by Emmy Eugene
The Cowboy Billionaire’s Neighbor Next-Door
Emmy Eugene
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
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About Emmy Eugene
Chapter One
Seth Johnson bent to collect the dog food bowls in the shelters he’d built with his own hands. The temperature this early in the morning was bearable, and Seth would let the fifteen dogs he worked with on a daily basis outside before the Texas sun heated the building too much.
They’d eat inside though, because Seth didn’t need food strewn all over the place. The last thing he needed at Chestnut Ranch was more pests.
Feeding and watering the dogs was almost like therapy for Seth, and he enjoyed his time with the canines each morning. Then he had chores feeding and watering the rest of the living things on the ranch. He and his brothers had everything from cattle to horses to goats, pigs, and chickens. Ah, how Travis loved his chickens.
Seth liked the fresh eggs they got every day and all the ways his other brother, Russ, could cook them. So he didn’t complain about the stench that sometimes wafted across the whole ranch—much.
All five of the Johnson brothers had jobs to do on the ranch, but they didn’t all live in the homestead the way he, Russ, and Travis did. In fact, when his two youngest brothers had moved back to Chestnut Springs, they’d bought a house in town, closer to their parents.
Seth didn’t even realized he’d sighed until he heard the sound. But sometimes being the oldest and making sure his aging parents were taken care of weighed on his mind.
He scrubbed all thirty bowls and set to work drying them and filling them with food and then water. Everything went back on the flatbed cart he used to get around the canine enclosure, and he started back along the oval to get everyone fed.
His two personal dogs accompanied him everywhere he went, never trying to eat or drink from a bowl that wasn’t theirs. He’d feed them in the house. He simply used Thunder and Winner to show the rescue dogs that they could live a happy and fulfilling life. Thunder was the pack leader, but he was the calmest dog Seth had ever met.
In one run, a dog growled at Thunder, who simply stood there, his tongue hanging out of his mouth as he panted. In another, the dog cowered in the corner, afraid to even come near the front of the pen where Seth had just placed his food. Every animal was different, but Seth felt a connection to all of them. He only had room to permanently house fifteen dogs at a small operation he’d named Canine Encounters.
He’d take individual dogs for the day too, just to socialize them with his animals. And he almost always had a dog for a month-long ranch experience, and that dog got to come around with him, Thunder, and Winner, including into the house, where his dogs regularly slept.
“A new friend is coming today,” he told Thunder, and the dog cocked his head. He was a mutt Seth had adopted from the shelter in Chestnut Springs, and they’d been together for five years.
Since the divorce, Seth thought. He wasn’t even sure why that thought had entered his mind. He hadn’t thought about his ex in a while.
He shook his head, surprised at the power of his mother even when he didn’t live with her and hadn’t for a long time. Seth went to visit his parents often, and he’d been by last night.
“Are you seeing anyone, baby?” she’d asked.
Seth’s answer had always been the same. “No, Ma. Unless a hot date with Winner counts. Or another furry female. I’ve got six of ‘em right now.”
She never thought he was funny, and Seth hadn’t really minded that he didn’t have a woman to cuddle up with at night. It was too hot for that in Texas anyway.
Winner barked, and Seth looked toward the house. It was huge, and sprawling, and actually had four wings in it like a real castle. His father had tended to every little thing about the land, the house, the vegetable garden, the river bridges, all of it. But he’d been retired for eight years now, and he’d suffered a terrible fall from a horse a couple of years that had left him disabled. He could walk, but it was slow and painful, and he couldn’t do even a fraction of what he’d done before.
“Who is it, huh?” he asked the dog, and Winner looked at him, her limbs trembling. She was a pretty brown and white mutt Seth had fallen in love with the moment he’d met her. Also a rescue, she’d taken to Thunder like they were a match made in heaven.
“Go see,” he said, and she took off. She definitely had some herding dog in her, and she’d somehow get whoever it was to come out to the canine enclosure. Not that it mattered. Seth was almost done with these chores—at least for this morning—anyway.
His phone rang, and he pulled it from his pocket to see who it was. “Hey, Ma,” he said after tapping to answer the call.
“Baby,” she said, her Texas drawl as thick as honey. “I forgot to tell you to come for short ribs tonight.”
Short ribs. That wasn’t good. Was she going to try to set him up? “Ma, I can get my own dates.”
Not that he had. But he could. He knew women. But in the split second before his mother spoke again, Seth actually wondered who he’d ask out if pressed.
Jenna Wright’s single, he thought just as his mother said, “It’s not about that, baby.”
“What’s it about then?”
“Your dad and I want to go over something with you boys.”
“So everyone will be there?”
“Yes. I was just talking to Travis, and he said it wasn’t on your calendar. I realized I must’ve forgotten to tell you about it.”
“Yeah,” he said, because this short rib dinner was news to him. He smothered another sigh. He loved his parents, and out of the five boys around to help, Seth knew he did the most. He mowed their lawn each week, and he brought dinner every Thursday, and he helped his mother with anything requiring a tool around the house.
Russ helped a lot too, but mostly with bills and groceries and such things that his mom also needed help with. Seth had never realized how much his father did until he couldn’t do it anymore.
“How is Daddy?” he asked.
“Oh, he has good days and bad,” his mom said, same as always. Seth had seen him yesterday, and it had been a bad day then too.
“Okay, what time?” he asked.
“Six-thirty.”
Seth would have to adjust his evening feeding time at Canine Encounters, but he could do it. “Great. See you then.” The call ended, and Seth exited the building. He just had to make one more trip around it, this time on the outside as he opened all t
he doors so the dogs could roam freely on the land surrounding the building.
They were kept separate from the rest of the ranch, because he didn’t need a frightened, angry dog spooking his cattle or horses.
He looked west, where across the river and through the trees, sat the Wright home. They had a big, Texas-sized estate as well, but no animals. Jenna and her brother, Isaac, didn’t run a ranch, but they’d inherited their parents’ home after the death of their mother a couple of years ago.
Though Seth had other chores to do, he took a moment to think of Jenna. She’d always been off-limits for him, but that hadn’t stopped him from considering her as a possible date for the prom. In the end, he’d never asked, because Isaac had been Seth’s best friend, and Jenna was a few years younger than them.
He’d grown up and gone away to college. Taking formal classes hadn’t been for him, but he hadn’t returned to Chestnut Springs when he’d decided to stop going. He’d wandered, trying his hand at odd jobs throughout the Texas Hill Country.
Jenna had weathered the death of her father. Gotten married.
The sun heated his back as he thought, Got divorced, just like you.
Isaac wasn’t married either, and Seth wondered if his best friend would still have a problem with Seth dating Jenna.
Winner barked, and Seth turned away from the Wright property to find the dog trotting toward him. “Who was it?” he asked, because she didn’t have a human with her.
She just lay down at his feet, panting. His phone crackled, the sound he’d set for a text.
Your dog seriously needs to go into agility training, Russ had said. And can you tell her to stop trying to herd me out to the far west fields? Jeez. I was just taking out the trash.
Seth chuckled, bent down and patted Winner’s head. She grinned up at him, and he said, “You keep tryin’ to get ‘im out here, girl.”
That evening, Seth pulled up to his parents house on Victory Street with Russ and Travis in the truck with him. Everyone started to pile out and head inside, but Seth took an extra moment to look up and down the street.
It was perfect for an Edible Neighborhood, and he really wanted to try talking to the people up and down this street again. He’d fallen in love with the idea of a community garden, and he’d host it out on the ranch if he thought people would drive the fifteen minutes out to the property.
At the same time, that wasn’t the point of an Edible Neighborhood. It was to plant generational fruit and nut trees in the front yard for everyone to enjoy. His parents had apple trees already, and he wanted to put in figs, walnuts, and muscadines.
Most of the people on this street were older, with only one kid left at home or none at all. They’d taken good care of his parents too, and Seth really wanted the neighborhood to be unique and thriving and special for everyone who lived there.
He’d partnered with Jenna on the project, actually. She’d been as passionate about it as he’d been. But in the couple of years they’d talked about it, they hadn’t been able to get anything off the ground. They’d met with the residents in the neighborhood twice, but funding was an issue. Seth’s time was already stretched thin, and he couldn’t very well put up the money for all the plants, trees, and seeds for the Edible Neighborhood.
Jenna worked as the financial secretary at the elementary school in town, as well as teaching piano lessons after school. She couldn’t devote hours or too many dollars to the Edible Neighborhood either.
Maybe he should just talk to her about having a shared garden out on their property line. Maybe then he’d get to see her more often…
“You comin’ or what?” Travis asked, and Seth pulled himself out of his thoughts.
“Yeah,” he said, his feet tired and more chores on the horizon.
Inside, they found their younger brothers, Griffin and Rex, and their mother and father already sitting at the big dining room table in the kitchen.
His mother had a lockbox on the table in front of her, as well as a folder that barely contained the thick sheaf of papers inside.
His heart started pounding, and he couldn’t get himself to take the last seat at the table.
“Come on, baby,” his mom said. “This is good news.”
“Is it?” Seth asked. “Because it looks like you’re about to tell us something big.”
“I am.” She smiled at him, and a rush of affection for his mother hit him. His father had always pampered her, and she’d always looked and acted her part of a rancher’s wife. She’d taught her boys manners and how to work around the house while his dad taught them how to work outside.
Seth finally sat, and his mother opened the folder. “The ribs’ll be ready in a few minutes. Just enough time for us to talk about a few things.”
“What kind of things, Ma?” Russ asked, eyeing the folder.
“Daddy and I aren’t going to be around forever,” she said, extracting five papers that she began passing out, one to each son. She patted the folder. “This is our living will. It talks about our burial wishes and how all the assets will be split.”
Seth frowned as he took his piece of paper. “Ma, we already know how things will be split. Five ways. Anyone who wants the ranch can have twenty percent of it.”
“That’s true, baby. But this is extra.”
“Extra?” Seth looked at his paper, trying to understand. The Johnson’s had had plenty growing up. He knew the ranch was successful, and he knew his parents had a little extra money. Nothing extravagant, though. They weren’t rich.
“Holy stars in heaven,” Rex said. “Mom, is this real?”
Seth was still trying to figure out what the paper he was looking at meant. He saw the words “inheritance,” and “cash,” and the number there was huge. Absolutely huge. Nine figures huge.
He couldn’t even think about how much money that was.
“Boys,” she said calmly. “I’m an Alameda.”
Seth looked up from his paper, the name meaning something, but he wasn’t sure what.
“Yeah, we know, Mom,” Travis said. “I mean, it’s your maiden name.” He looked around the table, his eyes catching on Seth’s. At least Travis looked as confused as Seth did.
“My best advice for you boys,” his dad finally said. “Is not to spend a dime for a year. A solid year.”
“A dime of what, exactly?” Seth asked, lifting his paper a couple of inches. “What is this?”
“My sister and I are the only two Alameda’s left,” his mother said. “As such, we hold sixty-one percent of the cosmetics empire. I had a choice to make, and I don’t have any girls.”
“A choice?” Russ asked.
“My sister still lives in Maryland,” their mother continued. “She has three girls who’ve been working in the industry their whole lives. She offered to buy me out, give my share of the company to her girls. I agreed.”
Seth didn’t have a college degree, but he understood the term buy out.
He looked at his paper again. “Ma…are you saying this is what you got from your ownership in the cosmetics company?”
“Yes,” she said.
“I didn’t even know you owned a cosmetics company,” Griffin said.
Seth hadn’t either, and he looked at the number again. It was over two billion dollars.
Billion, with a B.
“Ma,” he said, not sure what else to say.
“I chose not to go that route,” she said. “But I still got thirty percent of the company from my parents. I’ve now sold my part of the company to my sister, and you boys are getting this as an inheritance, but before we die.”
Seth looked at her, and she was practically beaming with light.
“Our living will outlines the rest of our assets.” She patted the folder. “But you won’t get any of that until we do pass.”
His mind spun, and he remained silent even as Travis and Griffin started laughing. They got up and hugged their mother and father, and general excitement filled the kitchen.
&
nbsp; Seth just looked at his paper.
Over two billion dollars.
Don’t spend a dime for a year.
It was good advice, but Seth suddenly had something he wanted to fund.
The Edible Neighborhood.
And he knew just who he needed to see to get things rolling again.
Chapter Two
“’Bye, Penny.” Jenna Wright leaned into the doorway as the little girl went down the front steps and toward her mother’s car waiting in the driveway. Jenna waved to Martha Rosenberg, and then she sighed as she closed the door.
Piano lessons were done for the day. School was over. And Jenna’s stomach was incredibly hungry, because she’d only had carrot sticks and guacamole for lunch, and nothing of substance since the breakfast burritos Isaac had made almost twelve hours ago.
She normally liked packing as much as she could into her day, because it kept her from being idle. And lonely. School had been in session for only two weeks, and she knew she’d get used to the long days, with piano lessons in the afternoons and evenings. Plus, it was Thursday, which meant she didn’t have lessons again until next Tuesday.
Jenna rubbed her hands, which ached, and realized her ring was missing. Her heart dropped to the bottom of her feet and stayed there.
“Mom,” she whispered. Her mother had passed away two years ago after a short fight with Alzheimer’s, and a day didn’t go by where Jenna didn’t think of her mother. She’d started wearing her mother’s favorite ring the moment her mother had called her by the wrong name. Anything to remember the mom she’d once known and loved.
And now it was gone.