Eventually they finished, though, and he turned them out to pasture with his three other ranch horses. “Thinking about hiring one of Quinn’s nephews to help out around here.”
They were hanging with their arms over the wood rails overlooking the pasture, and she lifted her eyebrows. “Jess’s oldest?”
He nodded. Quinn’s sister had a passel of kids. All boys except for a baby girl born about the same time as Quinn and Amelia’s Clementine Rose. “Jason can use the money and I can use the help.”
She’d rested her chin on her folded arms and she turned her cheek to look at him. “How old is he?”
“Sixteen. Just got his driver’s license, and Quinn says Jess is tearing her hair out over it. He’s got more energy than she knows what to do with.” Unlike Quinn, Jess and her husband, Mac, were high school teachers. “I thought he could burn some of it off learning how to throw hay bales instead of baseballs.”
She smiled slightly. “Sounds like—” She broke off at the toot of a car horn that made them both jerk around to look back toward the house, where a gleaming black SUV had pulled up next to his dusty pickup truck. “Well, crud on a cracker,” she muttered.
Galen sighed, watching the dark-haired Roselyn St. James climb out of the SUV and wave her hand at them. “My thoughts exactly.”
Chapter Eleven
Aurora watched Roselyn open the rear door of the SUV, and a moment later, her two dark-haired children were on the ground, short legs pumping as they immediately made a break for it. “What could she possibly be doing here now?”
“Don’t know, but I want those kids staying in sight.” He set off to intercept them before they even thought about getting too close to the barn, which Aurora knew wasn’t the least bit childproof.
Sighing, she pushed her hands in her front pockets and headed toward Roselyn. At least she hadn’t appeared with Anthony in tow. From the corner of her eye, she saw Galen grab the twins by their hands and redirect them back toward their mother and safer regions again, and something inside her squeezed at the sight.
Then Roselyn reached her with her typical kiss-kiss hello. “I’ve been calling you all afternoon,” she said brightly.
“We were out.” She found her gaze straying to Galen again. If he ever did become a father—
Her wayward thought screeched to a halt.
He’d made it more than plain that he wasn’t one for weddin’ and beddin’, so there was no point in fantasizing about things that weren’t.
She looked back at Roselyn. “Why were you calling?”
“To chat, of course.”
Aurora rubbed her nose that, after the copious amounts of sun she’d had that day, was likely to be peeling before long. “Roselyn, what is going on?” She was tired of pretense. “You didn’t indulge in idle chatting when we were nineteen years old. Why are you pretending now that we’re long-lost best friends when you know nothing could be further from the truth?”
The other woman looked wounded. So sincerely wounded that Aurora’s conscience nipped at her heels.
Then she remembered that Roselyn was an actress. A decent one at that, and Aurora mentally kicked the nipper to the curb.
“That was a long time ago,” Roselyn said after a moment. “You’ve obviously moved on. Eloping and all.” She waved her fingers toward Galen and the twins. They’d stopped off because one of the tots had squatted down to pluck the yellow heads off the dandelions growing through the grass. “Haven’t you?”
Aurora nearly chewed off the tip of her tongue. But she nodded. “I figured you would have left town by now,” she added. Wished, more like, but despite everything, she couldn’t bring herself to be so brutally honest. Particularly when she was lying about being married to Galen in the first place.
Roselyn brushed at her arm, left bare by the bright red minidress she wore. “Mr. Moore just got to town. He hasn’t had a chance to meet with Anthony yet.”
“In other words, you’ve been stuck in Vicker’s Corners for more than a week now?”
“Anthony’s had a lot of meetings.” Roselyn’s lips twisted a little. “There’s nothing to do here! How do you stand it?”
Aurora’s gaze strayed to Galen again. He was crouching down, helping the other twin find her share of dandelions as well, letting her drop them into his upturned cowboy hat. “I stand it just fine,” she murmured.
“But you wanted so much more out of life,” Roselyn said. “I might not remember everything, but I remember that. You wanted to act.” Her lips twisted. “I wanted to be a star.” She was watching her children, also. “Men turn everything upside down.”
Aurora couldn’t really disagree. “I’m sure most men would say that about women.”
“How democratic of you.” She was silent for a moment. “Anthony’s having an affair.”
Aurora blinked at the bald pronouncement. “Roselyn.” She opened her mouth again, but nothing came. For the first time, she noticed the tight lines around the other woman’s eyes. Lines that no amount of acting could produce. “I...I’m so sorry.”
“I don’t know why.” Roselyn hadn’t turned her eyes away from her twins. “He had an affair with me while he was with you. You hated me for it.” She lifted her shoulder. “I never thought the shoe would be on the other foot.” She tugged at the side of her dress. “But then I never thought I’d be a whale all over again. All I’m doing is getting fatter and aging and you—” She swept her hand out. “You don’t look any different at all.”
“My mirror wouldn’t agree. And you’re not a whale,” Aurora chided. “You’re pregnant.” She didn’t know what to make of this woman. Or the compassion swamping her.
She brushed her hands down the sides of her shorts. She was dusty from the ride and felt positively crinkly. Which was nothing compared to being betrayed by the man whom you should be able to trust most in the world.
She looked Galen’s way again.
He was sitting right down on the grass now with one of the twins on his lap while the other one rained dandelions on top of his head. Then he looked her way, a ruefully indulgent look on his face.
And she knew in that moment that whatever did or didn’t happen between them, she was still going to love him forever.
She folded her arm around Roselyn’s rigidly held shoulders. “Come inside,” she said quietly. “Sit down. Toni and Tiffani will be fine with Galen for a while.”
Roselyn didn’t protest. But she did lean awkwardly over and pull off her high wedge-heeled sandals. “My ankles keep swelling,” she said thickly.
Aurora sighed a little. “Then why wear shoes like that, Ros?”
“Because Anthony likes them.” She was holding them by the leather straps and suddenly tossed them on the ground and walked with Aurora barefoot across the grass to the porch.
Inside the kitchen, she sat wearily on one of the chairs at the table and Aurora pushed a second one close. “Put up your feet.” Then she filled two glasses with ice and the sun tea that she’d left in the window that morning. She added a slice of lemon to each and set one in front of Roselyn. “It’s not decaf,” she warned. “So if you want something else, say so.”
Roselyn shook her head and sipped at the tea.
“Now.” Aurora sat down opposite her. “How do you know he’s having an affair?”
“Because he hasn’t touched me since—” She gestured at her swollen belly.
Aurora circled her hand around the glass. She obviously had no personal experience in marital matters. “Did you ask him? Catch him?”
“He’s smarter than that,” Roselyn dismissed, sounding more like her usual self. “And no, I didn’t ask him. What’s the point when the truth is so obvious?” She didn’t look at Aurora. “I thought it was with you.”
Aurora sat up straight. “Me!”
“In the last six months, he’s made three trips to Texas without me. He’s claimed it’s because he’s looking for a job. Which is pretty hard to believe, considering he never liked anythin
g about Texas.” Her dark eyes flickered up to pin Aurora. “Except you.”
“Roselyn, I haven’t seen Anthony since we were in college.”
“So I insisted on coming with him this time.” Roselyn went on as if Aurora hadn’t spoken. “I decided I was going to see for myself. It was easy enough to find you since Anthony’s kept track all these years.” She ignored the start Aurora gave. “Only once I tracked you down at Cowboy Country, I learn you’re wallowing in newlywed bliss. There’s no way you’d have changed so much that you’d be having an affair with one person and marrying another.”
Aurora supposed there was some sort of compliment in there. And given Roselyn’s suspicion, she gave up the thought of coming clean about her and Galen. Heaven only knew what the other woman would think if she learned there was no “newlywed” involved at all. And despite Roselyn’s behavior in the past, Aurora had no desire to upset a pregnant woman.
“Maybe he really is looking for a job,” she suggested, instead. “Isn’t that what the interview with Moore Entertainment is all about?”
Roselyn’s lips compressed. She nodded, almost unwillingly, it seemed.
“Have you talked to him about it?”
“About the fact that he’s obviously sleeping with someone other than me?” She made another face. “Clearly you don’t understand how humiliating this is.”
Aurora held her tongue on that score. “You were wrong about me,” she said. “Maybe you’re wrong about him. He hasn’t, uh, hasn’t left you. Has he?”
“Of course not.” Roselyn looked even more insulted. “He might not want me anymore, but he certainly wants our children.”
“Is this the real reason you canceled out on dinner the other night? Because you’d decided I wasn’t a...a threat?” The very thought of it would have been laughable if it weren’t so sad.
Roselyn didn’t answer. Possibly because the phone on the wall took that exact moment to ring shrilly.
Aurora stared stupidly at it.
“Aren’t you going to answer?”
She smiled weakly and plucked the phone off the hook. “Hello?”
There was a brief pause. Then a woman’s voice. “This is Galen’s mother. Is he around?”
She felt her cheeks heat as if she’d been caught with her hand in the cookie jar. “Hi, Jeanne Marie,” she greeted. “It’s Aurora.” Only Roselyn’s presence edited off the McElroy that she very nearly added. “Galen’s outside at the moment. I can get him for you, though, if you want to hold on a second.”
“Aurora!” There was no mistaking the woman’s surprise though she didn’t come right out and ask what she was doing answering her son’s telephone. “No, don’t interrupt him. Just let him know I called.”
“I will.”
“Thank you, dear.” Jeanne Marie’s voice was warm. And then the line went dead and Aurora hung up the phone.
“Galen’s mom,” she told Roselyn, feeling hideously awkward.
“In-laws.” Roselyn’s voice clearly said she was not a fan of them. She put her feet on the floor and pushed herself off her chair. In just the week since that first kiss-kiss at Cowboy Country, her belly seemed to have gotten more prominent. Holding a hand to the small of her back, she went to the window over the sink and looked out.
Then she turned around. “I should go. Anthony thinks I’ve taken the twins back to see the piglets at Cowboy Country’s petting zoo. If they’re not chattering about it when they see him, he’ll know I didn’t.”
“Just ask him, Roselyn.”
The suggestion only earned her a pitying look. “Because he’s likely to tell me the truth? You really are naive, aren’t you?” She went to the phone and quickly wrote out a number on the pad there. “That’s my agent’s personal number in New York,” she said, not looking at Aurora. “She’s a shark and she’s good. You decide you want more than this place, call her. Stage work. Soaps. Commercials. Whatever you’re after, she’ll get you there. Tell her I sent you.” Then she took a final sip of her tea and walked toward the mudroom.
Aurora followed her out, feeling wholly bemused and more than a little helpless. “You’re still staying at the B and B in Vicker’s Corners?”
Roselyn nodded and headed down the steps. “Godforsaken little place that it is, it’s still better than anything else around this area. At least until that hotel finally gets built at Cowboy Country. Toni. Tiffi.” Roselyn called her toddlers, who were lying on their backs looking up at the clouds with Galen almost exactly the way Aurora could remember doing with Mark when she was little. “Time to go,” Roselyn said as she picked up her shoes.
Galen rolled to his feet and the little girls did, too. He dumped several dandelion heads out of his hat and put it back on his head before walking with the twins over to Roselyn and Aurora.
She could see the questions in his eyes that she also knew he wouldn’t voice until Roselyn was gone. “Your mom just called.”
Consternation joined the questions.
“Come on.” Roselyn held out her hands for her daughters. “Let’s go see the piglets.”
The prospect clearly excited them more than dandelions. They nearly fell over their feet running toward the SUV, bypassing their mama’s hands altogether.
Aurora followed, lifting the twins up into the back seat so Roselyn wouldn’t have to. “Roselyn.” She couldn’t believe what she was inviting. “Stay in touch, okay? Let me know how you’re doing.”
Roselyn climbed awkwardly behind the wheel and tossed her shoes onto the passenger seat. “You’re too nice for your own good, Aurora. Someday that’ll be your downfall.”
“I’d like to think it would be the opposite.” She stepped back from the vehicle when Roselyn started the engine, and returned the twins’ enthusiastic waves as she drove off.
Galen tucked one of the dandelions behind her ear. “So what was that all about?”
Aurora told him about Roselyn’s suspicions. “I never thought I’d feel sorry for her, but—” She broke off and shook her head, looking up at him. “I was going to tell her the truth about us, but I didn’t want to upset her any more than she already was.”
“Ever occur to you that she and her husband probably deserve each other?”
Aurora hugged her arms around her waist, trying not to wonder what she’d need to do to deserve Galen.
For real.
“I think she’s really in love with him.” Then she didn’t want to talk about Roselyn and Anthony any longer. “Sorry I answered your phone. It was just ringing, and it would have looked odd for me not to.”
He shrugged. “Not a big deal.” He hooked his fingers through her empty belt loops and tugged her close. “Like her or not, Roselyn’s got some cute little girls.”
“Mmm-hmm. They certainly appeared to be quick fans of yours.” Which made them smart three-year-olds in her book. She flicked a yellow dandelion petal off his shoulder, then slid her arms around his waist, glad that he didn’t know what a mess of gelatin she’d turned to on the inside. “Don’t you ever think about having any of your own?”
“Nope.” He lowered his head and nipped at her bottom lip. “Wanna get nekkid?”
His immediate dismissal of the notion of children wasn’t a shock. More a confirmation of what she’d already told herself. She made herself find a smile, though. “There is a world of difference between being naked and being nekkid.”
“I know.” His smile was lazy. “Naked is just being unclothed. Nekkid is being unclothed and up to mischief.” He waited a beat. “So?”
He wasn’t going to suddenly fall in love with her and start spouting hearts and roses and proposals. She knew that. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to grab every moment with him that she could.
It was going to have to last her for a long time once it ended.
So she stretched up and brushed her lips quickly over his. Then she went back down on her heels and pulled away from him. “Call your mama,” she said, heading toward the house. She looked at
him over her shoulder, giving him her best imitation of a come-hither smile. “Then come find me. I’ll be nekkid in the shower.”
Galen watched her saunter up his porch steps, her slender hips swaying.
Only once she was out of sight did he shake off the effect she had on him and follow. He stopped in the kitchen long enough to call his mother.
Not surprisingly, she didn’t mince words. “What’s going on between you and Aurora McElroy?”
Over his head, he could hear the sound of water in the pipes and imagined Aurora stripping off, stepping beneath the shower spray. Didn’t matter that they’d already shared one shower that morning. His body was raring to repeat the experience.
“Nothing’s going on,” he lied. Last thing he needed was Jeanne Marie making more out of the situation than there was. “What with me spending extra time at Cowboy Country helping out with that show of hers, she’s helping out with a few things over here. What were you calling about in the first place?”
Judging by the “hmm” she gave, his mother wasn’t going to be that easily convinced. “Just to tell you that we’re having a late supper tonight. Delaney and Cisco are back from Red Rock and they brought tamales from Red. I’ll expect you in an hour.”
Aurora and tamales. There were definitely worse ways to cap off a day. He absently noticed the long-distance phone number written on the pad beside the phone. “Not sure I can make it that fast.”
“Yes, you can.” His mother’s voice was excessively dry. “Bring Aurora with you.”
“She’s just a friend, Ma.”
“A friend who answers your phone? You know, I’ve heard she has been spending her nights at your place.”
He exhaled, mentally cursing the Horseback Hollow grapevine that seemed to operate all on its own accord. “If you’ve already made up your mind about something, why’re you asking me?”
“She’s a nice girl, Galen. Don’t be careless.”
His ears burned as if he were ten and caught looking at a girlie magazine. “I’m never careless,” he reminded.
Fortune's June Bride (Mills & Boon Cherish) (The Fortunes of Texas: Cowboy Country, Book 6) Page 15