Typically, when the whole family was around, seating was at a premium. Particularly now that his siblings had started adding spouses—and in the case of his brother Toby and his wife of a year, Angie, the three foster kids they’d adopted. Which meant every seat cushion in the parlor was wholly occupied by the backside of a Fortune Jones. Even the floor was taken up by Toby’s two youngest, Justin and Kylie, where they were working a big old puzzle.
“I don’t know how temporary,” Julia was saying on a laugh. “Haven’t you been playing Rusty all last week?”
Galen almost tugged at his collar, but managed to restrain himself. “’Bout that. Where’s Stace?”
“Piper’s got a summer cold,” Angie said, speaking of Stacey’s toddler. “She didn’t want to expose anyone.”
“Thought you told ’em you were only going to play Rusty for that one day.” That came from Jude, entering the room with more brains than Galen had, since he was carrying a chair from the dining room table with him. He set it in the corner and promptly pulled his petite wife, Gabriella, down on his knee. “That’s what you said last time I talked to you. What was it?” He and his bride shared a look that spoke of intimacies Galen didn’t even want to contemplate. “Last Wednesday?”
“They were in a pinch,” he muttered grumpily. “The original guy, Joey somebody-or-other, broke his leg. He’s out for the next six weeks, at least.” And Galen still couldn’t explain his reasons for giving in when Diane in the casting department still hadn’t produced a permanent replacement for the guy. It damn sure hadn’t been because Diane was outright propositioning him.
But attributing it to keeping Aurora’s whole-body smile going wasn’t something he wanted to admit to, either.
Not to himself and definitely not to his pack of siblings and siblings-in-law.
He tried changing the subject again. “What about Delaney?”
“In Red Rock with the new fiancé.” That came from Christopher. “Cisco’s still getting some training with the Fortune Foundation there. We sent Rachel, also. Matteo flew ’em over.” Matteo was Cisco’s brother and a pilot at the Redmond Flight School and Charter Service. And Rachel Robinson was Matteo’s fiancée and an intern with Christopher.
“You’re going to be playacting the besotted groom for the next six weeks?” Jude wasn’t swayed by their baby sister’s whereabouts and was looking at Galen as if he’d announced he’d started building castles on the moon.
“Hell no,” Galen assured emphatically. “Cowboy Country’s got a whole department of people hiring folks. They’ll get a replacement in a few days, I’m sure.” And he was anxious to get off the subject. “I’m getting a beer.”
“You are not,” Jeanne Marie said, sailing into the room. She was taller than average and wearing her usual cowboy boots, which added a good inch and a half, bringing her silver head to merely a few inches below Galen’s. “We’re just about ready to sit down and eat and I’m not having beer at my Sunday dinner table.” She propped her hands on the hips of blue jeans that were mostly hidden behind her old-fashioned apron. “Christopher, get your boots off the furniture. Just because I’m pleased as punch you’ve moved back home to Horseback Hollow doesn’t mean you’re getting away with that nonsense.”
Chris grinned and dutifully put his feet down on the floor again. “Yes, ma’am.”
Jeanne Marie turned her eyes back on Galen. “Where’s your father?”
“Out back working on the truck.”
“As usual.” But the amusement in her eyes belied any annoyance her tart words carried. “Go and get him, would you please?”
Glad for an excuse to escape a room that was uncomfortably brimming over from matrimonial bliss, his “Yes, ma’am” was likely a mite enthusiastic.
Plus, he was able to grab a beer along the way, though he winced like a guilty teenager when he twisted off the bottle cap and the sound seemed to echo around the kitchen.
His mom didn’t come after him with a wooden spoon, though, so he hustled out the back door and across the green expanse of lawn that was his mom’s pride and joy every summer, over to his pop, who was leaning over the opened hood of his ancient pickup truck. Galen took up a spot on the other side. “What’s the problem now?”
Deke Jones pulled off his sweat-stained ball cap, rubbed his fingers through his thick iron-gray hair and replaced the cap once again. “Running like a top for once,” he drawled and lifted the beer bottle hidden in the depths of the engine. “Just didn’t feel much like cleaning fresh green beans with your mama in that hot kitchen.”
Galen chuckled. He and his father had done two things together while Galen had been growing up. Work on this same truck. And work the cattle. Now he was an adult, neither thing had really changed. “It is hot. Not even the middle of summer yet.” He turned around and closed his eyes to the sunlight. But that only made him think about seeing Aurora do pretty much the same thing every time she climbed up in the buckboard, ready for another show to begin.
She’d tilt her head back, eyes closed, for a good minute or two right before she, Frank and the buckboard blasted beyond the gate while the Wild West Wedding theme song roared over the loudspeakers.
“How many years you and Ma been married now?”
His dad gave him a strange look. “Forty-one years.”
“It’s a long time.”
“You’d think.” Deke took another pull on his beer, glancing over his shoulder to the house some distance behind them. A bed of white and yellow flowers lined the whole back side of the house. “The longer we go, the shorter the time seems to be. Like there’s not enough years left to spend together.” Then he made a face at his beer. “Listen to me. Must be still a hangover from the big wedding.” He eyed Galen. “You got girl trouble or something?”
Galen snorted softly. “You think I’d come to you if I did?”
Deke grinned slightly. As a father, he’d been a pretty silent authority figure. A hardworking rancher who’d passed on his work ethic and much of his stoic personality to Galen. Sometimes, Galen was grateful for that.
Other times, he sometimes wished he had the gift of gab like Jude, or the slick smarts like Christopher.
“Not exactly an answer, son,” Deke drawled.
“No, I don’t have girl trouble,” he assured, swiping mentally at the image of Aurora in a white dress and cowboy boots, dancing in some damn daisy field. “Ma wants you in for supper.”
“I know.” Deke swirled the base of his bottle in the air a few times. “Crowded as heck in the house these days.”
“That a complaint?”
“Nope. Just stating a fact.” His father squinted slightly and looked back at the house again. “When your mama and I got hitched, it took a while before you came along. Then, whoosh. The floodgates opened and next thing I knew, we had seven of you.” The corner of his lips lifted. “Now it’s like that all over again, what with all of you getting married.” He gave Galen a look. “’Cept you, of course. Now that Delaney’s planning on getting hitched to that young Mendoza, you’re the last holdout.”
“Never met anyone who put me in the mind to marry.”
Deke chuckled. “Now I hear you’re doing it a bunch a times a day out at Cowboy Country.”
Galen tugged his ear, hating that he felt a little foolish about it in front of his dad. “Playing Rusty pays even more than the ‘authenticity consultant’ business.”
“You’re still doing that, though, aren’t you?”
He nodded. “For now. More money I sock away in the bank, the more I can think about buying that bull of Quinn Drummond’s that he knows I want.” Another bull would mean covering more cows to produce calves. More calves, more money. Better to focus on the financial aspect than on making Aurora happy.
“Seems like you must be spending a lot of your day at Cowboy Country, then. How you managing to spare all the time?”
Badly, Galen thought. His sink was full of dirty dishes, his laundry hadn’t been done in a solid week,
and his cupboard was bare. The only thing he hadn’t neglected entirely was his small cow-calf operation. He couldn’t afford to neglect them, or he’d end up coming back home to live with his folks, his tail tucked between his legs. No number of prizewinning bulls would help then, and becoming a failure at thirty-four wasn’t one of his aspirations in life.
“I’m managing,” he said shortly. Then honesty got the better of him. “Only because we’ve got a few more weeks before I’ve gotta start working ’em and sorting. Just glad that Ma doesn’t drop by my place too often these days. She’d have a conniption fit and fall right in it over the mess it’s in.”
Deke let out a bark of rare laughter. “’Spect she would, son. I expect she would.” He jerked his chin. “Finish that up so we can go in and eat.”
Galen took another pull on his beer, and set the still half-full bottle on the green, green grass beside his father’s. Just as he straightened, the back screen door of the house slapped open and Jeanne Marie hung out. “Deke Jones, you get your hind end in here right now, or this roast is going to be shoe leather! Should’ve known better than to send Galen after you. Two peas in a pod, you are.”
“Keep your apron on, Jeanne Marie,” Deke returned without heat. “We’re getting there.”
Even across the spacious yard, they could hear her harrumph before she let the screen door slap shut again.
In accord, Galen and Deke began walking back across the lawn toward the two-story house that seemed way too small to have housed the large family they’d had. Not even learning she had a wealthy brother and even wealthier sister had changed anything about Jeanne Marie—namely, her love for her relatively simple life with Deke and their offspring.
“How’d you know Ma was the one?”
Deke squinted at him again. “Who is she? This girl you don’t got troubles with?”
“Nobody.” He yanked at his shirt collar. He was wearing one of his dress shirts—the ones he sent to the laundry to get cleaned and ironed—because he hadn’t had anything else in his closet that didn’t smell of sweat or dirt or cow manure. “Can’t a man be curious?”
Deke smiled briefly and clapped Galen hard on the back. “I knew your ma was the one when I couldn’t look at her without imagining her wearing a white wedding dress. Lot of men imagine a woman wearing nothing at all. Second nature, I guess.” He nodded sagely. “But when he starts imagining her wearing a wedding dress? That’s when you know you’re dealing with a whole different kettle of fish. That what you want to know?”
Galen smiled weakly. “I don’t want to think about you imagining anyone nekkid,” he drawled with feeling, and reached out for the screen door when they reached it. “’Specially my mama.”
His father’s low laughter followed him.
Chapter Four
“Yo, Galen.” Frank Richter stepped out of the trailer after their final show for the day. “Everyone’s heading over to the Two Moon to grab a beer. Interested?”
Galen shook his head. After doing nine days of shows—thirty-six episodes of rescuing Lila from the villain’s clutches—he was more interested in heading to the welcome silence his own house offered. “Burning the candle at both ends has a price,” he excused. “Got chores waiting.”
“At eight-thirty?” Frank was rolling up the sleeves of his black shirt until they were just so. “That’s a crying shame. Friday nights ought to be for things a lot more fun.” A movement from the trailer behind them drew his attention. “Like her,” he said, nodding toward Aurora as she came down the steps wearing cutoff denims and a sleeveless plaid shirt. Her red hair streamed down from the ponytail at the back of her head.
“Thought you were seeing that little gal from the saloon show.”
“And your point?” Frank’s white teeth flashed. “Only thing better than one good-looking woman in your arms is two of them. They’d be fine bookends, wouldn’t they? Sweet, curvy little Cammie on one side and lean, mean Rory on the other?” He rubbed his hands together. “Talk about anticipation.”
“She doesn’t like being called Rory,” Galen said evenly. Since he’d found his boots sinking into Cowboy Country like quicksand, he’d learned it was easier to ignore Frank than get riled over every stupid thing that came out of his mouth. Far as Galen was concerned, there weren’t enough hours in the day to spend ’em being annoyed by an idiot. “But you’re right about one thing,” he added abruptly. “A cold one at the Two Moon sounds good.”
Suiting his words to action, he pulled his truck keys from his front pocket and let his path intercept Aurora’s. “You heading over to the Two Moon Saloon?”
She jumped a little, like he’d startled her. “Um...yes.” She pushed her fingertips into the front pockets of her cutoffs. They weren’t all that short; his little sisters wore cutoffs that bared a whole lot more leg, but he’d never found himself getting distracted by the amount of thigh they’d exposed as he was finding himself now. “You?”
“Thought I might.” He dragged his attention upward. Aurora might be lean, as Frank said, but she was built with the deceptive delicacy of a Thoroughbred racehorse. And Galen had always appreciated good lines. In a horse or a woman. “Need a ride?”
Her lips parted slightly. “Ah...sure. I usually hitch a ride with the mayor.”
“Better Harlan than Frank,” Galen muttered.
Aurora chuckled at that. “Just because I’m a small-town girl doesn’t mean I’m a dolt. One dose of Frank’s octopus arms was enough for me.”
Galen shot her a look. “What’s that supposed to mean? He’s made a pass at you?”
She gave him an odd look. “Frank makes a pass at every female walking.” She knelt down quickly to retie the shoelace on her plain white tennis shoes, and the back of her shirt rode up slightly, revealing an inch of smooth skin above the low waist of her shorts.
Galen ran his hand around the back of his neck, looking belatedly away.
Then she rose again as if she’d never stopped. “I think it’s in his DNA or something,” she continued. “A nuisance, but hard to take anything about him too seriously.” She tugged out her locket watch and angled it toward the light shining down from the overhead poles. “If we hurry, we’ll still be able to get hot wings on the happy hour menu. They’re half price.”
Nothing at the Two Moon Saloon was all that pricy. It would’ve never stayed in business otherwise. The place was attached to the Horseback Hollow Grill, and what it served up was long on cheap burgers and a helluva grilled cheese, and way short on ambiance. If a person wanted that, they went to the Hollows Cantina that had opened only last year.
“Half-price wings it is.” He jangled his truck key. “I’m in the employee lot.” They followed in the path of other cast members making their way through the circuitous backstage area circling Cowboy Country’s perimeter. “Your parents left yet on their cruise?”
“Sunday morning,” she told him with a quick smile. “They leave out of San Francisco, so I’ll drop them at the airport in Lubbock tomorrow morning and be back in time for the noon show. They’re pretty excited. Mama especially. She’s always wanted to see Alaska.”
The walkway narrowed between the back of a building on one side and the high hedges blocking off the fence on the other, separating the park from what was supposed to have been a hotel project before it’d been shelved because of construction and design issues, and he waited so she could walk ahead of him. “I’ll bet.”
“They’ll be cruising part of the time, and land-touring part of the time,” she said over her shoulder. “Daddy figures it’s the best of both worlds, because he’s not all that sure he’ll like being cooped up on a boat for nearly two weeks.” Her grin was impish in the dwindling light. “The cruise ship is like a floating city. Probably bigger than Horseback Hollow. Cooped up.” She laughed a little, shaking her head. “What about you? Anywhere you dream of going?”
“To see a Super Bowl?”
She laughed. “Come on. Seriously.”
The pa
th widened out again and he came abreast of her. “I am serious. Where else would I rather be than here in Texas?”
“Football and cows being your ultimate fantasy, I guess.”
“Well, shoot, honey. Didn’t know we were talking fantasy,” he drawled before he thought better of it. They were passing beneath another light pole and her cheeks looked as if they’d turned red. Which left him feeling like a jackass and awkward as hell. He cleared his throat. “What about you?” That wasn’t any better. “About Alaska, I mean. Didn’t you want to go?”
“With my parents on a cruise? I love ’em, but no thank you. Bad enough I’m still single and living at home with them.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“At my age?” She made a tsking sound. “Please. How old were you when you moved out on your own?”
“That’s different.”
They’d reached the security gate leading out to the parking lot and she gave him a look as they passed through. “Why on earth is it different?”
He lifted a shoulder, wishing to hell all over again that he’d kept his mouth shut. It’d been easy for him to go out on his own. He was the eldest of seven kids. When he’d left the nest, his mama had still had a half dozen chicks left to fuss over.
Thanks to Mark’s death, Aurora’s parents had only her.
“So where is your dream vacation?” he asked instead of answering.
She spread her arms. “Anywhere other than here.”
She’d smiled as she said it, but he could see the truth beneath it. And he remembered good and well Mark laughing way back when about his kid sister’s “big city” dreams. “I remember you went off to college for a few years.” He gestured toward his pickup truck parked at the far corner of the lot. “Where was it?”
“UCLA.”
Fortune's June Bride (Mills & Boon Cherish) (The Fortunes of Texas: Cowboy Country, Book 6) Page 5