, and marched back down to the foyer. Planning to go over to Fiddle Creek even though it was midnight, she opened the garage door to find her truck gone.

Tears welled up in her eyes. Granny had given her that truck last year for her birthday. She’d driven her previous truck since she’d graduated from high school twelve years before, and her dad had declared that it had too many miles. This was beyond hardball. This was downright mean.

A paper fluttered on the otherwise spotless floor and she picked it up. A yellow sticky note informed her in Mavis’s tight, little handwriting that the truck title said River Bend Ranch on it, and since Leah was determined not to be a part of River Bend, then she wouldn’t be needing the truck.

Or your phone service, and you may no longer charge at the store, the note ended with a big M at the bottom. Not Granny but M for Mavis. She’d been disowned as an example to all the other grandchildren—don’t cross Granny, or you’ll be walking in Leah’s shoes.