“I’m so late,” a woman said, and Dallas turned toward a tall, dark-haired woman he hadn’t seen in the brief time he’d eaten a sandwich earlier. “Excuse me.”
She ran toward him, her cowgirl boots making loud, slapping noises on the floor. He backed up, an alarm sounding in his head.
“The floor is—”
She yelped as she slipped, and time slowed into terrible bursts of motion. The woman flailed her arms.
“Wet,” Dallas finished.
He reached for her.
She grabbed onto his forearm.
But she was going down.
He blinked, and he was bending over, her hand still gripping his arm in a painful way.
She groaned, her eyes staring straight up as she was now flat on her back on the floor.
“I’m so sorry,” he said. “Are you okay?”
She blinked a couple of times, and a brand new fire entered those dark eyes. Dallas felt sure he was about to be burned, and he actually found himself welcoming it.
Sneak Peek! Rugged Cowboy Chapter Two
Pain radiated through Jessica Morales’s body, and while she wanted to get up, she couldn’t. She was used to going and going and going, and she was strong.
But her back was in control at the moment, and she was not moving.
Anger flowed through her like river rapids though, and she stared into the light gray eyes of a man she’d never seen before. “What were you doing?” she demanded.
“There was chocolate on the floor,” he said, kneeling beside her. “Can you sit up?”
“I think so.” She groaned again, wishing she wasn’t in the presence of a handsome man with such a noise coming out of her mouth. Her back spasmed, and she stilled.
“I don’t have time for this,” she said. “I have to get out to the stables and get the horses ready.”
“I’ll help you,” he said, putting his hand on the back of her elbow.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“Dallas Dreyer,” he said. “I’m a friend of Nate’s.”
“If I don’t get those horses ready, the wedding will be ruined.” Another flash of impatience hit her. “Help me up. You’ll have to come help me. Do you know anything about horses?”
“Not really,” he said, practically lifting her off her feet.
“Great,” she muttered. She took in his appearance, and he wore a cheap suit. At least it was clean. His hair was cut short and spiked in the front, and if he stayed outside for longer than twenty minutes without a hat, he’d be fried under this intense sun.
She didn’t care. Or maybe she did.
Jess wasn’t entirely sure what was running through her body. Attraction? Could that be true?
“Dad?”
“Let’s go,” Dallas said. “You’ll have to lead us to the stables though.” He looked at Jess. “We don’t know where the stables are.”
A boy that stood to his shoulder came to his side, as well as a little girl. Jess hadn’t even seen them in her haste to get out to the stables.
These were brand new cowgirl boots that she’d bought specifically for the wedding, and they had no traction on the bottom. A wet floor had taken her down, and humiliation started to rise from the soles of her feet.
She left the West Wing, already too hot so that when she took in a lung full of the September air, she almost passed out from heat exhaustion.
“What’s your name?” Dallas asked, and Jess realized all of her good sense had fled the moment she’d slipped on the floor. Maybe she’d hit her head.
“Oh, uh, Jessica,” she said. “Morales.”
“These are my kids,” he said. “Thomas and Remmy.”
“Daddy, I can’t keep up,” the little girl said, and Dallas slowed down.
Jess did not. She really had to get Marshmallow Crème and Texas Tyrant saddled and decorated for the wedding. Nate and Ginger weren’t doing anything very traditionally, including the lunch they’d had before the wedding, and they were riding horses down the aisle instead of having Ginger’s father walk her toward a waiting Nate.
Jess had done horseback weddings before, and she knew how to braid manes and tails, weave in flowers, and balance crowns on the horses’s heads to make them a beautiful addition to the ceremony.
She’d gone to town to get the flowers, and she’d missed most of the lunch. Thankfully, the flowers waited for her in a cooler in the stables, and she just needed to get there.
She’d washed Marshmallow and Tyrant that morning, and they still waited in the wash bay.
“Hey,” she said to them, always better able to relate to horses than people. Her disastrous relationship with Spencer proved that. And the brief relationship she’d tried with a man named Preston before that. And the boyfriend she’d had before that? They’d only dated for a week before everything fell apart.
Jess frowned at the track her mind took. She’d never dwelt much on the barren wasteland that was her love life. She didn’t like acknowledging and facing her failures, and the fact was, she’d failed with every man she’d ever tried to get close to.
“I think there’s something broken inside me,” she whispered to the cream-colored horse. Marshmallow Crème had beautiful, long lashes and a supremely calm demeanor. Jess had loved her from birth, and she’d raised her the past three years for just this moment when she would carry Ginger down the aisle toward her future.
“All right,” Dallas said, stepping to her side. “Tell us what to do.”
Annoyance sang through Jess, but she had barked at him to help her. “If you’ll grab that cooler, I’ll start braiding.” She looked at him, which bordered on dangerous. He was extremely good-looking, and though Jess had just bowed out of a relationship with Spencer a couple of weeks ago, she wondered if she could ask Dallas to dinner.
He has two kids, she reminded herself as she turned Marshmallow around. Not that she didn’t want children. But she barely knew how to take care of herself, and she’d never had a relationship for longer than two months. So the thought of getting to know Dallas and two children was so far outside of her realm of reality.
She tethered Marshmallow and moved back to her tail.
“What are you going to do?” Remmy asked, and Jess smiled down at the little girl.
“I’m going to braid her tail,” she said, starting to part the hair. “And we’re going to weave in ribbons and flowers. She’s going to carry the bride for the wedding.”
It was all so romantic, and Jess longed for a horseback wedding of her own. She’d have to figure out how to have a boyfriend for longer than two months, though.
So it was probably hopeless to even think about something like riding a horse toward her anxious groom.
She focused on her work and asked Remmy for the flowers when she needed them. Dallas fed them to his daughter, and she didn’t go more than a few feet from Jess’s side.
Jess eventually relaxed, and she’d dressed both horses in record time with the help of Dallas and his kids.
“All right.” She reached up and wiped the back of her hand across her forehead. “It’s hot.”
Something was definitely wrong in the stables, and Jess had just realized it. “The air conditioning isn’t working.”
“You air condition the stables?”
“Yes,” Jess said. “They’re temperature controlled, because it can get so hot here.” She sighed and turned around. “I need to check it.”
“I’m really handy with machines,” Dallas said. “I’ll come with you.” He started to say something to his children, and Jess took a few steps away to wait for him.
“They’re going to wait here,” Dallas said. “Lead on.”
Jess took him down the aisle to a locked door and fitted her key into it. “This is the control room.” The door swung open, and a burnt, mechanical smell met her nose immediately.
“Oh, something’s burned up,” he said, stepping past her. He went straight to the air conditioner and started fiddling with the front
panel. A moment later, it came off, and Dallas coughed.
“Do you have any tools?”
“There’s a toolbox on the shelf there,” she said, pointing.
Dallas followed her finger and found it, pulling it down with authority. He came alive as he rooted through the box and came away with a wrench.
Jess sure did like watching him, as he had a lot of confidence now when he hadn’t before. He moved with precision, and only five minutes and a couple of grunts later, he swung the whole front of the air conditioner open.
“Yep, you’ve got a belt here that’s come off and burned up.” He looked at her. “I don’t suppose you have spare belts?”
“I have no idea,” Jess said.
“Do you have a ranch mechanic?” he asked. “Maybe someone we can call?”
“No,” Jess said, though Ginger had talked about hiring someone to maintain their equipment. “I’ll call Ginger.”
She really didn’t want to, but Ginger loved the horses as if they were her own offspring. She wouldn’t be happy they didn’t have the temperature controls they were used to.
“I’ll look on the shelves,” Dallas said, and Jess took a few steps away to make the call.
“What’s wrong?” Ginger asked when she picked up Jess’s call.
“How do you know something’s wrong?”
“You said you’d see me with the horses unless there was a problem.” In the background, Jess heard her sisters bickering about something to do with Ginger’s hair.
“The air conditioner in the stables burnt out a belt,” she said. “Dallas has it open and he can fix it, if we have another belt.”
“Dallas?”
“Yeah.” Jess continued to walk down the aisle, but she lowered her voice anyway. “He seems to know exactly what he’s doing with it.” He’d been a natural with a wrench in his hand, and Jess wished she didn’t find that quite so attractive.
“I know Nick bought spare parts,” Ginger said. “I’d look on the shelf.”
“He’s doing that,” Jess said.
“He’s really mechanical?”
“Seems to be,” Jess said, shrugging though her friend couldn’t see her.
“Are we still on schedule?”
“The horses are ready,” Jess confirmed. “I’ve got ten minutes, right?”
“If I don’t kill MARIE,” Ginger whispered. “The sooner, the better.”
Jess laughed and said, “I’ll do my best.” She turned back toward the mechanical room just as Dallas poked his head out of the doorway.
“Got it,” he said. “You want to see?”
“You found a belt?”
“Yep,” he said. “And fixed it.” He wiped his hands on a towel that was probably dirtier than his skin.
“And fixed it?” Jess didn’t believe that, but as she walked into the room, the air conditioner kicked on with a resounding click.
She met Dallas’s eyes, and with that smile on his face, a charge filled the air surrounding them that left Jess’s bones vibrating and desire filling her.
“Thank you,” she said. “Will you please help me get the horses over to Nate and Ginger?”
“You bet,” Dallas said, and they went to retrieve Marshmallow Crème, Texas Tyrant, and his kids.
Ten minutes later, Jess delivered the horses to the preparation tent, and helped Ginger into the saddle. She went around Marshmallow and pulled the train out so it lay exactly right.
Nate sat in the saddle by then, and he looked tall and regal and absolutely amazing in his tuxedo and deep black cowboy hat.
Jess’s emotions clogged her throat again, and she nodded to Ginger. “Give us two minutes to find a seat, and then you’re set.”
“Thank you, Jess,” Ginger said, smiling. She seemed softer today, and Jess was glad. Ginger had so much to be in charge of around the ranch, twenty-four-seven. She had to wear the stern expression and ask the hard questions.
But not today.
Jess hurried into the main tent, where thankfully, the misters and fans had the temperature at a tolerable level. Hannah and Michelle had saved her a seat in the front row, and she heard Dallas’s footsteps behind her as Ted had saved him and his kids seats there too.
So she sat down next to Hannah with a whispered, “She’s beautiful,” and her skin tingled as Dallas sat right beside her and drew his daughter onto his knee.
She glanced at him, that electricity between them still crackling. She wondered if he could feel it too. Spencer had, and they’d tried going out several times. He’d even tried to kiss her—and it hadn’t been horrible.
It just hadn’t been memorable. By then, the snap, crackle, and pop between them had fled.
Jess had no reason to think this attraction would last longer than it took for Ginger and Nate to say “I do.”
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OVERPROTECTIVE COWBOY
Hope Eternal Ranch Romance, Book 2
by Elana Johnson
Copyright © 2020 by AEJ Creative Works Inc, Elana Johnson
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 partic
ipate in, or encourage, the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
Cover by Carpe Librum Book Design: https://booking.carpelibrumbookdesign.com/
Interior design by AEJ Creative Works Inc.
Overprotective Cowboy: A Mulbury Boys Novel (Hope Eternal Ranch Romance Book 2) Page 21