Holidays on the Ranch (Burnt Boot, Texas #1)(87)

“Okay, woman, let’s show them how it’s done,” Finn said. “We’re not going to let them ruin our night. Besides, Honey and Betsy are both here, and I want them to know that I’m taken so they’ll stop this shit.”

He and Callie took the floor in a fast swing dance where he twirled her out and brought her back, and she flirted with him with her eyes through the whole dance. When it finished, the tall cowboy sitting beside the jukebox said, “Don’t leave yet. We’ve got more on the way.”

The first sounds of “Jailhouse Rock” started, and Callie and Finn danced so fast that she was panting worse than she did during wild sex. Finn’s cowboy boots were a blur, but she’d be damned if she let him get ahead of her even if she got blisters on her feet.

“One more,” the cowboy hollered. “Y’all are really good. You must dance a lot together. Let’s see what y’all can do with ‘Cotton Eye Joe.’”

Finn wiped sweat from his forehead with a white handkerchief he took from his hip pocket and held his hand out to Callie. “You ever done any clogging?”

“Little bit,” she said.

“Well, give it all you got,” he said.

When the song ended, the whole bar was whistling, clapping, and yelling for more, but Finn and Callie staggered to the bar, downed their beers, and asked for another.

“That was fun to watch. Y’all two are going to do just fine back here in the boonies.” Polly laughed. “Me and Thomas used to cut a rug like that back when we first opened the bar. He taught me to dance Irish style. Looks like you two already know it.”

Finn clicked his mug against Callie’s. “To the Irish.”

“To us,” she said.

They closed down the bar at two o’clock in the morning, and Finn drove very slowly all the way to Salt Draw. They left clothing all over her bedroom floor, fell into bed, and he made such sweet love to her that she almost cried again. He went to sleep right afterward, and she propped up on an elbow to look her fill of the first man who’d ever proposed to her.

God almighty, but those long lashes fanned out on his cheekbones, and that full mouth knew how to turn her on. Could she trust herself to say yes? It wasn’t Finn or even his doubts that bothered her but her own genetics.

Have you looked at another man since you’ve been in Burnt Boot? You are surrounded with good-looking cowboys who have done everything but kidnap you, and you’ve turned your back on them. Wake up, girl, and smell the coffee. This is the man for you, and you’ll never leave him. You wallowed in your daddy’s DNA, not your mother’s.

She flopped back down on the pillow. Her inner voice had never steered her wrong, not one time, but still she had to think about it. They made sweet love. They made passionate love. They made wild love. They danced well together. They could take out a target together. She loved him, but saying yes meant a lifetime commitment, and she wanted to be sure.

“I’m not rushing. I’ve got a couple of weeks before the kids have to leave. I want to be damn sure that we can live together forever when I tell him I’ll marry him,” she whispered.

A pulsing pain hit her between the eyes. Lord, she was going to have a hellacious hangover come morning, which was only three hours from that minute. Verdie would be up rattling pots and pans, and the kids would be loud, and she’d feel like she had a marching band in her head.

She smiled, shut her eyes, and snuggled up against Finn’s back.

“It’s worth every single throb,” she said.





Chapter 27


Two glasses of tomato juice sat on the bar the next morning when Callie made it to the kitchen. Verdie pointed at them and said, “They are both just alike. Down one without coming up for air and by the time breakfast is done, you’ll be ready for it. It’s Patrick’s special brew for a hangover.”

Callie pushed her hair back and smelled the concoction. “How’d you know?”

“Well, Verdie, hot damn!” Joe squawked.

“I may fry that damn bird and tell the kids they’re eatin’ chicken. He was cute for a little while, but since he learned my name, he’s a pest,” Verdie said. “Back to the hangover and last night. Polly called me between customers. The Brennans best have a twenty-four-hour guard set up after that stunt. Naomi is out for blood. I heard Orville was there with Ilene. Looks like you’ve done lost your supply of doughnuts. And believe me, Naomi will sure enough be supporting Ilene in her relationship with Orville so they’ll have the sheriff in their pocket over on Wild Horse. They found that big window without a crack in it this morning. It was settin’ right in front of the Gallaghers’ schoolhouse,” Verdie said.

Callie held up the glass. “How’d you know I needed this?”

“If you’d have been giggling any louder, you would have wakened up the kids, and poor little things need their sleep, especially Martin with the news you are springing on him today. He’s going to be so excited, he might not sleep for a week,” Verdie said.

“What news?” Callie picked up the glass, tipped it back, and drank it down even though her eyes watered after the first sip. She shivered from black hair to toenails when she set the empty glass down with a thud. “Shit, Verdie, was that pure vodka?”

“It had some tomato juice and Louisiana hot sauce in it, plus one well-beaten raw egg. Never failed one time for Patrick,” she said. “Now tell me why you aren’t going to tell him.”