One Texas Cowboy Too Many (Burnt Boot, Texas #3)(81)

“It might be next week or next month. You’ll get tired of slumming someday, but don’t wait too long.”

She wiped the kiss away with the back of her hand. “Forever doesn’t have a deadline, and I’m not slumming. I’m living my life the way I want to live it.”

“My forever has a deadline, and it’s Halloween, darlin’,” Tanner said.

“Why Halloween?” Rhett asked.

“That gives her a little more than two months to figure out that you can’t begin to give her what I can. She’ll get tired of living in poverty,” Tanner said.

He swaggered out of the café and blew her a kiss as he went out the door.

“Rhett, I’m so sorry.” Leah blushed.

“You have no reason to apologize. He’s rattling your cage and trying to keep the feud alive. Nothing much has happened in the past couple of weeks,” Rhett said. “If he can entice you away from Double Shot Ranch with a ring, then it would start some more crap. I got to admit, that was one honkin’ big-ass diamond.”

Leah rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. “Someday we’ll look back on this and think it’s funny, but right now I’m so angry I can’t even think about that day. I can’t imagine why you aren’t mad.”

“I wish you would have told him yes.” Rhett bit into his sandwich.

Leah slapped the table so hard that the salt and pepper shakers rattled together. “Why? So you’d be rid of me?”

“No, so I could watch that fool backpedal. He probably has that ring on a ninety-day deal. He’s put up the money for it with the deal that if you don’t say yes and he returns it, the jeweler will give him his money back. You are a pawn in the feud. I’m surprised that Mavis hasn’t shoved Declan or Quaid at Betsy to show Naomi she can play the same game,” Rhett said. “Hey, put beer on that list and maybe a bottle of Jack if we can hit a liquor store before they close.”

Leave it to a man to think about beer at a time like this. She picked up her drink and downed half of it before she came up for air. “I don’t want you to think that I’m measuring you or what you have by him and Wild Horse.”

“I don’t. I’m me and that’s all I am or ever will be. And believe me, even if I could afford a ring like that, I wouldn’t, because it’s not you, Leah. You aren’t a gaudy, flashy woman,” he said.

“What kind of woman am I?” she asked.

“My kind.” He grinned.





Chapter 25


The week went by in a blur. Rhett was up at five every morning, let Dammit out, peeked in on Leah, and wished they had more time together. For the next three hours, he and Dammit were outside, learning where everything was located on Double Shot until eight, when he drove to Fiddle Creek and worked until the afternoon. Then he came home long enough to take a quick shower, change clothes, and kiss Leah as she graded papers at the card table and go to the bar. By the time he got home at near midnight, she was sleeping.

Tempers were running as hot as the temperature outside on Saturday night. It had been days since it had rained. The last threat of it they’d even seen had been on Monday, when Leah had moved into the house. That storm had moved around them, and they hadn’t seen so much as a drop of rain. The thermometer didn’t drop below ninety that week, not even at night, and the days were triple digits.

Then there was the fact that the Gallaghers had not retaliated for the last stunt the Brennans pulled, and they were getting nowhere with getting Leah to move onto Wild Horse. Tension in the air at the bar that night said there was something underfoot, and Rhett hoped it wasn’t something to do with Leah.

“Hey,” Jill said when they had a lull in business, “I want you and Leah to know that I fussed at Aunt Polly for leaving y’all with nothing in the house but your bedroom furniture.”

“Know what she said?” Sawyer propped a hip on a tall stool beside the beer machine. “She said that y’all needed the experience of finding your own things, that it would make you closer and give you something to do and talk about. I told Jill we should go back to the bunkhouse and strip it down to nothing so we could do the same thing.”

“And I told him that we didn’t have time for that. I’m so glad this is our last barroom duty. Now we can concentrate on the ranch and store,” Jill said.

“Is it really? I thought we had one more week, or at least Monday night since Rosalie isn’t taking it until the first day in September,” Rhett said.

“No, she says it won’t be open Monday so she can take inventory, and then Tuesday night it’s all hers. I hear she’s got a daughter who’ll be doing relief work for her,” Sawyer said. “And I talked to our cousin Lawson, and he’ll be here by Wednesday evening. We’re going to miss you.”

“Lawson will do you a good job.” Rhett nodded.

“I know, but we’re going to miss you and Dammit,” Jill said. “The cats whined for the first three days he wasn’t there.”

“Get a dog.” Rhett grinned.

“We’ve got ranch dogs already,” Jill said.

“A ranch dog is different than a pet. They can be both, but you got to train them,” Rhett told her.

“Hey, we need two pitchers of beer and four cheeseburger baskets,” Tanner said.