One Texas Cowboy Too Many (Burnt Boot, Texas #3)(90)

“Tell them we want to talk to them about the school board meeting.”

Rhett drove with one hand and held her hand with the other one. “I had a plan and it’s working out.”

“And that is?”

“I didn’t want to get married until I owned a ranch of my own, and tomorrow, it becomes officially mine.”

“I didn’t want to get married until I found my soul mate,” she said.

“Well, that was the center of my plan the whole time, and I did. Want to go to the church on the cycle on Thursday?”

“I’d love to.” She smiled.

*

On Tuesday night, Leah came into the house looking like the last rose of summer that a puppy had hoisted his leg on. She tossed her tote bag on one of the chairs in the living room and melted into a kitchen chair. “I graded all the papers before I left school so I would calm down and not absolutely come in here bitchin’,” she said.

Rhett left the kitchen where he’d been cooking supper and massaged her shoulders. “You muscles are so knotted up. Come into the bedroom, stretch out on the bed, and let me work on those shoulders.”

“Yes, sir. I will gladly obey. This has been the day from hell. Millie cried and Carrie cried, and that made all the other little girls weepy eyed most of the day. The Brennan girls can’t go to the Gallagher party, and they were so dramatic about it that we should put them on a reality show.”

“Clothing off except for underwear and then lie on your stomach,” he said.

She stripped out of a flowing gauze skirt in vibrant colors and a lime green knit shirt so fast that it was a blur. When she was lying facedown, he kicked off his boots and started to work on her toes first.

“Is that all that got you twisted up?” he asked.

“Oh, no. That’s barely the tip of the iceberg. Damian Gallagher doubled up his fist and threatened Lester Brennan, and believe me, that started a war as big as the shit war and the pig war combined. Brennan boys and Gallagher boys took sides and started one of those ultimate fight things right there in my classroom. I’d pull one off and tell him to go stand beside the bookcase, and before I could manhandle another one, the first one would already be back in the battle.”

Rhett chuckled as he moved up to her calves. “I’d like to have seen that one. My advice would have been to let them fight until they got tired and then punish the whole lot of them.”

“Oh, I punished them. Every one of them that were in the fight has to write one hundred sentences before class tomorrow. I imagine the Gallaghers and the Brennans both will bring that to the school board to add to my sin charges.”

Rhett brushed her hair away from her neck and blew on it to cool her down.

“God Almighty, Rhett. That is heating me up from the core, making me think about sex.”

He kissed her between the shoulder blades and unfastened her bra. “And that takes your mind off everything, right?”

“But I’m not through bitchin’,” she said.

“Bitch away, sweetheart,” he said.

“The sentence they have to write a hundred times is: I will not punch another child in the face, no matter what the reason, ever again at the Burnt Boot Public School, and I will talk to my teacher when I am angry instead of hitting another kid.”

“Good grief.” He laughed. “That’s a paragraph, not a sentence.”

“I tried to get more words into it but I was too mad to think,” she said.

“Is that all that happened?”

She sighed. “Wanda called me into her office to tell me about the school board meeting. She says that of the five members, three have been approached by the Gallaghers. I didn’t tell her we were solving the problem ourselves. I want Betsy Gallagher to be totally surprised.”

“The end?” he asked.

“Oh, no. We’re only about halfway through the iceberg. My mama sent me a message. She said that she heard I’d moved off River Bend, and when I was ready to talk, she’d meet me somewhere.”

His thumbs worked the knots from her shoulders and neck as he thought about that for a few seconds. “And how do you feel about that?”

“I want to talk to her. I really do, and I will, but not this week—maybe not even next week. This week, I’m planning a birthday party for Millie at school on Thursday and then I’m going straight to the church to put on my pretty dress and marry my soul mate. After that, I’ll talk to my mama.”

“Whatever you decide, I’ll support you, Leah.” He stopped massaging and took a T-shirt from one of his dresser drawers. “Supper is ready. Put this on and we’ll eat.”

“A man who cooks and massages. I’m one lucky woman.”

“Not as lucky as I am to have found you,” he said.

*

Thursday lasted three days past eternity. The boys turned in their papers with all their sentences, along with a few notes from Brennan parents saying that this was excessive punishment for fighting. The Gallaghers notes were much more colorful and promised that she’d be fired at the end of the year for picking on their children.

There is nothing like cupcakes and juice packs to make a kid forget all about fighting and punishments, and Millie beamed when everyone in the classroom sang happy birthday to her. Carrie stood beside her and sang the loudest of anyone, which gave Leah a ray of hope that someday the feud would end.