by Emmy Eugene
“Nope,” Russ said. “Now where are your keys?”
Travis patted his pockets, panic filling his face. “Shoot. I must’ve left them upstairs.” He bolted back that way, and Russ shook his head.
“Don’t give him grief over this,” he said to the other two brothers. Rex held up both hands as if surrendering, and Griffin wandered back into the kitchen. Travis came back downstairs, his keys in his hand, and Russ said, “Have fun.”
Travis said nothing as he left, and Russ chuckled and turned around. “I hope he calms down and has fun.”
“He will,” Rex said. “Travis gets along great with Millie. They’ll be fine.”
Russ nodded, wishing he was the one going out tonight. He didn’t realize Rex had left until he came back. How much time did he lose thinking about Janelle?
“What about you and Janelle?” Rex asked, lifting his new piece of pizza to his lips. His eyes were sparkling, like he wanted all the dirt on the painful break-up. His half-smile said he’d definitely tease Russ, who wasn’t in the mood.
“There’s nothing about me and Janelle,” Russ said.
“You like her though, right?”
“Of course I like her,” Russ said, his voice growing as loud as Rex’s. “I like her a whole lot. But what am I supposed to do? Drive over to her house and beg her to go out with me? She won’t talk to me, Rex. She doesn’t want me in her life. So liking her is irrelevant, isn’t it?”
Rex lowered the pizza and stared. “I’m sorry, bro,” he said, really quiet.
All the fight left Russ, and his shoulders slumped as the air whooshed out of his lungs. “Me too. Sorry, none of that was fair.”
“I get it,” Rex said. “No explanation needed.” He fell back a step. “But if you like her as much as you say you do, she probably likes you too.”
“Knock, knock?” a woman said, and Russ spun back toward the front door. It started to open, which meant it hadn’t been latched all the way.
How much had Janelle heard?
Humiliation filled Russ, and he turned back to Rex, but he was gone. At least his brother had done one thing right that night. He’d brought dinner too, so Russ would give him two points.
“Janelle,” he said, her name scratching in his throat. “What are you doing here?”
Sneak Peek! Chapter Two of The Cowboy Billionaire’s Christmas Crush
Janelle couldn’t believe she had the courage to be standing on Russ’s front porch. She also couldn’t believe she’d heard his entire conversation with his brother.
“Janelle?” Russ said again, and she blinked.
“Yeah—yes,” she said, clearing her throat. Her heart had been pounding for a solid hour, and she just wanted to calm down.
He came closer, and it was so unfair that he was so tall, with such broad shoulders, and that caring glint in his dark eyes. Janelle had always loved his eyes, from the very first moment she’d sat down across from him at the speed dating event during Chestnut Spring’s Octoberfest.
“You have another dog with you,” he said, looking down and the mutt panting at her feet.
“Yeah, uh…” She’d maybe used the dog to get herself out to the ranch. Somehow, she could deal with cheating husbands and angry wives as they became exes. She could argue for the rights of one of those parents in court until she got what she wanted. She owned and ran the biggest family law practice in the country.
And Russ Johnson made her heart flutter and her nerves fray. He could also make her laugh faster than anyone else, and the man kissed her like she was worth something, and Janelle had been miserable for almost a week now.
“Look,” she said, brushing her loose hair out of her eyes. “Someone brought the dog over, and they brought him to me, because they thought we were together.”
Russ started nodding, the pain etched right on his face. He ducked his head, that cowboy hat hiding his eyes. She hadn’t meant to hurt him, and she wondered how shredded her heart would be . “And I brought him over here, because I want us to be together.”
I like her a whole lot.
Janelle knew Russ liked her. When she’d called him to say she wanted to take a break, he’d gone silent. He accepted what she said, and she liked that he didn’t argue back. Her ex would’ve argued back. In fact, she’d taken Henry back three times because of his excellent argumentative skills.
She should’ve never married another lawyer.
“You want us to be together,” Russ said, lifting his eyes to hers. “You know what you’re saying, right?”
“Yes,” Janelle said. “And I told you last week, I just wanted a break. It wasn’t a full break-up.”
“No, what you said was that you didn’t want me to meet your daughters.” He held up one hand. “Which I’m fine with, sweetheart. Honest.”
“It’s not fair for you to call me sweetheart,” she said, teasing him now. And he knew it.
“It’s just me,” he said, saying what he’d always said. “And when you meet my momma—”
“I know, I know,” Janelle said, smiling. “She’ll call me baby and sugar and sweetheart too.”
Russ bent down and picked up the leash Janelle had put around the dog’s neck. “I’ll take him out to the enclosure, but I don’t know where we’re going to put him. We’ve got at least eight more dogs than we can house.”
Janelle saw another opportunity zooming toward her, and she snatched at it. “I could take some,” she said.
Russ’s eyebrows went up, and she desperately wanted to swipe that cowboy hat from his head and kiss him. She licked her lips instead, her fantasies going down a path she couldn’t follow. At least right now.
“You could take some?” Russ repeated. “Where are you going to put them?” He leaned in the doorway, easily the sexiest man alive in that moment.
“I have an old stable in my backyard,” she said. “Maybe you could come help me fix it up, and I could probably put six or seven dogs back there.”
Russ considered her, the corners of his mouth twitching up.
“What?” she asked, smiling at him.
“Do you know what to feed a dog?” he asked. “Or how often they need to go out? Or any of that?”
“No,” she said. “That’s why my awesome, handsome cowboy boyfriend will come help me…and the girls.”
Russ’s eyebrows went all the way up, and he folded his arms. She loved that he stayed silent during key moments, because the mystery of what he was thinking was hot.
“I get to meet the girls?” he asked.
“That’s what you want, isn’t it?” Janelle wanted that too. She was just overprotective of Kelly and Kadence.
“No, Janelle,” he said, oh so soft and oh so sexy. “I don’t know what you did or didn’t hear. But I’m pretty sure it’s obvious that what I want…is you.”
The air left Janelle’s lungs, because Russ Johnson always knew what to say and how to say it. Her fingers twitched toward his cowboy hat, and Russ chuckled.
“I saw that.” His eyes twinkled like stars, and he took off his own cowboy hat this time. Janelle slipped one hand along the waistband of his jeans, his body heat so welcome. He enveloped her in an embrace, pressing his cowboy hat to her back.
“Russ,” she whispered. “I like you a whole lot too.”
“So you heard everything.”
“I need to go slow,” she said, closing her eyes and tipping her head back, an open invitation for him to kiss her.
“I know that, baby,” he said, sliding his fingers around the back of her neck and into her hair. His lips touched hers in the next moment, and kissing Russ was like coming home. He took his time like he’d really missed her, and Janelle knew that he had. She hoped he could feel that she’d missed him too, and that she was sorry she’d freaked out about him meeting her kids.
The following afternoon, she picked the girls up from school and said, “Okay, we have a new project.”
“Another one?” Kelly asked, adjusting her backpack between her feet
. “Mama, we’re still making the brownies tonight, right?”
“Yes, yes,” Janelle said, smiling at her oldest. “Chocolate and caramel swirl.”
Kelly smiled. “So what’s the new project?”
“It has to do with that dog someone brought over last night.” Janelle made the left turn out of the school pick-up lane.
“You took it over to the ranch,” Kelly said. “And then brought it back.”
“They don’t have room over there, and I told Russ we could put a few dogs in our stable. So we need to get it cleaned up for them.” Janelle knew seven was more than “a few,” but she didn’t want to think too long about it. Otherwise, she’d wonder how she was going to keep them all happy and fed.
But it couldn’t be that hard. The girls could help her put out fresh food and water morning and night. She had a fenced backyard they could romp around in while she went to work and the girls went to school. And then she wouldn’t have a canine sleeping in her bed, like she had last night.
She turned onto their street while the latest and greatest song came on. “Mama, turn it up,” Kadence said from the back seat. Janelle smiled as she did, so glad she’d been pulling her hours back at the firm so that she could be there to pick up her girls in the afternoons.
She’d had a nanny for the past three years—since Henry had moved out—but she didn’t want Mallory to be the one who knew her daughters. She didn’t need to work as much as she did, and she wanted to be as good of a mother as everyone believed she was as a lawyer.
So she put up with the tween pop song her daughters knew every word to. Even Janelle could sing along, because the song was completely overplayed. She pulled into the garage and waited for the song to finish before turning off the car and getting out.
“Everyone in,” she said. “Wash your hands and change your clothes. We’ll work for an hour in the stables, and then it’s brownie-making time.”
Kelly cheered, and Janelle smiled at her. She’d taken off a huge bite this holiday season, but her ten-year-old loved baking and cooking, and Janelle had said they could put a post up every Sunday, asking all the clients and followers of the Bird Family Law social media to suggest the things they should make that week. And they’d make at least three of them.
The fun had only been going for a week, and since there hadn’t been school last Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday, they’d made five of the dozens and dozens of suggestions.
This week, they’d chosen caramel swirl brownies, carrot cake muffins, and mini cheesecakes. They’d already made the carrot cake muffins last night, and Janelle wouldn’t be surprised if they made five additional desserts tonight.
The employees at the firm enjoyed the leftovers, and now that Janelle had gotten Russ to forgive her, she’d have another reason to pay the sixteen-year-old next door ten dollars to sit with her sleeping kids while she ran out to the ranch after dark.
She felt giddy at the idea of seeing him again that night, and she told herself that a woman her age shouldn’t be sneaking off to see her boyfriend. As if on cue, her phone chimed and it was Audrey from next door, asking if she was still coming over that night.
Yep, Janelle sent. Thank you so much.
She got a smiley face and a thumbs up in return, and she put the step-stool in front of the sink so Kadence could reach to wash her hands. “Kel, did you wash?”
“Yes,” her daughter called as she ran down the hall, and Janelle had the suspicion that her daughter had not washed her hands. Janelle was a bit of a germaphobe, and she worked with a lot of people. Always in and out of her building, with their kids, and their babies, and her daughters went to school with a plethora of kids who could have anything.
Her rule to wash hands after school eased her mind, though it probably didn’t do anything to actually eliminate the germs she could be exposed to.
“Snacks?” she asked.
“That white popcorn,” Kadence said, soaping up really good.
Janelle pumped some soap into her hands too and shared the running water with her daughter. “White popcorn comin’ up.” She washed, dried, and got down the bag of white popcorn before Kelly came back down the hall. She now wore an old pair of plaid pajama pants and a T-shirt that had been bleached at some point. “What do you want for a snack?”
“Cheese quesadillas,” Kelly said.
“That’s a meal,” Janelle said. “We’ll eat dinner while the brownies bake.” She didn’t have time for cheese quesadillas either.
“Granola bar,” Kelly said.
“Great,” Janelle said, giving her daughter the side-eye. “Wash your hands and get the box down. Let’s go change, Kade.” She gave Kelly a don’t even try to lie to me again look as she guided Kadence out of the kitchen. “Pick something that can get dirty, okay?”
Kadence skipped into her room, and Janelle went into hers to change out of her pencil skirt and silky blouse. She kicked off her shoes, missing the cute heels she used to wear. But she had bunions now from all those adorable shoes she’d worn in her twenties. She’d been wearing orthopedic flats for over a decade now, and she actually really liked them.
Several minutes later, she and her daughters went outside, where the dog that had been dropped off last night came over to greet them. He jumped away when Kelly reached for him, and Janelle said, “Go on back to the stable, girls.” She herded them out of the gate, because Russ had warned her that stray dogs were unpredictable.
“What should we name the dog?” Kadence asked.
“Name him?” Janelle stepped through the gate too.
“Yeah, if we’re gonna keep him, he should have a name.”
“Oh.” Janelle took her daughter’s hand. “What do you want to name him?”
Kadence thought while they walked back to the stable. “King.”
“King it is,” Janelle said, smiling. She wished she could bottle up seven-year-olds, because they seemed to have the magic of the world inside them. Kadence skipped everywhere, and even mundane things like dandelions intrigued her.
Janelle reached the stable and opened the door, the smell of something old and dusty coming out. “Oh, boy,” she said, looking at the wreck that existed inside the stable. Her first thought was to call Russ and invite him over. But that wouldn’t be fair, because he had a ton of work to do at his own ranch. With his brother gone, Russ was working a ton, and he’d agreed to come help her with the stables that night, after the girls were down for the night.
Janelle turned back to her kids. “Kelly, go grab the broom from the garage. Kadence, see if you can get the garbage can we use for weeds.”
The girls turned to go do the things she wanted, and Janelle reached for a pair of gloves on the shelf by the door. She could do this for one hour, just to be able to tell Russ that she hadn’t done nothing that day. She didn’t want him to think she was using him, and though he’d kissed her last night and said they were good, Janelle knew he didn’t trust her completely.
She also knew trust was built one brick at a time. One day at a time. One good experience at a time. So she’d put the girls to bed, drive out to the ranch, and hope she could have another amazing night with Russ Johnson.
Her phone blitzed out a high-pitched noise, and her heartbeat leapt over itself. She’d assigned that chime to Russ, and while she could hear Kadence pulling the garbage can across the cement, she hurried to pull out her phone.
I have something to show you tonight.
Great, she tapped out. Can’t wait.
Oh, and how does hot chocolate sound?
“Amazing,” she whispered, a smile crossing her face.
“What, Mama?” Kadence said, arriving behind her out of breath.
“Nothing.” Janelle pocketed her phone and reached for the garbage can. “Nice job, Kade. Now, we’re going to fill this thing up.”
She’d work, and she’d bake with the girls, because there would be nothing better with hot chocolate than caramel swirl brownies.
Can Russ learn to tru
st Janelle, or will his Christmas crush stay that way? THE COWBOY BILLIONAIRE’S CHRISTMAS CRUSH.
About Emmy Eugene
Emmy is a midwest mom who loves ice cream sundaes, Texas, and dogs. Find her on Facebook.
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Read more of Emmy’s books!
Chestnut Ranch:
1. The Cowboy Billionaire’s Neighbor Next-Door
2. The Cowboy Billionaire’s Mistletoe Kiss
3. The Cowboy Billionaire’s Christmas Crush
4. The Cowboy Billionaire’s Secret Baby
5. The Cowboy Billionaire’s Summer Romance
The Cowboy Billionaire’s Neighbor Next-Door
by Emmy Eugene
Copyright © 2019 by Emmy Eugene, All Rights Reserved
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. No part of this book can be reproduced in any form or by electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without the express written permission of the author. The only exception is by a reviewer who may quote short excerpts in a review. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in, or encourage, the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.