The Trouble with Texas Cowboys (Burnt Boot, Texas #2)(21)

“Damn rotten Gallaghers. Lower than chicken shit. I swear they should be wiped off the face of the earth,” Mavis cussed as she strapped her seat belt. “Dammit to hell!” Mavis hit the dashboard hard enough to wince. “Now I’ll have a bruise on my hand, and that’s her fault too. Next time I see her outside of church, I’m going to scratch her old eyes out and feed them to the coyotes.”

Russell was huffing and puffing when Quaid finally pulled the two men apart and guided his father back to the truck. The grandson had taken his phone from his pocket and was making a call as they drove away.

Jill checked the clock on the dashboard. The whole thing hadn’t lasted fifteen minutes, but when it was going on, it seemed like a month. Maybe she should have kept right on driving to Wyoming or Montana instead of coming to Burnt Boot. There were ranches there that could always use help.

*

Betsy sat on one side of Sawyer with one of the Gallagher cousins, Eli, on Sawyer’s other side. Naomi Gallagher, the queen of the Gallagher clan, was on the other side of Betsy. It was easy to see where Betsy got her red hair and her spiciness. When she was seventy years old, she’d probably look and act just like Naomi. It wouldn’t surprise Sawyer if Betsy didn’t grow up to be the next Gallagher matriarch who carried the feud flag for the family.

The salad was crisp. The potato soup scrumptious. The steaks out-of-this-world tender. Then there was dessert, which was turtle cheesecake served with good dark coffee. He’d barely gotten the first bite into his mouth when Betsy’s hand slipped under the floor-length tablecloth and started at his knee and made a slow journey to his thigh.

He cut his eyes over at her to see that she had turned to say something to her grandmother. Evidently she caught him looking at her from her peripheral vision, because she gave his thigh a gentle squeeze and moved on up to start massaging what lay beneath his zipper.

He inhaled deeply, and she patted his thigh before she turned with a smile and whispered, “Just a taste of what is to come later when we take a tour of the ranch.”

The steak didn’t taste nearly as good after that as he tried desperately to think of an excuse to go home early. “Pardon me,” he said. “My phone is buzzing. I’m so sorry. I have the sound turned off, but…”

He removed the phone from his pocket and took a look at it. “I’m sorry, Betsy, but I have to take this. I’ll step outside. Y’all excuse me.”

Putting the phone to his ear, he laid the white linen napkin on the table and nodded a couple of times on his way through the door out onto the patio. “Yes, I’ll be right there,” he said in case anyone was watching and could read lips.

“What is it?” Betsy said so close behind him that he jumped.

“It’s Gladys. She’s gone to the hospital to be with Polly, and there’s a cow down having trouble. I need to go pull a calf. Sorry to cut this short,” he said.

“How’d she know that if she’s at the hospital?” Betsy asked.

“A kid on a four-wheeler called her. Don’t know who it was.”

“Well, darlin’, good things come to those who wait, and you are worth waiting for. Next weekend, we’ll give it another whirl.” Betsy plastered herself to his body, tangled her fist into his hair, and rolled up on her toes to kiss him. He’d never felt less passion, heat, or feeling in a kiss before in his entire life. It was more like his mouth had been attacked than kissed.

“I’m not making promises for anything,” he said when he could break away. “What with Gladys and Polly both busy, Jill and I are going to have our hands full. Give my apologies to your grandmother for leaving early, and I’ll see you around,” he said as he made a hasty retreat to his truck.

A couple of men waved him through the cattle guard, and he could have sworn he saw a redhead in the back of a truck barreling down the highway at breakneck speed on his way back to the main road. But Betsy was in the house with her family, and there was no way Jill Cleary would be headed for Wild Horse.

*

Quaid drove right up in front of the bunkhouse, held the truck door open for her, and walked her up to the porch.

“Again, I’m sorry for all this,” he said.

“Not a problem. Stuff happens in all families,” she said.

She had two hours to change clothes and get ready for supper on the Gallagher side of Fiddle Creek. What she really wanted was a long, long nap and a big thick book to read until she fell asleep, but a promise was a promise. And once she’d done her duty at Wild Horse, then she’d never set foot on either ranch again.

He removed his hat and held it in one hand while he ran the back of his other one down her cheek from temple to chin. “I want to spend more time with you, Jill. Next time we’ll take a drive around all of River Bend, and I’ll show you where Kinsey and I call home. We’ll steer clear of the feuding business.”

His green eyes went all soft and dreamy. She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue a moment before the kiss. It was a good kiss, a man’s kiss who’d honed his craft to an art; one that left no doubt that Declan wasn’t the only black sheep on River Bend. One hand had tangled itself into her hair for leverage. The other had slid down below belt level on her slim-cut denim skirt to cup her butt. Her hormones should have been humming, but there wasn’t a peep out of them.