One Texas Cowboy Too Many (Burnt Boot, Texas #3)(79)

He sucked up a lungful of air like he was going to keep talking, but Leah put her fingers over his mouth. “I have no problem with you living across the hall from me, Rhett. And I love what you’ve done with the place. Thank you for the flowers in the living room. Anything else we should talk about?”

“Lots, but right now we have to get your things in the house before it rains. Then we have to go to Gainesville to buy groceries. We’ll make a list on the way.” He tipped her chin up for another kiss that glued her feet to the floor.

No, she didn’t mind him living across the hall or sharing the one bathroom in the house with him, but were they roommates, lovers, or had she moved in with him on a much higher plane?

He stacked the boxes against the wall in the living room and helped her hang all her clothing in the closet in her new room. She’d organize the closet later and unpack the boxes when she had time. Today, they had to concentrate on basics because tomorrow, Rhett would be still working at Fiddle Creek while learning what he could about his new ranch. She would be at school all day. They needed to be able to eat and go to bed in that order. While he drove, she took a pad and pen from her purse and started a list.

“I’ve written down sheets and pillows for two beds,” she said.

“Bath soap, towels, and a shower curtain, and maybe a rug to go in front of the tub,” he said.

She wrote that down and said, “Laundry soap, fabric softener, and spray starch.”

He nodded. “Ironing board and iron if you liked pressed clothes.”

She finally looked up and asked, “What else?”

“Food,” he said. “Do you know how to cook?”

“A little,” she said. “This reminds me of the list I made when I went to college.”

“Me too, only I like being thirty better than being eighteen. Besides, you’re prettier than my roommate was back then. He was a nerd who kept losing his glasses and accusing me of stealing them,” he said.

“Mine was a red-haired cheerleader who was seldom in our room. She liked to party and she liked the cowboys,” Leah said. “Paper plates for now?”

Rhett nodded. “But I want a real coffee mug.”

“Me too.” She made a note on the pad and turned the page.

“Leah,” he said seriously, “my eyes got opened really wide yesterday when I was on Wild Horse Ranch. I realized what you could have, what you deserve, and I don’t ever want to stand in your way if you and Tanner really have something in the past you have to settle. I’m not saying I’ll like it if the chips fall in his favor but hell, I’m not stupid. The Gallaghers are a force,” he said.

“And so are the Brennans, which is why I want to be away from them both before they swallow me up in their feuding and bigness.”

*

Rhett circled the parking lot in the small shopping plaza until he found a spot close to the barbecue place and snagged it. “I haven’t had supper. Have you?”

“No, I have not, and I’m starving. Is this a date?” If he said yes, it was a third date, and by damn, she was going to find out the story behind the horns and the tat.

“It can be. Why? Does magic happen on a third date?” He opened the door and rushed around to help her out.

“You have to tell me about the tat and the horns on your cycle, which reminds me—I didn’t see it or your new truck.”

“I can’t think of a better time for a third date than the night that we become roomies. The cycle is in the shed out back of our new place and the truck didn’t arrive today. It should be here by the end of the week, but Gladys is still letting me use the old work truck from Fiddle Creek as long as I’m working for them.” Rhett ushered her inside with his hand on the small of her back.

Since the dinner rush had already passed, they were seated quickly. Rhett ordered a pulled pork sandwich and Leah followed his lead, ordering the same thing only changing her drink to a diet cola rather than sweet tea.

“Now about those horns,” she said as they waited on their orders.

“I was going to be a bull rider. From the time I was too little to ride anything but an old tire hung from a tree on a rope, I was going to ride bulls. And I did, made a few dollars to sock away toward my ranch. Ever been to the Resistol Rodeo down near Dallas?”

She nodded. “Many times. Daddy and Declan love rodeos, and I got dragged along or tagged along, depending on my age and my mood.”

“I was twenty-two that summer and fresh out of college, full of piss and vinegar, and ready to get right into my rodeo career. I was practicing my bull riding on some of my cousin’s rodeo stock up at Ringgold. The bull I was on was a mean old devil, and I knew if I could stay on his back eight seconds, I was a shoo-in for the big tour that year. I climbed on his back, got the ropes right, and nodded for them to open the gate. He snorted and came out of the shoot like a bat out of hell. Three seconds in, he threw me into the dirt, came back around, caught me with those big horns, and threw me up in the air, then stomped me when I landed the second time,” he said.

“Good grief, Rhett! It’s a wonder you weren’t killed.”

“He busted me up pretty good, messed up my neck and several of my vertebrae, broke my wrist, and gave me a damn fine concussion. I was on the ground, unconscious, when he started at me again and my cousin Rye dropped him in his tracks.”