The Trouble with Texas Cowboys (Burnt Boot, Texas #2)(65)

“Thank you,” Sawyer mouthed and went back to singing.

He was determined not to look at Jill’s lips or her eyes or those cute little freckles that makeup couldn’t quite cover, so he let his eyes drift on down. Big mistake!

The red sweater stretched across her chest and hugged her midriff to her waist. With no effort at all, he could visualize what was underneath that soft material. He blinked, but the picture didn’t fade, not even when he forced his gaze down farther to the slim denim skirt and boots. It grew more vivid when he thought of her bare feet dangling when she’d been thrown over his shoulder like a bag of chicken feed.

He shut his eyes and let his chin drop enough that Jill would think he was dozing, and replayed the night before in slow motion. Hindsight is twenty-twenty, and looking back, it wasn’t probably the best of ideas for them to have sex after knowing each other only a few weeks. But he’d be a complete jerk to tell her that they shouldn’t let it happen again because they worked together, because they were such good friends, because they lived in the same bunkhouse. Besides, he didn’t want to tell her that, because he wanted it to happen again, and the sooner the better.

In all of his thirty years, no one had ever made Sawyer feel the way Jill did. The chemistry was so hot and so real that it couldn’t be genuine. It might be a flash in the pan that would burn itself out quickly, but he didn’t want to miss a moment of the heat.

Jill shoved a knee against his, and he sat up straight, eyes wide open.

“Is it over?” he asked.

“No,” she whispered. “The preacher isn’t even winding down. I didn’t want you to start snoring.”

“Finn asked us all to dinner. Got a problem with that?”

She shook her head. “I’d love to spend the afternoon with them, long as we can go home in time to catch a nap.”

The preacher’s gaze started on the Brennan side of the church and moved across the center section to the Gallagher side. “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord!” He raised his voice as he leaned closer to the microphone.

“Amen,” an old-timer yelled from the back of the church.

“There comes a time to let go of the past and move toward a bright new future,” he whispered.

Finn’s newly adopted son Ricky asked a little too loud, “What’s wrong with him, Granny Verdie? Is he yelling to wake us all up and then talking all soft to make us pay attention?”

Verdie nodded. “Something like that.”

*

Jill clamped her teeth shut to stifle the giggle. Out of the mouths of babes, she thought. Those kids were so cute all lined up on the pew. Finn sat on the end with Callie next to him, and then the kids, starting with Martin and ending with Sally, who sat right beside Verdie. Looking at them, no one would ever believe they hadn’t been a family since the children were born.

Callie and Finn had to have big hearts to take on the raising of four children and to let Verdie move in with them too. Jill examined her own heart and came up short. She wanted kids, but she wanted them to be her own. She glanced up at Sawyer, who was smiling at the comment too. He’d make a wonderful father.

Whoa, woman! One night of wild sex doesn’t give you the right to start thinking about babies with him.

She made herself concentrate on the kids sitting in front of her. She’d been to enough church services also to recognize the preacher’s tactics, and she wouldn’t want to be up there behind that pulpit. No, sir! With a congregation split into three parts, it couldn’t be easy to attempt to unify them, not even with scripture. And especially not when the two major factions had refused his offer of help that week.

In an attempt to keep her carnal thoughts at bay, she glanced across the room toward the Gallaghers’ side to see Naomi staring straight past her. She followed Naomi’s gaze to Mavis, who was firing daggers across the church. Evidently God did not hold the copyright on vengeance.

“When we forgive others, it brings peace to our own lives as much as it gives them peace for their wrongdoings,” the preacher said.

Forgiveness was not anywhere in the near future. It would take a lot more than a strong Sunday morning sermon for that to happen.

As long as they didn’t mess with her or with Sawyer anymore, it wasn’t her problem, so she wasn’t going to worry about it.

*

Sawyer’s phone made a buzzing noise that said a text was coming through, but he ignored it. It was probably his sister, Martina. She and her family attended a church that started earlier and ended before the customary twelve o’clock.

He loved his family, even his bossy sister and overprotective brothers. He’d really like to take Jill to Comfort to meet them, but to drive that far and back in one day wouldn’t work. They had promised to visit Fiddle Creek over Easter, so he could look forward to that. They would bring their RVs and park behind the bunkhouse, and he could show his brothers the ranch while his sister, his mother, and his brothers’ wives got to know Jill better.

You take your woman home to meet the mama only if things are getting serious, that smart-ass voice in his head said. And it might be a good thing to tell Jill that they are planning to visit. That means tell her before the weekend they are arriving.

Sawyer nodded when everyone around him was shaking their heads. Jill poked him on the thigh. “Are you listening to the preacher?”