“Then the man shouldn’t rescue every stray dog he finds.” Len laughed as he flipped a pancake. “It was hard to stay terrified when I saw him stop that big truck of his to move a turtle out of the road. Let me tell you, Abby, it didn’t take long before the women of this town figured out Jack Barnes was a sucker for a hard luck story. That man has fixed more leaks, roofs, and cars than any one should have. He doesn’t date the way Sam does because he doesn’t have the time.”
“But he does it all with a frown on his face,” Sherry observed. “I suppose he thinks that keeps his image up.” She stared out the window to the dining room. “Gotta go. The natives are restless.”
She walked off, a fresh pot of coffee in her hand.
“He’s a good man.” Len pushed the tray toward her. It was full of pancakes and greasy bacon and runny eggs. It was a heart attack waiting to happen. The nurse in Abby wanted to lecture someone. “So is Sam. A woman could do a lot worse.”
She noted the table number and stopped in her tracks. “Len, we’re going to have to change this order.”
The cook looked back curiously as she explained to him what she was going to need. He shook his head like he wasn’t so sure this was a good idea, but she had a plan. If Jack Barnes was going to announce she was his girlfriend, he was going to have to learn to deal with what that really meant.
Five minutes later, she reloaded the tray herself and got back to work.
* * *
Jack stared down at the plate Abigail placed in front of him. There were eggs, Canadian bacon, and a bowl of fruit. There was only one problem with it.
“This is not what we ordered.” Jack had been looking forward to a huge breakfast of his usual pancakes, bacon, and fried eggs. He’d worked up an appetite, but it seemed their woman wanted some revenge. His mood took a deep dive. He hadn’t expected that.
“It’s all you’re getting,” she said saucily.
Sam poked at the fruit like it was some foreign thing he’d never seen before rather than chunks of pineapple and melon. He looked at Abigail with a desperate expression on his face. “Where are our pancakes? We ordered pancakes. Come on, Abby. I was nice to you. Jack was the mean one who stole your panties. Punish him.”
Jack’s eyes narrowed on her as she rested her hand on her hip and appeared ready for a fight, which he was willing to give her. “Take this back, Abigail. Bring us what we ordered.”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so. There are no more pancakes for you here.”
Jack slid out of the booth and stood over her. Now everyone in the café was watching. “Are you telling me we are no longer welcome in this establishment?”
Sam stood behind her and put his hands on her shoulders, almost as if he was ready to pull her out of Jack’s line of fire if he had to. “I’m sure that’s not what she meant, Jack.”
She rolled her pretty hazel eyes. “I’m not kicking you out. Why would I do that? I’m telling you that if I’m your girlfriend, I have certain rights. You’ve taken certain rights and privileges concerning me, and I think I should do the same with you.”
“What privilege is it you’re looking for, Abigail?”
She didn’t seem the least bit intimidated by him as she poked him straight in his chest. “I am claiming the privilege of keeping you alive through tomorrow.” She leaned in and kept her voice low. “Do you have any idea how much lard Len uses? I had to make the egg white omelets myself because he said it was a sin to waste the yolk. If that is the way you eat every day, then you’re a heart attack waiting to happen. I see it every day. Don’t think a thirty-year-old man can’t have a heart attack.”
“But we work on a ranch all day,” Sam argued. “We need a lot of calories.”
“Calories are fine as long as they come from a good source,” she said practically. “You need good, low-fat protein and complex carbohydrates.”
Every muscle in Jack’s body stilled for a moment. He looked into Abigail’s eyes, searching for the truth. “Are you telling me you changed our order because you’re worried about us? Not because you want to get back at me?”
The confusion in her eyes was all he needed. He felt his gut unclench as he realized she was fussing over them.
“Why would I do that? What would I need revenge for? I will get my panties back, though, Jack.” The last part was whispered with a purely feminine promise of retribution, and it caused him to laugh long and hard.
He sat down again, picked up his fork and dug in, giving Sam an encouraging smile.
“It’ll be fine, Sam.” Abigail winked at them. “You’ll find you can survive perfectly well on relatively healthy food. People do it all the time.”
Sam eased into the booth and frowned at the plate. “Who eats fruit for breakfast?”
“People who want to live.” She turned to check on another customer, but Jack’s hand reached out and held her.
“We have a date tonight,” he reminded her. She hadn’t actually said yes when they asked her out the day before, but she’d fucked them a couple of times since then, so it seemed a reasonable bet. “We’ll pick you up at seven.”
Abigail sighed and put a hand over the one holding her arm, stroking him as though trying to soothe him. “I can’t leave my mom. I’m sorry. Believe me when I say there’s nothing I would rather do than see the two of you again.”
Sam grinned. “I think you’ll find your mama is playing bingo at the Presbyterian church tonight with her friend Sylvia.”
“But Mom can’t drive and Sylvia won’t be able to support her if she needs help.”
“That’s why one of our ranch hands and his wife are going along with them.” Jack had already solved that problem. “Juan and his wife are very fond of bingo.” They were also fond of the bonuses Jack handed out and had fallen all over themselves to be helpful. “Your mom knows them from church. She’s very excited about getting out of the house.”
“I bet she is,” Abby said in a low drawl. “Are you going to go over and help her with her hair, Jack?”
“If that’s what it takes.” He had the confidence of a man who knew he had all the exits guarded. “Seven o’clock. We’ll go into town. Somewhere nice.”
She seemed to brighten at that and nodded. “Seven it is, then. I’ll be ready, and I think I’ll wear a dress…and maybe some heels.”
She gave them what he was starting to think of as her siren smile. It never failed to get him excited. As she walked away, he felt somewhat responsible for the bounce in her step.
Sam stared at his partner. “Are you really going to eat that?”
“Every bite,” he swore. “Maybe you’ve had enough people who gave a shit about you in your life, but I haven’t. She made this herself, and I’ll be damned if I don’t eat it, despite the fact that Canadian bacon is far inferior to honest-to-goodness American bacon. You’re going to eat it, too. It might hurt her feelings if you don’t.”
“Fine.” Sam tried the melon. “At least I have dinner to look forward to. Promise me she won’t get up from our table at the steak house and take over the kitchens to make us something healthy.”
“I promise nothing. That woman is a force of nature.”
Sam nodded. “That was smart of you to set up a fun night for her mom.”
“It’s all about breaking down the stop signs she’s going to put up.” He was a firm believer in plowing through obstacles. He never tried to go around something when he could smash through. “She wants us. She’s a little scared. We need to treat her like a fractious mare.”
Sam’s eyes lit up with mirth. “Yeah, I get what you’re saying. We need to sneak up on her real quiet-like, and then, when she’s calm and stuff, we jump her, force a saddle on her, and ride that baby until she can’t imagine a time we weren’t on top of her.”
“Exactly,” Jack agreed as his phone rang. He pulled it out and checked the number. It was familiar so he answered. “Hello, Christa, how are you doing this morning? Are you checking to make sure Abby got
to work? I assure you she is one hundred percent here and giving us both hell. Whoa…what do you mean? They wrote what? Tell Mike not to have it towed yet. I want to see it for myself. We’ll be there in half an hour.”
“Eat fast, Sam.”
“What’s up?” Sam took a drink of coffee.
“Looks like someone in this town doesn’t see how sweet our Abigail is,” Jack said in a low growl that let everyone who heard it know there was going to be trouble.
9
“I love you,” Abby said into the phone.
“I love you, too, Mom,” her daughter replied. “I just worry about you being in that town. I hope you’re finding something to do there.”
Abby felt herself blush. “Absolutely, baby. I’m finding plenty to keep me busy. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
When she likely wouldn’t tell her precious baby girl what she was really doing in Willow Fork. Jack and Sam. Yep. She’d been doing two hot cowboys, and she would very likely do them both again tonight if all went well.
She hung up with her daughter and went back to looking at herself in the mirror, trying to get her makeup just right.
“You look beautiful, Abigail,” a soft voice said behind her. “But then, you always were. Even as a child, I knew you would be a beautiful woman someday.”
Abby turned from the slightly warped mirror in the tiny bathroom and smiled at her mother. The trailer was small, and there was only the one bathroom. Her mother leaned against the doorway. “You look like you’re feeling better.”
Diane Moore was a handsome sixty-year-old woman. Her hair was the same auburn color as Abigail’s, though she’d stopped dealing with grays years before and now they had mostly taken over. She was dressed in a charcoal gray pantsuit that was slightly too big for her. Diane had joked that falling off the porch and breaking her hip had done wonders for her figure.
“I’ve had a very good therapist.” Her mom winked at her. Abby had taken her to and from the rehab facility and diligently made sure she did every exercise.
“You look pretty yourself, Mama.” Abby gave her a careful hug.
She patted her graying hair. “Well, Abigail, you never know who you might meet playing bingo.” Her mother crossed her arms and suddenly looked serious. “Are those old biddies leaving you alone?”
She didn’t want to think about them tonight. “Don’t worry about it. I can handle them.”
“You shouldn’t have to. I should have taken care of it back then.” Her mother looked so sad that Abby turned and reached out to her. “I should never have let you leave.”
“I didn’t give you a choice. You know I couldn’t stay. There were too many bad memories. You would have lost your job and your pension for nothing.”
“How dare that Ruby Echols think you weren’t good enough for her son? I’m glad she didn’t have anything to do with raising Lexi.”
Thinking of her daughter made her smile. If there was one thing she didn’t regret it was raising Lexi outside of Willow Fork. She’d thrived in Fort Worth and she would conquer Austin. Her baby could be anything she wanted to be. “I am, too. Now stop talking about people who don’t matter. I have a date tonight.”
“Are the boys picking you up in that tank of Jack’s?” her mom asked as she turned back to the mirror and applied some gloss to her lips.
Abby winced. Jack’s truck was already in the shop. Sam had picked her up from work earlier in the afternoon. He’d used their time alone together to get her all hot and bothered again with an impromptu make-out session.
“I think we’ll have to use Sam’s Jeep. I kind of put a dent in the truck.” Her mother frowned, and Abby suddenly felt like a teen again. She crossed her arms defensively over her chest. “I had to get to work. He can’t blame me. Well, he did, but let me tell you that man’s bark is way worse than his bite. Underneath that rough exterior, he’s a big old teddy bear.”
“I doubt that seriously.” Her mom sounded incredulous. “Oh, he might be around you, but make no mistake that Jack Barnes is one dangerous man. He grew up real rough.”
Abby turned around, lip-gloss suddenly way less interesting than what her mother was saying. “I know his mom died when he was young.”
Christa had told her that much, but she hadn’t known a whole lot more about Jack’s history.
“I don’t know the whole story. Jack doesn’t talk about it, but I know no one claimed him after his mom died. He grew up in foster care, and that’s where he met Sam. The first time I met Jack I thought maybe it had damaged him, you know. Sometimes when a person doesn’t get enough love as a child they become cold and distant. Jack seemed to be that way.”
“He isn’t.” Abby leaned forward. She wanted her mother to believe. Jack was anything but cold. Even when he tried to keep his distance, he’d been caring. He’d been unsure and scared, she realized now. He hadn’t wanted to get close until he had been sure she wouldn’t reject him out of hand.
“Everyone knows that.” Her mother patted her hand. “But don’t make the mistake of thinking because he’s gentle with you that he can’t take care of himself. When those boys first bought that ranch, there were people in town who treated them badly. Their lifestyle was odd, to say the least. It didn’t seem to bother Jack, but it made Sam upset when people treated him like dirt. Do you remember Frank’s?”
Abby nodded. “I sure do. It used to be the only bar in town. I remember they had some strict rules. No liquor could be served after midnight, even on a Saturday, and there was no dancing and no loud music.”
The town had restrictions, and though Frank’s was a private club, it had to follow the rules.
“They refused Sam a membership,” her mom said. “The only place in town where he could get a beer and they wouldn’t let him in the front door because Frank Webb thought he was gay.”
“Asshole.” Sam was so social. It would bother him to be closed out. “I’m glad they went out of business. What a jerk.”
Her mother’s face was practically gleeful. “They went out of business exactly six months after they told Sam he wasn’t welcome. Two weeks after they tossed Sam out on his butt, The Barn opened up. It was on some land in an unincorporated part of the county, so the rules didn’t apply. Is it so surprising that everyone in town flocked to a place where they could drink and dance and listen to whatever music they wanted, however loud they wanted it?”
“That was a very happy coincidence.” She should check out the honky-tonk. It sounded like fun. Christa and Mike were regulars. She bet Sam could dance. Conversely, she would probably have to coax Jack to take a turn on the floor with her. It would be worth it to have those big arms around her as they swayed to the music.
“Coincidence? Whose land do you think it was on, baby girl? Jack Barnes called some friends of his, and he gave them the seed money and the land to open the place on. He crushed Frank Webb. I’m telling you this not because I think you should be wary of the man. I want you to understand that he takes care of his own.”
A hundred questions popped through Abby’s mind. “It makes you wonder. How does a boy with no family and no connections end up with a huge spread? How much do you think he and Sam spent on the ranch?”
“All I know is sometime between turning eighteen and being basically homeless after he aged out of the group home he lived in, and when he and Sam started Barnes-Fleetwood five years later, they came up with roughly five million dollars. I heard Bernard, the city treasurer, talking about it, and that’s what he figured it cost to start up their business. I doubt they earned it flipping burgers.” There was a knock on the door. Her mom leaned over and kissed her cheek. “That’s my ride now. You have a good time tonight, Abigail. You let those boys take care of you. I won’t wait up, honey.”
“Okay, Mama. Have fun.” She watched her mother disappear down the narrow hall. As she finished getting ready for her date, her mind whirled with the possibilities of the night to come.
* * *
Jack’s jaw drop
ped when Abby opened the creaky door to her mama’s run-down single-wide. Nothing that gorgeous should have been in a sad trailer. She deserved to be walking down a grand staircase, making an entrance worthy of a princess.
“Damn, you’re going to give every man in the county a heart attack.” A low whistle came out of Sam’s mouth.
“Do you like?” She twirled so they got a good view.
Jack took in the sight of her in an emerald green dress that clung to her delicious curves and showed off her creamy, ivory skin. Her auburn hair hung past her shoulders in soft curls that made him want to thrust his fingers in and feel the silky softness of the locks. He loved the fact that she had curves. It made her soft and feminine, and it took his breath away that such a lovely creature wanted him. And there was no doubt in his mind that she wanted him. It was there in her hazel eyes as she looked at him. He had to take a deep breath.
Dear god, he was really, deeply in love for the first time in his life. It was amazing and scary and made his gut twist in a knot at the thought of losing her.
When he and Sam had talked about finding a woman to marry, he’d thought Sam would fall in love and he’d go along for the ride. He would need to like the woman, of course, and he had intended to be good friends with her, but he hadn’t expected for his heart to seize every time she smiled at him or his knees to feel weak when she took his hand. He even liked it when she gave him hell. He wondered for the first time what she would look like in a wedding dress.
“Hey,” she said softly, looking up at him with gentle eyes as she smoothed down the fabric of his dress shirt. “What’s wrong, Jack?”
He pulled her close and breathed in the sweet scent of her hair. She always smelled like peaches. He’d started to crave the fruit.
“Nothing’s wrong.” He wasn’t lying. Everything was perfect.
Sam came around the other side, and he hugged her from the back. Abigail sighed and leaned against him, obviously loving the way they surrounded her. Sam looked over her shoulder solemnly at Jack. Sam knew. He’d known all along that this woman was theirs.
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